Case of the Vanishing Beauty

A Shell Scott Mystery

Richard S. Prather

Chapter One

SHE LOOKED HOTTER than a welder's torch and much, much more interesting.

Up till now the floor show had been getting less attention than the rest- rooms—a Mexican hat dance, some Mexican troubadors gnashing their teeth through "La Cucaracha" and "Cielito Lindo," and a swarthy comic who wasn't comic—but as soon as she walked onto the little dance floor and stood in the spotlight everybody went nuts. Guys were applauding as if their hands were shot full of novocain, and yelling things that sounded to me like "Olé!" and "Bravo, Lina!" and "Hot damn!"

They liked her.

I didn't blame them. She was in her early twenties, and tall. About five feet nine, and every inch of it loaded. Her lips were the dangerous red of a stop light and her eyes were the same black as the masses of black hair piled high on top of her head. She was slim, but with hips that were amply ample and high, full breasts that she was careless about but nobody else ever would be. Plus a flat stomach, a slim waist, and golden skin as smooth as melting ice cream.

She stood in the spotlight against a painted set or background made of heavy wood, wearing high-heeled black shoes, dark hose, black, form-fitting shorts that looked as if they'd been melted on, and a scarlet bolero that didn't quite conceal what it was meant to not quite conceal. I could have taken my pulse and tried for the record.

I gathered from the yelling still going on that this was Lina.

I stopped poking foolishly at the ice in my highball and looked across the table at Miss Georgia Martin. "Hi," I said.

"Hi, yourself," she answered in her husky, educated voice. "I thought you might have forgotten I was with you, Mr. Scott."

I grinned at her. "You know better. I was just wondering what caused all the ruckus."

"Now you know, Mr. Scott."

"Yeah. And what's with this Mr. Scott business? A minute ago you were calling me Shell. Incidentally, you could take my mind clear off the floor show. No trouble at all. Just break down and give me half an idea what the devil I'm supposed to be doing."

She shook her blonde head. "No can do, Shell. Sorry."

"What the hell, Georgia? I feel like a gigolo. Dime-a-Dance boy. I take you out—on the expense account. I buy you dinner—on the expense account. That any way for me to earn a fee? Give me something I can sink my teeth into."

"Patience." She looked at me levelly from blue eyes that seemed a little emptier all of a sudden. "You'll earn your fee. More than you get, probably. Believe me, just being seen around with you is worth something to me. Georgia Martin with a private detective. Besides, Shell, this is only the beginning. There'll probably be enough fireworks before you're through."

"O.K. I'll hang on a little while, sweetheart. What'll it be? Tacos? Enchiladas? Or the special combination plate number three?"

We were at a candle-lit table just off the dance floor in a little Mexican dive on Bernard Street in Los Angeles. It was small, as colorful as the flag square at the United Nations Headquarters, and jammed to the rafters with a Saturday-night crowd about twice as big as it should have been for comfort. Outside, flickering nervously in the fine, cold drizzle of rain, was a neon sign that laboriously spelled out "El Cuchillo," which, translated, means "The Knife." I was taking my client out to dinner—at her request, and on the expense account. Great, huh? Only as you may have gathered, I knew what the score was like I know how high is up. Miss Georgia Martin, my attractive client across the little table from me, just said, "I can't tell you any more than I have," and that was practically nothing.

I gargled the last of my bourbon and water and looked over the menu. There were a couple of dozen kinds of Mexican foods, but I didn't see any prime ribs or steaks. A note at the bottom of the menu said that no imitation or adulterated materials were used in the preparation of their foods. Their chili powder and spices were of the finest quality and all imported from Mexico, and only the finest domestically raised ground beef was used in their tacos and enchiladas. Ground beef; still no prime ribs. I settled for two tacos, fried beans, and some of the chili with imported powder, hoping it mixed O.K. with bourbon. Georgia ordered a combination plate.

The yelling and yipping had been slowly simmering down, but all of a sudden it stopped as if there'd been a signal. The place got so quiet I could hear the rain, heavier now, splatting on the sidewalk outside.

I jerked my head around and took in the picture on the dance floor. A tall, dark Mexican, thin and taut as a bowstring, had joined the girl the crowd had called Lina. He stood with her in the spotlight, his white teeth gleaming in a smile. Above the smile a thin mustache clung precariously, looking as if it was made out of tired hairs, spittle and eyebrow pencil. His black hair was carefully combed and pushed into beautiful waves. Even in back.

In his right hand he held a thin-handled, gleaming knife over a foot long. A whole fistful of knives was stuck somehow into his left hand. He walked a few paces to his right, then turned to face Lina.

She stood against the wooden set about ten feet from him, with her arms over her head, her breasts high, her stomach pulled in, looking beautiful as an angel in hell, waiting, a half-smile on her red lips.

The damn fool was going to throw knives at that luscious tomato!

I understood why everybody was keeping quiet. I felt like holding my breath. One mistake—a few inches too far to the left or the right—and the lovely, lovely Lina would have a long, pointed knife quivering in her beautiful body.

The drummer in the small orchestra started a roll on his drums that mounted in a slow crescendo as the thin guy raised his right hand and cocked it behind his head, his elbow pointing almost straight up in the air, his wrist rigid. Suddenly, and surprisingly, the drums stopped at the peak of their sound, the arm snapped forward, the shoulder dropped, and the knife flashed through the air. In the sudden quiet the knife thudded into the wood an inch from Lina's upraised right wrist with an impact that sounded abnormally loud in the silence.

I heard breaths let out all around me. I swallowed; he was just getting started and already I was nervous. Knives all by themselves make me nervous. I turned to Georgia. "Some fun."

She shook her head, then turned her attention back to the show. I looked at her profile in the flickering light from the candle and wondered what the hell we were doing here, what the score was, what I was supposed to do.

Georgia hadn't acted like a nut; she seemed levelheaded and intelligent enough. But so far it was a screwy case, an off-balance caper that made less sense than a C note to win on a forty-to-one plater.

Chapter Two

SHE'D COME TO my office in the Hamilton Building downtown in L.A. about two o'clock in the afternoon. Six hours back, that was. It had been dismal all day, with the threat of rain in the air and once in a while the ominous roll of thunder. The scudding clouds combined with L.A.'s ever present smog to make Broadway, one floor down from my window, look as drab and dreary as a harlot on Sunday morning. The Town of the Queen of the Angels—it looked like one hell of a winter.

I turned on the office lights, then walked over to the bookcase. There wasn't even enough sunlight for the fish, so I switched on the lights on the aquarium on top of the bookcase and watched the male guppies make passes at the female guppies for a while. Guppies are tropical fish about as common as mongrel dogs, but they've got color. Name a color and they've got it. I keep about a dozen in the tank; brightens up the office.

I walked back to the window and looked down at Broadway again. Business was terrific.

I saw her when she pulled up and parked across the street, but I didn't pay much attention. I noticed her because she was driving a brand-new Cadillac convertible with the top down. Just like my buggy, except hers was a lot younger.

She had on a fur coat that looked like money, and she left the top down on the convertible, even though it looked as if rain would start pouring any minute. My office is between Third and Fourth Streets, about midway down the block, and she headed right across the street, jaywalking. She could have been headed for Arthur's liquor store.

She' wasn't. I was still looking out the window when she came in the door behind me. I turned around and got my first good look at her.

I'd had the steam heat on most of the day, and it was warm. She peeled off the fur coat and draped it carelessly over the chair in front of my desk. That was O.K. with me.

She was a long-haired and long-limbed blonde on the pleasant side of thirty—rather pleasantly on the pleasant side—and she was built to wear sweaters.

She was wearing a sweater, practically wearing it out, and the things she could do for a French bathing suit were worth mentioning. She seemed a little nervous, but that wasn't unusual. Generally the people who come calling on a private peeper nibble at their fingernails or in general act nervous or ashamed of something.

Her voice, though, was calm, matter-of-fact; a controlled, educated huskiness that went with the sweater. "You must be Mr. Sheldon Scott."

The tones were so softly liquid and well formed that I felt like answering, "I am he," but I didn't. I said, "Yeah."

"I'm Georgia Martin."

She said it as if she'd dropped a bomb, but it didn't mean a thing to me.

"Please sit down. What can I do for you?"

She sat and crossed one long, nylon-clad leg over another long, nylon-clad leg. "I want you to take me dancing and to dinner and be with me whenever I want you. I'll pay you one hundred dollars a day and whatever you need for expenses."

Bang. Like that.

Take a look at me, kids: a shade under six-two; weight, five or six pounds over two hundred; short-cut blond hair that sticks straight up like fresh stubble on a wheat field; gray eyes and nutty, almost white eyebrows that slant up from the middle and then down at the corners of my eyes; what has been referred to as a strong jaw; and the remnants of what was once a tan like Cary Grant's. I'm thirty years old; my nose was busted on Okinawa and didn't get set right; and a gun-happy Sam powdered off the top slice of my left ear with a .38 slug. Sound like a hundred dollars' worth a day? And expenses? I didn't think so either.

I sat down in the swivel chair behind my desk, opened the top left desk drawer, pulled out the little red book, and leafed through it till I found the number I wanted.

"Miss Martin," I said, "you call Angelus four-o-seven-eight-four and ask for Cholly. You're in the wrong room."

She shut her blue eyes for a moment, then opened them slowly while a faint flush crept up over her high cheekbones. That was all. She said, "I'm serious, Mr. Scott. There's a good deal more to it than that. My sister's missing. I want you to find her."

I took a deep breath and looked at her. "Miss Martin…Georgia. Do you want to hire me to find your sister or to squire you around town?"

"Both. I'm worried about Tracy—that's my sister. She didn't come home last night and I'm, afraid something's happened to her. I think I know what is wrong, and that's why I want you to go with me where I'm going. To assist me in—well, an investigation."

"Assist you?"

"Yes. I know it sounds crazy, but I just can't tell you any more. I came to you because I've heard you know—to put it bluntly—how to keep your mouth shut. And because you've somehow got a reputation for honesty and intelligence and—well, bravery, I guess."

"Bravery, you guess. Honey, look. From what you've given me I could be scared as a church mouse and it wouldn't make any difference if I'm just going to run you around the city. I'm a private detective. I accept money from clients, and in return for that money I try to do them a turn, help them out, help them solve what problems they've got. But how the hell am I going to help you unless you lay it on the line and tell me what you want me to do, the whole story?"

"I can't."

"Can't what?"

"Tell you the whole story. I just can't. Honestly, this isn't a trick. I'm not crazy or anything. I want and need your help. And I'm willing to pay well for it."

"It smells."

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry!" Her voice rose higher and higher, then with a jerk she stopped and started all over as if she hadn't been screaming at all. "Mr. Scott. Let me put it this way. First, I'm in trouble. Second, my sister is missing and I'm truthfully worried about her and I think if you help me, maybe she'll be all right. For reasons I can't disclose to you that's all I can tell you. I think I know what's happened to Tracy, even though maybe nothing's happened at all, but I can't tell you why. I want you to be with me because I may need some protection, and because if you do find some things out that I don't want known, I'm pretty sure you'll keep them to yourself."

"Georgia, apparently the main thing you want is to find your sister and see she's O.K. Right?"

"Well, yes."

"Then why not go to the police?"

"I can't."

"Why?"

"I can't tell you."

I dug out cigarettes and offered her one, which she refused, and lit one myself. I took a couple of deep drags before I trusted myself to say any more.

"Miss Martin," I said slowly and I hoped calmly, "from what I gather so far, you want help but you can't tell me any more than you already have. Right?"

"Yes, Mr. Scott."

"Honey, I'm sorry. I'd like to help if I knew what was cooking, but—"

She had an end of that damned expensive-looking coat balled up in her left hand, and with her right hand she was picking abstractedly at the fur. Her face was composed and pleasant enough, but I noticed that she was pulling bits of hair out of the coat between her fingers, and letting the hair drop to the floor. She was raising hell with that fur.

I asked her, "By the way, what kind of a coat is that?"

"This?" She held up an edge of the coat. "It's mink."

I could tell. Old Sucker Scott was getting wound up for another pitch. I don't think it was the educated voice that decided me, or the snappy convertible with the top down and rain getting ready to pour. But no gal tears chunks out of a new mink coat unless she's so messed up she doesn't quite know what she's doing. Of course I could have been wrong. Or it could have been rabbit. But there I went.

"O.K., honey. I'll play. Why, I'll never know."

Her face seemed to sort of crumble and get softer, as if she'd been holding it in a mask.

"Thank you," she said. "Thank you very much."

There was so much relief and honest gratitude in her voice I was embarrassed. "Forget it," I said, "I'm making money. And, incidentally, as long as we're working together, you might as well call me Shell. Everybody else does. Don't mind my calling you Georgia and honey and so forth. If you don't like it, just slap me down. I slap easy."

She smiled for the first time since she'd come in. She was attractive; when she smiled she looked as if she might even be fun. She said, "I don't mind, Shell. I think I kind of like it."

She got up, fished an envelope out of her bag, and put it on my desk. "There's money in there. Retainer, I guess you call it, and pictures of Tracy and her description. And my address. Will you take me to dinner tonight?"

"Sure. Where we going?"

"A little Mexican place called El Cuchillo. Out on Bernard Street. Will you pick me up at seven?"

"O.K. But I can get started on this before then."

"No. Just wait till this evening."

"O.K., if that's the way you want it. Seven it is."

She went out. I stood at the window and watched her as she crossed the street and got into her Cadillac and drove off with the top still down. I watched her till the car dissolved into the drizzle that was starting, and she vanished like a lost dream.

I was on a case. Good money. A screwy gal. And I didn't know what the hell it was all about. Scott, old chowderhead, you sure are some detective.

I'd have chased her home and told her to lock the doors, though, if I'd known she'd be dead before morning.

Chapter Three

I HEARD ANOTHER big thud in the silence that blanketed El Cuchillo and swiveled my head away from Georgia's profile and took in the show. The thin character with the knives started moving faster, the knives flying from his hand till it was hard to follow his movements, the knives glittering for a moment in the spotlight, then smacking into the wood around Lina's golden body. It took only a few seconds. I watched the knives hit and quiver at her wrist, her breast, her waist, her hip, and between her parted legs and up the other side of her body to ring her head. I don't think I breathed once till the last knife was thrown.

With the act apparently over, the thin guy turned to face the crowd. He still gripped one long knife with the point held deep in the palm of his right hand, and he touched the handle to his forehead, then waved his arms over his head and bowed low. Very theatrical. People went "Hurray!" like mad.

The thin guy straightened up, smiling, then suddenly turned, whipped his right arm over his head, and hurled the knife in his hand straight at Lina. She screamed shrilly and leaped to the side, past the glittering ring of knives that had circled her. The knife smacked into the wood and quivered slightly, then stood straight and deadly, jutting from the wood where Lina had stood.

I was out of my chair and halfway to the thin bastard when the orchestra crashed into a chord and Lina and the bastard were smiling and bowing into the applause.

I stopped suddenly and stood stupidly in the middle of the floor, full in the glare of the damned spotlight, wondering where I'd left my brain.

Lina looked squarely at me, her eyes wide, then a smile grew on her red lips and she laughed softly and musically.

Not the thin crumb. He yelled something that sounded like "Aieee!" and laughed hoarsely and pointed at me. He slapped his thigh, yucked some more, pointed at me, then slapped his thigh again. I could have killed the son-of-a-bitch. In two seconds the whole place was laughing at the noble Shell Scott, who tilted at windmills. I could have thrown a handful of knives myself. I went back to the table and sat down. I was damned if I'd leave.

Georgia said, "You sure fixed him."

It struck me funny and I laughed. Not much, just heh, heh.

"Thanks," I said. "Yep, I shore fixed him." The food had arrived, so I poured hot sauce inside a taco and added, "Georgia, honey, I'm jumpy. Usually on a case I know what I'm looking for. This time it's blank. I just keep expecting something to happen."

"Don't apologize."

"I'm not. I'm trying to worm some more out of you." —"I'll tell you this, Shell: I don't know an awful lot, myself. But I think somebody here may get nervous and jumpy himself when it gets known that I've hired a private detective. That you're working for me, on my side, and that you're looking for my sister. And I intend to let it be known before we leave."

"Just throwing a little weight around, huh?"

"That's about it."

"Why here? Who's supposed to get nervous?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know, or you can't tell me?"

"No, I honestly don't know who."

I left it there. I had one more piece of information, anyway; I was supposed to scare people. I was getting off to a great start.

The tacos and chili left my tongue feeling like a slice of crisp bacon, but by the time I'd waded through the fried beans and ordered more drinks for Georgia and me I'd learned from her that the knife thrower was Miguel Mercado and the luscious half of the act was French and Spanish and named Lina Royale. Also that El Cuchillo was run by a monster that answered to the name of Mrs. Margaret Remorse, or just plain Maggie.

El Cuchillo itself was definitely informal. Colored gourds hung from the beams of the ceiling and anyplace else they'd fit; big, floppy straw hats and guppy-colored serapes spotted the wooden walls; and on every small table was a huge candle, varicolored wax melting and running down the sides. The press of people jammed inside and the rain still·coming down outside made the air here in the club heavy and muggy. The entrance was just an open space off the sidewalk, and from the table I could look out and see the wet cement lighted intermittently by the neon sign as it flashed on and off.

A crowded bar along the fight wall served everything from beer to cheap champagne, but mostly tequila. In back, jammed against the wall, was a six-piece combo, the players all wearing serapes over their shoulders and wide straw hats on their heads while they played rumbas, tangos, sambas, and screwy things with lots of drums and maracas. On the right of the orchestra there was a door that led back into some kind of private quarters.

While I watched, the door opened and Lina came out as the combo started playing a samba. Guys applauded and yelled and she broke into a couple of quick steps designed to raise blood pressures, then started walking straight across the floor to the table where Georgia and I were sitting.

She made walking alone across that floor something to remember. Everybody was watching her—the men, anyway—and she knew it and loved it. She walked straight up to the table and stopped. I stood up.

She didn't even glance at Georgia. She looked up at me, smiled, and said, "May I sit with you, querido?"

My tongue felt as if it was nailed to the roof of my mouth. I just stood there and looked.

And don't get the idea I'm wet behind the ears and lose my voice every time something sharp strolls up to me. I've known a flock of women, maybe more than I should have. I'm no Casanova by a long shot, but if women don't drool, they don't run screaming either.

But this Lina had something. Something wild in her eyes and wicked in her walk, I-dare-you and the-hell-with-you stuck out all over her.

Let me give you a picture, a sketch of her; she's worth it. She'd changed from the knife-act costume into a simple black skirt and one of those plain white peasant blouses that left her shoulders bare and a lot else besides. Her hair and eyes were even blacker than they'd looked in the spotlight, and her dark eyebrows were thin and expressive and wicked as the ends of Spanish whips. She had strong, white teeth that looked as if they could do away with a tough steak or nibble gently on an ear with equal effectiveness—and you'd like to buy her the steak and lend her the ear.

The skin of her face and shoulders was smooth and golden tan, and she wore her breasts the way a general wears medals: high and proud and perfectly aligned, and right out in front where nobody could miss them.

Nobody wanted to.

Her voice was more Spanish than French, and she said "querido" as though it meant "Kiss me." That was Lina.

"Querido," she said again, "may I sit here?"

"Please do." I got my tongue unstuck and pulled out a chair for her.

She sat down, said, "I am Lina Royale," and finally looked inquiringly over at Georgia. Her eyes seemed to be saying, "What is it?"

I said, "Miss Royale Miss Martin Miss Martin Miss Royale," all in One breath, then sat down and bit into my bourbon while they peeled lips back in unison, then slapped them down over their teeth like guillotine practice.

Lina turned back to me and smiled. She reached over and wrapped her fingers gently around the hand I was using to hold my highball glass. She leaned toward me, forgetting or ignoring the fact that her loose blouse billowed forward alarmingly, and said, "I came over because I wish to apologize."

"Apologize? For what?"

"For laughing. I should not have laughed at you when you wished to help me. I am appreciative. Six weeks we have done this act, every night three times, and no one before has ever lifted their fingers even."

She threw back her head and laughed softly. It sounded like a gurgle in her throat. "But you looked so funny. I could not help it, but I am sorry now. And thank you."

I said, real brilliant, "Sure. 'S O.K."

"But who are you?" Lina asked me. "What is your name?"

Georgia came in right on cue. "He's Shell Scott, darling. He's a private detective. It's his business to rescue troubled women. Right now he's working for me." The period on the end of her last sentence was the size of a baseball.

Lina gave her the guillotine again, then asked me, "Is that why you try to help me? Because it is your detective business? Hmm?" She leaned toward me again, damn her.

There I was. I said, "Well, I just didn't stop to think. Foolish habit of mine."

"Foolish habit." Lina pursed her lips and looked at me from narrowed eyes. "So. You are a detective, then?"

I don't know where the conversation might have gone from there, because right then the knife-tossing Miguel Mercado came up, pulled out a chair, and sat down without being asked.

"Detective," he said. "Who's a detective?"

I leaned over the table. "Who asked you in, friend?"

He blinked at me while I looked him over. He was about thirty-five and as thin as one of the knives he played with, and his black hair was all stuck up with some kind of gook that smelled like crushed gardenias two weeks in the garbage. He had a thin, sharp nose and beautiful white teeth, and he was wearing a black suit draped like a theatre curtain.

Lina broke in between us and introduced Miguel. He said how-do-you-do to Georgia and answered my silence with silence.

He turned to Lina and rattled off a bunch of Spanish.

She turned to me and said, "Pardon," then rattled Spanish back at him. He rattled some more and jerked his head toward the back of the house. It looked as if he was telling her to beat it, but she stuck a hand on her hip, tossed her head back and forth, and tore into him. He gave up and turned to me.

He said in a voice with practically no accent, "You sure were funny out there tonight, Mac. How about coming back tomorrow, Mac?"

This beetle was starting to screw under my skin. I kept my voice down quiet and said, "Friend, the name is Scott. Mr. Scott. Please do not call me Mac."

"O.K., Mac."

I tightened up on my highball glass so hard I almost broke it, but I didn't say anything. I knew if I opened my yap I'd bust him one. I could have cracked him in two with one hand. So, for that matter, could a large high-school boy.

Lina looked up at me and smiled sweetly. "Ponch him," she said. "Ponch him in the nose. For me."

I grinned at her. "You little hell-cat! Pull in your fangs. And put on a brassiere." Ordinarily, I'm not so damned crude, but I was still burning so hot from Miguel I was about to bust wide open.

She didn't seem to mind a bit. She grinned back at me and said, "I will not. I do not like brassieres. Besides, you are fooling with me anyway."

Miguel started rattling again. He looked over at me and then spouted Spanish at Lina. I got curious.

"What's he giving you?"

Lina looked at me with her lip curled just a trifle. "He says you are a yellow-belly and a stupid pig. He says you and all your ancestors are pigs. He says—"

I didn't hear any more. That popped me. I got up slowly, took a deep breath, and walked around the table. I reached out with my left hand, grabbed Miguel by a bunch of white shirt and draped coat, and yanked him up out of the chair and close to me.

"I'll tell you just once, friend," I growled into his face, "lay off. Lay off now and forever, or there isn't going to be any tomorrow. Be good. Be a chum, or so help me—"

That was as far as I got. A booming voice in my ear said, "What's goin' on here?"

I relaxed my grip on Miguel and he folded down into his chair. He said, "Madre de Dios!" He looked bewildered.

I turned around. "Just chatting," I said.

"Chatting, hell!" she boomed. "I'm Maggie. I own the joint. And I asked you, what goes on?"

It was a woman. She was wearing a dark-blue skirt and a print blouse covered with what looked like withered flowers, but what a woman she was!

She was six feet tall and a horrible waste. She must have weighed two-fifty and her face looked as if she was tired of carrying it around. She was what has been called, facetiously, a mess, but there was nothing facetious about her. She looked like the kiss of death with halitosis and no lipstick, and her curves were huge and rambling like mountain ranges rising out of Death Valley. She'd apparently forgotten about her face along about 1930, and as a result nobody else ever would. That's enough about Maggie; I'm sick of her already.

"You're the owner?" I asked.

Her voice came out as if she was calling hogs. "Yeah, I'm Mizzus Remorse. Whatsa beef?"

Georgia came roaring into the breech again. She stood up and came around the table to face Maggie. She said easily, "Perhaps I can explain. My name is Georgia Martin. My sister, Tracy, didn't come home last night. She's missing. This is Mr. Scott, a private detective I've engaged to help me find her. I got religion and suggested to Mr. Scott that we come here to start with. Mr. Scott and Mr. Mercado aren't getting along."

She spat that all out without taking a breath, stopped, then walked back around the table and sat down, plop, Me? I could have been on the moon. I didn't have the foggiest idea what was going on. Lina and Miguel just looked blank. Maggie screwed up her fat face and said "What the hell! Chicken, you talked like you're looped, You been drinkin' that cactus juice?"

Georgia didn't say anything.

Mrs. Remorse turned to me and said, "Look, Mac."

I winced.

"Look, Mac," she said. "I like everybody to have a good time in my place here. But leave us not be bustin' anybody. Huh? Least, not in here. Bad for business. Besides, that's my knife thrower. Wouldn't want nothin' to happen to that wing a his'n. Might make him stick sweetie-puss in the gizzard." She lumbered around and peered down at Lina. "Huh, sweetie-puss?

Lina said, "Yes, sweetie-puss."

"Mrs. Remorse," I broke in. "Sorry if I caused a disturbance. This shiv artist got in my hair. Take him away and bury him someplace. Stick him in a drawer. No more trouble."

She lifted four pounds of fat in a smile. "Good-o, Mac." She jerked her head at Miguel. "Scram!" He scrammed and she heaved away from the table like a pregnant elephant.

I watched her lumber off. Just before she got to the door in back, a small, dark-complexioned guy leaning against the wall a few feet away jerked his head at her. She changed course and walked over to him. He looked like a midget beside that awful mass of woman. They talked for a few seconds, then both turned and looked back at our table. They could have been looking at me or at Georgia or at Lina. Or maybe they were just stretching their necks. Both of them went through the door by the orchestra and disappeared inside.

I went back to my chair and sat down. "So that's the boss. She's real cute."

"A mess," Lina said. "One mess, she is. She stinks."

"That guy," I asked her, "the little gent she was talking to. Know who he is?"

"He is some friend of Maggie's. Juan, his name Juan Porfirio. Why?"

"I dunno. Just curious. He have anything to do with the club?" "No. He is just around sometimes. Once before only did I see him. A few weeks ago. He was very fresh, so I remember. I think he comes from Mexico."

She got up. "I have to get ready for the next show. Will you see me?"

I looked at Georgia. She shook her head.

"Uh-uh," I said. "Not right away."

She smiled down at me. "But you will come back, querido." She wasn't asking.

Lina walked off artistically and I faced Georgia. "What sort of a play you giving this? I may not be the world's best detective, but from where I sit this party smells like amateur all over it."

She shook her head. "Everything's fine. Just right."

"What the hell, honey. You think this kind of junk's going to get anyone jumpy or nervous like you said?"

"Yes, I do, Shell. I scared somebody."

"You're off your trolley. Who, for instance? Nobody I saw looked scared to me."

"I don't know who. But I'll bet I scared somebody,"

"Damn! You're the don't-knowingest woman I ever saw. O.K., Georgia, your party. If you're through here, what next?"

"Come one," she said, "we might as well leave."

The rain had slackened off to a cold, miserable drizzle blown by a sharp wind from the north. I helped Georgia into the Cadillac and climbed behind the wheel. I'd left my buggy out at her place when I picked her up earlier, so we were driving her shining Cadillac. With the top up this time.

"Head back toward Hollywood," she said.

I switched on the windshield wipers and pulled out into the Chavez Ravine Road, headed toward Elysian Park Avenue and Sunset Boulevard. We'd driven maybe four blocks and were about opposite the big U.S. Naval and Marine Corps Reserve Training Center when I saw the headlights in the rear-view mirror. The car was coming like a bat out of hell. I eased over to the right so there'd be plenty of room for passing, then turned my attention back to the road.

The wind caught the drizzle of rain and whipped it up through the path of the headlights and blew it onto the windshield almost faster than the wipers could brush it away. One rotten night for speeding. I said it over again in my mind: One rotten night for speeding.

The ugly idea and a chill prickling on my spine came at the same time. The car traveling like a bat out of hell behind us should have passed us by now. I flicked my eyes to the rear-view mirror and at the same time out of the corner of my eye something blurred on my left. I swung my head around. The car was alongside us, just pulling ahead. The right window was down and even through the rain I could see the snout of the gun.

I slammed on the brakes with all my strength, yelled, "Duck!" and all hell broke loose.

A red splash of fire blazed in the open window of the other car and the windshield in front of me cracked and splintered as I felt the brakes grab. More spots of fire blinked as the Cad swerved, the tires slipping on the wet pavement. I fought the wheel with my left hand, and with the right grabbed Georgia and pushed her down toward the floor of the car. The Cad slowed and I grabbed under my left arm for my .38, threw open the door of the car, and leaned down and out to my left.

One last tongue of fire blinked from the back of the car gunning down the street ahead as the Cad stopped and I jumped out. I swung the revolver up and fired five shots as fast as I could pull the trigger. The car was half a block away before I could get the gun leveled, and I couldn't even be sure all five shots hadn't missed.

I slipped the Colt Special back into its spring shoulder holster and walked around to the right side of the car.

I opened the door. "They beat it," I said. "The bastards beat it with their tails between their legs."

She was still crumpled up half on her back on the floor of the car. Her left arm slid slowly down the edge of the seat and dangled out over the side of the car. Her fingers moved once in a little jerk.

"Georgia! Georgia!" I slid up onto the seat, bent over, and reached around her. I grabbed hold to lift her up, and as soon as I touched her my hand was wet and messy with her warm blood.

"Georgia, honey. How bad is it? How bad is it?"

"Shell…" It was just the whisper of her voice. "I…"

"Easy, Georgia. I'll get you to a doctor."

She moved her head back and forth a fraction of an inch. Her fingers twitched again against my leg. "I…killed…" And the last word was "Narda…" It came out wrapped in blood, and died in a sibilant whisper.

Her hand went limp against my leg, her head sagged with a last ripple of long blonde hair, and a trickle of red blood ran out of the side of her mouth. No movement, no pulse, no nothing. All over. Just like that.

I sat and looked at her for long moments. Kind of a screwy gal, but nice. I'd sort of got to where I was liking her. Among others things, I was the guy supposed to protect her. Shell Scott, the fabulous detective. The cluck. Maybe she'd had some crazy ideas, but she'd been right about one thing.

She'd scared the hell out of somebody.

Chapter Four

AT A LITTLE HOUSE a hundred feet back down the road I put in a call to the complaint board at Headquarters while an old man listened with his eyes bugging and his mouth hanging open. When I hung up he started pumping me, but I wasn't in any mood to go over it again. I thanked him, shook my head at his questions, and walked back to the car. I climbed in and looked down at Georgia. There wasn't anything I could do for her now.

Screwy, cockeyed caper. And I didn't have a damn thing. There were her last words about "I killed Narda," whoever, or whatever, Narda was. And the fact that she'd gone to El Cuchillo to "scare" somebody, plus the fact that she'd been scared herself. Not much to go on, but it was all I could figure I had. I knew one thing, though: I'd get more before I finished.

It took less than five minutes for the radio car to get out on Chavez Ravine Road. When it turned off Adobe Street, sirens wailing, I blinked my lights and it pulled over. A big, good-looking radio officer got out and came over. I briefed him in two minutes, answered his questions then took a free ride to Homicide, downtown. It was nine-thirty Saturday night.

Sam stuck out his sledge-hammer jaw and dug strong teeth into his unlighted black cigar. That's Detective Captain Phil Samson, career cop with most of his years in Homicide. Big, burly, and tough, with iron-gray hair and alert brown eyes, and conscientious as they come. Sometimes he worked right around the clock, but even so, only twice in all the time I'd known him had I ever seen his pink face bristling with stubble. A good cop, and an honest cop if there ever was one. I was proud he was my friend and I know he felt the same way. And sometimes it was a damn good thing for me he was my friend.

He asked around the cigar, "More trouble, huh, Shell?"

I pulled one of the wooden, straight-backed chairs over in front of his scarred desk, straddled it, and leaned on the back. "Yeah. Only this one was rough. She seemed like a good kid."

"They're all good kids. To somebody. Some way. Give it to me from the beginning. Just like it happened."

I ran through it fast and waited for him. His big jaw wiggled as he chewed on his cigar, then he dug out a wooden match and stuck the fire to the cigar's end. He'd finally got the thing lit—sometimes he never did. He got it puffing, then said, "Last thing she said was she killed this Narda. That right?"

"That's right, Sam. It was pretty clear. She was about in then, but I'm fairly sure that's right. This Narda mean anything to you?"

"Yeah. Not much. There's a crackpot runs some kind of religious outfit. Here in town. I've heard the name, that's all. Narda—he's the big wheel."

"Was," I said. "Not any more, apparently. So Narda was a guy, huh? I wondered; I'd never heard of him. Well, that's one more job for Homicide, Sam. Only this time you get a confession before you even know he's dead. Cute. Guess Georgia wanted to get it off her chest."

I lit up a cigarette while Sam sent a young-looking kid off to dig up anything handy on Narda. All of a sudden I sat up straight. "Sam. I just thought of something I'd forgotten. In El Cuchillo—the night club—Georgia was talking to the boss, this Maggie, when we had the little beef. She said some nutty thing about 'I got religion' and then went on babbling about hiring me. I thought at the time she was off her trolley, but it makes sense now. It ties in with this Narda's religious business." I slumped down in the chair again. "Whatever the hell that means."

Sam and I chewed it around till the kid came back in.

"Nothing on Narda," he said. "I checked around with the boys, though, and got all I could. He's head man of a religious bunch that calls itself the Inner World Society of Truth Believers. Imagine that. Seems like a lot of people think he's either God or runner-up. Not much else I could find out about him. I'll dig up more if you want it."

"Got his address?" Sam asked.

"Yes, sir. Right here." He handed Sam a slip of paper.

"Fine. That's all for now." The kid went out.

"O.K. if I have that address, Sam?"

He looked up from the paper and stared at me from under shaggy eyebrows. "You still on the thing?"

"What the hell, Sam. What do you think?"

"O.K., Shell. Relax. I know how you feel." He passed me the slip of paper.

It was an address on Silver Lake Boulevard. I jotted it down on a card from my wallet and passed the slip back.

Sam said, "We'll go out and check on this Narda. Wonder why it hasn't been reported." He shook his big head. "They never stop."

I stood up. "About this Georgia Martin. What do you think?"

"I don't know, Shell. Not yet. We'll find out."

"Maybe, if she killed Narda, it was a grudge job on her. You know, revenge. Some of his associates or followers. It looks like she scragged him, then came to me trying to build up some sort of phony alibi." It didn't sound right for some reason.

"Maybe," Sam growled. "Could be. Could also be a hundred other things."

"Yeah. I'm going out to see her folks. That's a job I don't like."

"You don't have to go."

"The hell I don't."

He stood up and leaned across the desk and glared at me, his big jaw wiggling on the cigar, "Knock it off, Shell. It wasn't your fault. Take it easy. It's awful easy to kill somebody you want out of the way. You should know that by now. So don't blame yourself. You were just there, that's all."

"Sure. Sorry, Sam. Thanks."

I shook his big paw and left.

Cornell Martin, Georgia's father, was an inch or two under six feet, but right now he looked smaller, shrunken, and at least ten years older than his sixty years. He sat slumped in a big leather chair in the study of his huge home on Van Ness Avenue, little more than half a mile east of the Wilshire Country Club. He pulled with thin fingers at his sharp nose, then raised his head and looked at me from tired blue eyes.

"I appreciate your sympathy, Mr. Scott, your coming here. I fear I'm not in condition to be much of a host. This has been terrible. I'm rather unstrung."

I didn't say anything for a moment, then I took the envelope containing five one-hundred-dollar bills from my coat pocket. "Mr. Martin. When your daughter came to my office this afternoon, she gave me this. It's a retainer. I…well, I don't feel that I should keep—"

"Nonsense!" He cut me off quick and his wrinkled face got stern for a moment. He was tough; he didn't get his million and the big estate by being soft, and it showed now. "Nonsense, sir. You were engaged for an investigation. Unfortunately, and through no fault of your own, my daughter was killed. I trust, however, that you intend to pursue that investigation."

"Certainly, Mr. Martin. I fully intend to continue. I'll—"

"I shall pay you well, Mr. Scott. I want no effort spared—"

I butted in this time. "No fee. I'll do this on my own. And I promise you I'll do everything I can do to find whoever was responsible—"

"Bosh!" I couldn't finish anything. He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped together, and glared into my eyes. "Sir," he said, "understand me. I can sympathize with your position, appreciate your feelings. However, I am the person mostly concerned in this, and I know what steps I wish taken. I shall pay you. And I want no efforts spared. None, I don't care how it's done, but I want you, or the authorities, to find and destroy completely the person or persons responsible for the death of Georgia and also the disappearance of my other daughter, Tracy."

That jolted me a little. That was one thing Georgia hadn't been kidding about. I'd almost forgotten about the sister in the last couple of hours. I don't think I'd fully believed that there even was a sister until now.

"About Tracy," I said. "How long has she been missing?"

"Since yesterday sometime. I don't know when she left the house. Sometime in the afternoon. She didn't return last night, and although she had never stayed away before, I wasn't too worried. Until this." He paused and swallowed, then went on: "She must be found, Mr. Scott. I am a widower, and Georgia and Tracy were all of the family that were left."

"I don't like to question you now, Mr. Martin, but if there's anything at all you could tell me that might help, maybe I'd be able to go a little faster."

"I only wish I could tell you something." He frowned. "There is one thing. Possibly. Georgia had been quite nervous of late. Jumpy and a bit short of temper. Just the last few weeks. One other thing. Both girls had their own bank accounts. For personal expenditures. When Georgia became not herself, I made it my business to check those accounts. Tracy had been making the normal withdrawals. Clothes, cosmetics, that sort of thing. Georgia had been making sizable withdrawals. Abnormal. That's all."

I nodded. "That may help."

"Naturally, I suspected blackmail," he continued. "I said nothing about it to Georgia. My daughters have learned to make their own decisions and handle their own problems. I didn't say anything to her. Perhaps I was wrong." He wasn't talking so much to me as to himself. Suddenly he snapped, "That's all. Good day, sir."

I got up.

"One other thing," he said. "I presume you carry a gun."

"Yes sir."

"Let me see it."

I pulled it out of the clamshell holster and handed it to him. I carry a .38 Colt Special with a two inch barrel and the sear stoned down so it's a one-pound trigger pull, and I keep it in good working condition.

He looked at it, snapped open the cylinder, and spun it.

"A good revolver," he said. "Do you customarily keep only one unfired round in it?"

"No. I fired the others tonight. At the car that…"

"Yes. Well?"

"I might have hit the car. I don't know if I did, or if I got anyone. Probably not."

"I suggest you load this, Mr. Scott."

"I intend to."

"It's a fine gun. Don't hesitate to use it. Good day."

I'd taken a taxi out to the Martin place this time, but my Cadillac was where I'd left it earlier when I picked up Georgia. The Cad wasn't as fancy as Georgia's had been, but it was a 1941 convertible with a hundred and fifty horses to haul it along, and painted what has been unkindly described as a "disgusting canary yellow." Yeah, I know; it's kind of a distinctive car for a private eye, but I like it. Besides, I use it for other-than-business purposes.

I tooled the Cad back up toward Sunset Boulevard and stopped at a drugstore on Western. I put in a call to Homicide and got through to Samson.

"This is Shell, Sam. Get any dope?"

"On the Martin thing?"

"Yeah."

"Sure. We checked this Narda guy."

"He was cold, huh?"

"Yeah. Cold to us. All got up in flowing robes and a towel around his head. But he was strutting around big as life itself."

I gawked at the mouthpiece and let that sink in for a few seconds. "He's not dead? You mean Georgia didn't kill him?"

"If she did, he was resurrected. Oh, he was smooth. He checked out on Miss Martin, too. Said certainly he knew the girl—no doubt about that part. He said she'd been interested in the Master Plan or some damn thing of the secret ritual. Outside of that, he says he knew nothing about her. No idea why anyone would want to kill her."

"Screwy."

"You telling me it's screwy?"

"Look. Sam. I'll probably want to go out there myself. What's the setup?"

"I don't want you messing anything up, Shell."

"You know me."

"That's the trouble. I know you too well. Here's one thing we got. He holds some kind of sunrise services every morning half an hour before the sun comes up. Out in back of what they call the temple—that address you got. There's a real fancy show every Sunday morning. Maybe you can get converted."

"Maybe. I talked to Georgia's father. He was a little worried about her before this happened. She'd been digging a lot of dough out of her bank account. The father thinking about blackmail. Looks a little like that to me, but it doesn't make sense yet. Neither does anything else."

"We'll dig into it. If anybody was bleeding her, we'll find out about it. Phillips and Rawlins are on it. They'll cover it good. You got any idea why anybody'd be bleeding her?"

"I haven't got any ideas, period, Sam." I looked at my watch. Eleven-thirty, and still Saturday night. But in four or five hours I could go to church." Thanks, Sam. I'll see you." I hung up.

The rain had stopped and it had cleared up a little, but it was still smoky and steamy inside El Cuchillo. I'd stopped by the office and given my gun a quick cleaning. It nestled against my left arm now, fully loaded, as Mr. Martin had advised. The place was still packed, so I waited till I could squeeze in at the bar and ordered a bourbon and water. Halfway through it I spotted Lina and walked over to her. She had on the black skirt and the white, billowy blouse.

Her eyes opened wide when she saw me, and she gave me a big smile. "Ooh!" she gurgled. "Quick you came back. You missed me, no?

"I missed you, no. Where can we talk?" I looked around for a vacant table. There didn't seem to be any.

Lina looked a little puzzled, but she said, "You wish to sit and talk to me?"

"Yeah. Seriously."

She took my hand and led me to a dark corner of the room. Two men sat alone drinking highballs. She marched up to one of them and asked, "Could we sit here for one little minute? Then you can come back, all right? I would appreciate, very much."

There was no trouble. Except that they both wanted to hold a chair for her. She sat down and thanked them, and they tottered off.

I said, "You're pretty sure of yourself, aren't you?"

"I do not understand."

"Not much you don't understand."

"Well, we are here. What did you want to talk about with me?"

"After we left earlier—Miss Martin and me—anything out of the ordinary happen? Anything funny?"

"Ahh! That Miss Martin. I do not like her."

"Never mind that. How about after we left?"

"Nothing. Everything was the same. Why?"

"Anybody leave right after us? Anybody at all?"

"No. Nobody. At least, nobody left that I know about. What is it, all these questions?"

"That woman you don't like. Miss Martin. Somebody shot and killed her right after we left. She's dead."

She half-smiled, then looked puzzled when she realized I wasn't kidding. Her black eyes grew wide and she gasped, "No! Oh, I am sorry. But you—"

"Not a scratch. I was lucky. But you can bet it was luck."

"But why? Why would anyone wish to do it? I am sorry. I did not like her, but it was just that she was a woman."

"I don't know why. That's what I'm trying to find out. I hoped you might help me."

"I wish I could help. If I can help you, you tell me and I will."

"Thanks, Lina. Maybe you can later."

"This is the first time."

"First time what?"

"That you have called me Lina."

"I haven't had much chance to talk to you, Lina."

"We must find more time. I think you are very nice, Shell. Your name, too, is for you. You are big and strong, and even with the nose and the ear you are nice. Yes. A little mean-looking, maybe, but most nice. But you must let your hair grow. So pretty. You will let it grow for me, no?"

"No,"

She cocked her head on one side and frowned at me. "But why?"

"I like it this way."

"Poof! Well, you are still nice. You think I am nice?"

Did I think she was nice? Brother! My tongue was starting to stick again. I grinned at her. "You'll do."

"Do! What kind of talk is this? Men say to me, 'You are like a goddess, Lina; your eyes are like the heavens,' and other things they say. You say, 'You'll do. I missed you, no. Put on the brassiere.' What is the matter with you?"

"Maybe I'm scared of you."

"Scared." She narrowed her eyes and peered at me. "Well, Mr. Scott, you wait. I will scare you to death."

I didn't say anything.

"The brassiere," she said. "I did not put it on. You are old-fashioned. This blouse." She sat up straight so I could get a good look.

I got a good look.

"You like?"

I nodded. I was all wound up like spaghetti.

"Look. It is a peasant blouse. I can wear it like this"—she pulled the top up high around her neck; looked good, too—"or I can wear it like this." She pulled it down over her creamy shoulders, down, down. Good God! Was she never going to stop? Down. "So. You like, Mr. Shell Scott?"

I used up half my store of French. "Oui," I sighed. That's one word you can say when your tongue's stuck.

"Oh!" Her eyes sparkled. "You speak French?"

"Oui."

"Ooh. Merveilleux! Quel homme remarquable, Monsieur Scott. Quels autres talents cachés avez-vous?"

"Uh, oui."

She frowned and looked at me strangely. "Comment? What a remarkable man you are! So well you speak French, you must also speak Spanish, no?"

"Si."

"Eres un marrano cochino. Verdad?"

"Si, si."

She laughed lightly, leaned forward across the table, and said, "I just told you, Mr. Scott, that you are a dirty pig. You are a big faker, no?"

"I'm a big faker, yes. Please, not a dirty pig."

She tossed her head back and laughter rippled out of her throat and past her red lips. Guys at the next tables turned and looked at me as if they wished I'd dissolve. Lina stopped laughing and said, "We will have fun."

"Sure. Tell me something, Lina. How come you're working here, letting a guy toss knives at you? You and Miguel been working together long? You a team?"

"No team, Shell. That Miguel!" She screwed up her face in disgust. "It is like this. I am a singer. I come here to work—oh, two months ago. This Miguel and a Ramona, his partner then, they do the knife act. One night Ramona is not here. Later we find she had run away with a man and she is married. The husband will not let knives be thrown at her."

"A logical development," I said.

"Then Maggie says will I do the act? I tell her no, but finally she says I will get twice the money—from fifty dollars to one hundred dollars. For one week. So I say all right. Well," she shrugged her shoulders, "it is so good for the crowd they have me stay—but I make Maggie give me one hundred and fifty dollars. Six weeks now we have done the act. I do nothing; just stand there."

"Doesn't it scare you?"

"No longer. At first, a little, but not now. Miguel, he is at least good with the knives. Always just so."

"This your home town, Lina? You live here?"

"I was born in Venezuela, but I have lived here for many years. I am at the Coronet Hotel on Western Avenue." She leaned forward, grinning up at me. "Room Forty. Alone. You must visit me."

"Uh-huh. Right now I've got to visit the boss. When's the show?"

"It finished just before you came. The last one is at one-thirty. You watch me."

"I'll try." I nodded to the door on the right of the orchestra. "That go back to the boss's office?"

"Yes," she said. "Straight back. It says on the door, 'Private.'"

I winked at her and walked over to the door. Inside was a short hallway with a yellow light burning over a door at the end. A faded wooden sign on the door said, "Private."

I knocked. The floor shook a little under my feet, then the door was opened and Mrs. Remorse roared, "Whadda ya want, Mac?"

"I'd like to talk to you."

"Well, don't just stand there. Get your behind inside." Only she didn't say behind.

It was a small room with a low pine desk opposite the door and, behind it, an overstuffed chair big enough to support Maggie's remarkable bulk comfortably. Two other wooden chairs, one in front of the desk, and that was all.

Maggie spilled herself into the overstuffed chair, pointed at the chair in front of the desk, and said, "Squat, Mac."

I squatted.

The guy I'd seen talking to Maggie earlier, the one Lina called Juan Porfirio, was standing by the desk. I took a good look at him. He was close to five-eight, give or take a little, and thin. But he looked wiry, as if he kept himself in shape with handball and steam baths. He looked middle-aged, but the olive skin of his face and neck was firm. He was dressed in a suit that probably cost more than any I own—which means he put out a good-sized bundle of cash for it. His hair was black, thick, and graying slightly at the temples, and his lips were thick, too full for the rest of his face. He looked like a vest-pocket edition of the "sensual Latin." He was Mexican or some kind of Latin, and he looked pretty sharp.

He nodded at me as I sat down, then said to Maggie in a voice thick with a Spanish accent, "Thank you very much, Mrs. Remorse, for your time. I must leave now." He turned and went out.

"Now whadda ya want?" Maggie roared.

"A very strange thing happened," I told her. "Most peculiar. Miss Martin, the young woman I was with earlier, and I spent an hour or so here—"

"Spit it out, man. Get to the point. I'm a busy woman."

She wasn't so busy, and she wasn't much of a woman, but I didn't say so.

I said, "Nuts."

Her head jerked and the fat on her face wiggled. For a second I thought she was coming across the desk to sit on me and kill me. Then she grinned and chuckled.

"Oke, Mac," she hiccupped. "Get on with it."

"I'll tell it my way, Mrs. Remorse. As I said, a strange thing happened. Miss Martin and I left your place here, and inside of not more than two minutes a car came alongside and shot at us. With real guns. She was killed. I could have been, too, but I was lucky. Now, isn't that strange?"

"Sure is. So what?"

"Well, it happened right after we left this club of yours. I'm pretty sure nobody followed us out here. I thought maybe you could give me an idea how it happened somebody knew we were here. Seems funny we'd be picked up right when we left."

"You're dumb. You're dopey, Mac. Now I dunno this chicken from sour apples, see? An' if somebody wantsa scrag her, I don't give a goddamn. They coulda pumped both of ya an' I'd sleep nights. See? But what's to stop some wiper from seein' the chickie here? Or somebody from callin' somebody? You never hear about no phones, Mac? Huh, Mac?"

"You've got a point. But I wanted to ask. Mind some more questions? Just for laughs?"

"Hell, no, sweetie-puss. Strangle yourself. Ask me anything except how old I am. Yaaaah!' The "yaaaah" was Maggie laughing. She slapped herself on the stomach with a blow that would have caved in my ribs, and shook all over, wheezing and guffawing.

I looked at her for a moment before I said anything. She was a woman, I was thinking. I was born of a woman. Georgia was a woman. And Lina. The lovely, heart-stopping Lina. I wondered how Margaret Remorse got the way she was; if she'd ever played jacks or made dresses for dolls. It seemed silly as hell, looking at her, but she was a kid once.

"Pretty good spot you've got here," I said. "How long you had it?"

"Since '45. Come up and bought it. Little gold mine."

"Came up from where?"

"Mexico, dearie. Mexico City. I was married down there in '34. Man loved me."

I felt funny for a minute. She said, "Man loved me," and her face got different, sort of soft, as if she was remembering something she thought she'd forgotten. Then she spoiled it.

"He was a son-of-a-bitch," she roared. "Chased all the damn chippies in Mexico. Plenty of 'em, too. He kicked the bucket. Heart attack. And I got his insurance. Only thing I ever got outa the son. Hey, Mac." She leaned forward. "They thought I poisoned the son-of-a-bitch. Dug him up and found out what he died of. Heart attack! Yaaaah!" and she was off again.

She'd been smoking a brown, funny-looking cigarette out of a pack I'd noticed on the desk. It was a peculiar-looking pack, green with black lettering and a colorful picture of some kind on it, so while she was roaring and wiping her eyes and her hamlike hands I snitched one of the cigarettes and dropped it in my coat pocket. That's called being a detective.

I waited for the ripples to subside and said quickly, "How about Narda?"

She squinted at me and pushed her lips out like pork chops. "What the hell's Narda?"

"Skip it. I guess that's all. Thanks for your time."

"You through?"

"Yeah, I'm through."

"Good-o. Now you listen to me, Mac, and listen good." She leaned forward till her huge breasts flattened on the top of the desk. I thought of Lina again. Lord!

"You been throwin' your weight around," she bellowed. "You come in here and make cracks. I'm not so dumb, smart-pants. Now you scram. You scram outa here, and don't bother me no more. See?"

I didn't have time to answer. The door behind me opened and I twisted my head around to look. It was the knife-thin, zoot-suited Miguel Mercado. He flicked his eyes over me, glanced at Maggie, hesitated, then said, "Sorry. Didn't know you were busy." He stepped back out into the hall and yanked the door shut behind him.

I said, "So long, sweetheart."

"Wait a minute."

"Yeah?"

"I want you should understand what I meant. I don't like a smart-pants comin' around botherin' me half to death. You gonna bother me any more?"

"Maybe."

"Maybe, hell. Stay outa my way. See?"

I grinned at her, then turned and went out. Halfway down the hall I stopped and yelled back, "Oh, I forgot," then turned and half ran out into the night club proper. I saw Lina right away. She was sitting at the same table where I'd left her, an almost full cocktail in front of her. I got over there fast.

"Honey," I said. "Want to help?"

"Honey," she purred. "That is better, Shell." Then she looked at my face. She caught on quick. "Yes," she said. "What is it?"

"I think Maggie might make a phone call. Get in there quick before she can. Try to keep her from calling. But, honey, don't get in trouble. Let it drop if it looks fishy. Now, scoot."

She smiled at me as if her heart was on her lips. "Yes, querido."

Lina headed for the door to Maggie's office and I beat it outside. I'd parked thirty or forty feet from the entrance to El Cuchillo, but I stopped just outside and looked to my right down Adobe Street. The only car in sight was just turning into Chavez Ravine Road and traveling fast. All I could see was the taillight, but that was all I needed if I was right. I sprinted down to the Cadillac, ripped it into gear, and gunned down the street. It wasn't raining now, but the streets were still wet and the Cad's tires hissed on the pavement. When the car ahead turned off on Elysian Park Avenue, then, at its end, turned right into Sunset Boulevard, I got a good look at it. A brand-new Kaiser, either black or a dark shade of blue or green. I dropped back as far as I could going out Sunset Boulevard, but kept him close enough so I could catch him if I had to.

He turned right on Glendale Boulevard and I knew for sure that I was following Miguel.

Chapter Five

WHEN HE TURNED left on Duane Street and started up the steep hill, one more link fell into place. The address I'd got from Samson, the address of Narda's religious organization, the Inner World Society of Truth Believers, was 6417 Silver Lake Boulevard—and the boulevard was just over the hill.

Silver Lake Boulevard is a long, curving street fronting the Silver Lake Reservoir, and when we turned off Duane I was sure we were getting close to the 6400 block. A little more than a half a block ahead on the right I saw a big two-story building set back off the road behind an enormous patch of green lawn. In the darkness it looked like part of a Hollywood set for The Thief of Bagdad. It was practically a temple, with rounded domes on the four corners of the roof, and lofty spires, half dissolved in the darkness, jutting up toward the muddy sky.

On the far side of the building, I could barely see some kind of driveway that ran out to intersect the street. I'd just got a quick glimpse of the place when a long sedan came roaring out of the drive and turned left toward us with its tires screaming in protest against the asphalt. The car ahead of me slammed on its brakes and skidded to a stop, the driver pounding a tattoo on his horn and then blinking his lights. The long sedan slowed to a stop alongside the Kaiser, partially blocking the road ahead of me. There wasn't a hell of a lot I could do about it.

I slowed down and pulled to a stop a few feet behind the Kaiser as Miguel threw open the side door, climbed out, and walked over to the other door. I started to sweat.

Unless I was adding ideas like a backward child, the little conference going on fifteen feet from me might possibly concern a small round hole in the head of one Sheldon Scott, private investigator. I could have been 'way off, but I had the feeling I was supposed to have exited with Georgia earlier—and somebody might still be trying. One thing for sure: I didn't kid myself I was among friends.

If my pal Miguel got a good look at me, or if anybody recognized my buggy, I might have a tough time explaining what I was doing at this particular gathering. Particularly if I had that hole in my head. I could have made a U turn, or wheeled around the cars ahead where there was a little room to squeak by, but I still wanted to follow the play.

I reached under my coat, pulled out my .38, and laid it down on the seat at my side. Then I opened the glove compartment and dug out a dark, battered hat and a two-bit pair of dark glasses. I own just one hat, and the dark job was it. I'd taken to carrying it and the glasses in the glove compartment because sometimes when you're tailing a guy on the street you can wear the hat and glasses for a while, then take off the hat and slip the glasses in your pocket, and the tailee isn't so apt to catch on. I stuck on the hat and glasses, hoping the boys up ahead wouldn't notice. At least my screwy eyebrows and the stand-up blond hair wouldn't be quite so obvious.

I couldn't hear what the guys ahead were saying, but they were still talking. I gunned my motor like an impatient tourist and leaned on my horn a couple of times. I stuck my tongue against my front teeth and yelled, "Geoutheway!"

Miguel swiveled his head around and shouted, "Shut up, Mac," then turned back and said a few words to the guys inside the car. I heard the grind of gears as they put it in low and gunned ahead. They were shifting to second and making time as they passed me. Out of the corner of my eye I got a glimpse of two men in the front seat of the car, but not enough to tell me anything.

Miguel turned and walked back toward the car. Or me. I pulled my head down, shifted into low, and roared past him as he started to climb in the Kaiser. He didn't even look at me. Out of the rear-view mirror I saw him wheel the car around in a U turn and hot-rod after the other one. I pulled over to the right, jerked off the dark glasses, and slowed down enough so I could read the address on the mailbox in front of the temple affair. It was 6417. Bull's-eye.

Just beyond the drive at the side of the temple was a thick cluster of low shrubs and massed eucalyptus trees. With that between me and the building, I switched off my lights, swung around in the street, and headed back on Miguel's tail. His red stop light flared brighter as he slowed down and turned left into Duane again.

I let him get to the top of the grade before I started after him, because when you turn from Silver Lake into Duane, you put the gears in low. Sometimes that hill looks straight up. When he reached the top, I shoved the accelerator down and ripped after him.

I got on his tail and stayed a block or two behind all the way back. It was real cute. Somewhere up ahead, the sedan with Miguel's two chums in it. Then Miguel. Then me. Follow the leader. And where, pray tell, could we all be going?

When we'd almost reached El Cuchillo there wasn't any doubt where Miguel was headed, so I dropped him and turned off on Adobe. I parked on College Street around the corner from El Cuchillo, put on the hat and glasses again—disguise—and went the rest of the way on foot. I didn't go inside; somehow it didn't seem wise.

There was a parking lot at the side of the club and I headed for it. The Kaiser was there, its hood warm. I eased open the front door and risked flicking on the dash lights long enough to read the registration card: "Mrs. Margaret Remorse," and the address of El Cuchillo. Well, well.

The other ear wasn't in the lot, but five minutes later I found it, empty, half a block from the entrance to the club. No registration slip, but I jotted down the license number on the card bearing Narda's address.

El Cuchillo sat just off the sidewalk, but the front was lined with palm trees. I slipped my .38 into my coat pocket and leaned against one of the trees where I could see the entrance of the club, lighted by the neon sign. I lit a cigarette and looked at my watch. One-twenty-five Sunday morning.

A guy and his gal came out pressed close together and weaving in unison. They didn't see me, and as they passed, the girl giggled and said, "Oh, George, stop it. Not here, George."

That made me feel just dandy.

Then they came out and stopped in front of the entrance. Two guys and Miguel. The guys were short, about five-eight or five-nine, but stocky, and they looked well muscled. Both wore highly draped light-blue gabardine suits with slight bulges under the right shoulders, and they were as alike as two prints from one negative. Twins. One of them said a few words I couldn't hear to Miguel, hardly moving his lips, then the twins walked right past me and down to their car. Miguel turned and went back inside. None of them even glanced in my direction, so I slipped my gun back in its holster and finished my cigarette while I tried to make some sense out of this ring-around-a-rosy.

I ran back in my mind over Georgia's screwy chatter, the guff at El Cuchillo earlier, Cornell Martin's information, Georgia's killing of Narda, who was apparently well and happy—"Big as life." Sam had said. And where the devil was that dough going, the dough Georgia had been drawing out of her bank account? Then my talk with Maggie Remorse, and now this last nutty epistle. From El Cuchillo, out to that cockeyed temple then back to El Cuchillo. Everybody was going round in dizzy circles. I added it all up and guess what I got. Yeah. I was going around in the dizziest circle of all. But there was a pattern. I had some letters, even if I couldn't spell anything.

Inside, the orchestra played a fanfare and somebody gargled unintelligible words into a mike. Showtime. I ground out my cigarette and nudged my brain. Nothing. I wondered how Lina had made out with Maggie. I hoped she hadn't overplayed it. I could check with her when she left at two. That was the best idea I'd had all night, but it wasn't going to solve anything.

Inside, I heard the staccato roll of the drummer. The big act. I remembered how Lina had looked in that scarlet bolero and wondered if I should go in and watch. It wouldn't do, though, to make Miguel nervous right now.

It was strange, not seeing the act, following it from the sounds that drifted out the open entrance to the club. I could hear the thud of the knives hurtling faster and faster into the wood as they circled Lina's half-naked body; then the silence broken by shouts and applause; the sudden shrill scream as the act ended. More shouts. I thought wryly of the spectacle I must have presented earlier when the last gag knife was thrown.

Something was screwy. A woman screamed. The noise billowed inside the club and spilled out into the street. Then it got quiet except for the mumble of voices. No fanfare from the orchestra.

My throat was suddenly dry and my heart started kicking in my throat. I sprang away from the base of the palm tree as a man and woman hurried out the entrance.

I grabbed the guy by his arm. "What the hell's wrong in there?"

He looked at me, startled. "Take it easy."

"I asked you, what's wrong? What happened inside?"

"Don't ask me, mister. That dame, that Lina. She got stuck with a knife."

Chapter Six

DIDN'T WAIT FOR anything else. I went through the entrance on a run and almost knocked down a couple of guys standing with their backs to me. The place was full of people and half of them were standing. I got my shoulder in front of me and shoved and bumped my way through the crowd. The dark glasses fell off and got ground under somebody's heel.

The orchestra burst into a lively Spanish dance and a tall brunette in a red, green, and yellow costume with a flowing skirt started whirling around the floor, the skirt spinning almost straight out around her long legs. But you could tell her heart wasn't in it. Her mouth was partly open and her knees looked as if they were clicking an off-beat accompaniment to the castanets in her hands.

At the far end of the bar I stopped and yelled at the fat bartender, "Where's Lina?"

He pointed to the door leading to Maggie's office and said, "Dressing room." He looked as if he was coming out of shock.

I raced across the room, yanked open the door, and started down the hall. Light spilled from the open door of a small room on my right. I glanced in. Maggie's huge bulk seemed to fill most of the room. Her back was to me, her big fists planted on her hips. Beyond her, on a low couch, I could see a pair of long legs, golden tan and shapely, with black, spike-heeled shoes on the small feet.

I took three long steps into the room, past Mrs. Remorse, and knelt down at the side of the couch.

Lina's face was pale, but she looked at me out of wide black eyes, smiled, and said, "Querido. I am glad you are here."

"What happened? How bad is it?"

She shook her head. "Poof! It is nothing. I was scared to death mostly. That Miguel! I will kill the pig and scratch out his eyes."

I felt a sudden flood of relief and the kicking in my throat slowed down a little. I noticed Lina had been holding a folded towel against her left side. I bent down, lifted the towel free of her skin, and took a look. Just under the bottom edge of the short bolero, slanting slightly downward from its edge for about three inches along her side, was a bleeding gash. It didn't look deep; but it could have been as deep as her heart.

I said to Lina, "Anything funny about this? About how it happened?"

Her eyes narrowed and she curled her red lips. "Funny, yes. Very funny."

That was enough for me. I got up and turned around to face Mrs. Remorse. She was still standing in the same place like a flesh mountain, hands on her hips and a frown furrowed deep into the fat of her face.

"O.K., sweetheart," I growled through my teeth. "Where is he?"

She shrugged her wrestler's shoulders. "How the hell would I know? He beat it. Now why don'tcha beat it yourself, smart-pants? Accidents'll happen."

I glared at her. "Sure. Accidents will happen. I got a funny idea an accident's going to happen to Miguel. Tell me where he is, or so help me, I'll rip this joint apart."

She cleared her throat and spat noisily on the floor, then turned around and waddled out the door.

I turned around to Lina. "Miguel can wait," I said. "Come on, honey. You're getting out of here before anything else happens. You all right?"

She nodded her head and swung her feet to the floor. She winced, then got to her feet. She smiled at me. "You were worried about me, no?"

"Yeah. Now let's get out of this trap. I don't think your health's likely to improve around here."

I grabbed her hand and hustled her out through the crowd. Guys said things to us and yelled at Lina, but I didn't hear what they were saying. I was busy looking for a pair of hard-faced twins or the spindly Miguel. Or anybody else that looked fishy. I was still burning, and I think if anybody'd laid a hand on me I'd have tried smashing his teeth out before I took a good look.

The street outside was empty, but I kept my eyes moving around anyway. I felt better when we got in the car and I had it rolling. I made sure nobody was following us before I relaxed and looked over at Lina.

Her fight hand was across her body, holding the towel on the cut, and her left arm was across her breasts, the hand hugging her shoulder. She shivered. "Roll up the window, it is cold."

I'd been so mad I'd forgotten she didn't have much on. Just her shoes and stockings, the black tights, and the skimpy red bolero. Nothing else. That's right, nothing. I rolled up the window. "How do you feel? You O.K.?"

"I am all right, Shell. I do not live this way."

"I know it. I'm not taking you home."

I drove the rest of the way into Hollywood without saying anything. I was thinking. Somebody had plenty to pay for, but I had a lot more to learn before I could start making them pay. And this thing looked as if it was a hell of a lot bigger than it had started out to be. I wished I knew what had made Georgia important enough to kill. And damn near get me killed. Christ, that wasn't all. Where did Tracy Martin fit in? And where the devil was she?

There was little traffic on Sunset Boulevard at this hour, so I made good time. It was a few minutes after two A.M. when I turned left from Sunset onto Vine and drove down past Melrose to the Spartan Apartment Hotel on North Rossmore. I parked across the street.

Lina asked, "What is here? Where are we now?"

"My place. I live here."

I saw her teeth shining in the near darkness. "So," She whispered, "you are not scared of me anymore?"

"Look, Lina. You had a close squeak tonight. If it wasn't an accident—and I don't think it was—there might be more accidents all ready to happen. There's a pretty good chance somebody's at your place right now. You'll be safer here."

She laughed softly, that gurgling laughter deep in her throat. I cleared my own throat and added, "Besides, I've got some questions to ask you."

She gurgled some more. I went around and helped her out of the car. She didn't really need any help, but what the hell.

Jimmy, the twenty-year-old clerk substituting temporarily at the desk, said, "Hello, Mr.—" Then his eyes lit on Lina, looking like a million dollars in her shorts and bolero, even with a bloodstained towel wadded under her left arm. His voice trailed off into a long "Ssss," and he got a queer it-can't-be-true look on his face. He blinked at her and his jaw sagged gently like a gasp in slow motion. He'd forgotten I was there.

"Key, Jimmy," I said.

He blinked some more at Lina and said, "Huh?"

"Key. My key. To my apartment, Jimmy. So I can open the door."

He snapped out of it. "Oh. Sure, Mr. Scott. Sure."

He gave me the key. As Lina and I went by she murmured loud enough for him to hear, "Oh, he is so cute."

I made a face at her and poked the button for the self-service elevator. As we got in I glanced back at Jimmy. He was staring across the room at nothing, a big smile spread across his face.

I grinned at Lina. "Lay off Jimmy," I said. "He's just a kid. You've probably ruined him for days."

"Maybe I like kids."

"Stop kidding."

"Yes, I am kidding."

My apartment is on the second floor, and two doors from mine is Dr. Paul Anson's. I banged on his door and got him out of bed. He peeked out and went through some of the routine Jimmy had, only more dignified.

"Paul, sorry to get you up, but the lady has a cut in her side. Mind coming down and fixing it up?"

"No trouble, Shell. Ah, no trouble at all. Be right down." He leered at Lina, then shut the door.

I led Lina down to my door and said, "Yeah, I know. He is so cute."

"Even cuter than Jimmy, he is. But not so cute as you are."

I leered at her, too.

I told her to wait outside, unlocked the door, and flicked on the light. I looked around inside, then brought her in. I was sure nobody could have got out here before us, even if he'd wanted to, but so many cockeyed things had happened I was ready to start looking under beds.

Lina walked in and looked over the living room.

The living room I like. The whole place, for that matter, but especially the living room. Straight in from the door, slanting diagonally in front of a fake fireplace, is a chocolate-brown divan big enough for six people to play games on, and right in front of it I've got one of those big, gleaming black-lacquered coffee tables that look as if they've got their legs chopped off. The top of the coffee table has a few water rings on top from forgotten highball glasses, but the rings are covered up by current magazines. If you don't read, you'll never notice. And don't ask me who forgot the highball glasses, or why.

Besides the squat leather chair that is my own personal spot, there are a couple of chocolate-brown overstuffed jobs and three big hassocks that get kicked all over the place. On the floor, wall to wall, there's a soft, deep carpet in yellow gold, with a thick shag nap that's kind to tired feet. Come on up sometime when your feet hurt, honey. Take off your shoes. I'll let you walk barefoot on my carpet. The hell you say. You ache all over?

Lina stopped just inside the door, on the left where I've got the two aquariums—one big one for the various tropical fish, and a smaller one for more guppies.

She clapped her hands together like a kid in a candy store. "Oooh. What are these, the little fishes?"

"Yeah. The little fishes. Like 'em?"

"They are so pretty. What is she?" She pointed to the big tank and at a dark-red guy about two inches long, with blood-red fins twice as long as his body.

She's a he," I said. "That's a Betta splendens. Siamese fighting fish. They used to breed them in Siam so they'd so they'd fight and kill each other. That is why I've only got one in the tank. They're murderous among their own kind, but you'd never know it to look at him."

"Caramba! No. So beautiful he is."

"Yeah. And they're never more beautiful than when they're getting ready to fight and maybe kill one of their kind. Watch this, Lina." I picked up the little hand mirror at the side of the aquarium and held it where the betta could see himself reflected in it. Immediately he tensed, the fins spread wide in a flashing ripple of colors, stretched to their limit. The gill covers distended, stretching, and the drooping, fiery-red pectoral fins moved slowly. He seemed to vibrate angrily for a moment before I lowered the mirror and put it back beside the tank. The fins relaxed and the betta moved lazily as before.

Lina had been watching the show, fascinated. "How strange," she murmured.

"Uh-huh. And if that had been another betta in with him instead of just his reflection in a mirror, they'd have been tearing away at each other, ripping those beautiful fins and trying to kill, or killing. Seems too bad, doesn't it? Even among fishes." I grinned at her. "Moral there somewhere."

She shook her head and turned back toward the middle of the room. Her eye caught the garish, yard-square nude I've got hung over the fake fireplace. She marched straight across the room to stand looking up at it. She examined it intently, then turned around to face me. "Who is it? This fat pig."

"Second wife. Amelia."

She laughed. "No, really. Who is it?"

"I told you. Amelia."

She frowned. Her lips pushed out in a little-girl pout. "You fool with me. Tell me, querido. I did not think…You are not married!" She stamped her foot. "Marrano cochino! Do you fool with me? I kill her. I will kill you!"

I laughed. "Simmer down, pepper pot. I don't know who she is. I found her in a hock shop on Main Street. Cute, huh?"

"No. Is disgusting." She smiled and tilted her head. "I am much better. My body, it is much prettier to look at. Much." Then she got serious and frowned again. "You are married. You are married to some pig."

"Nope. Not to a pig. Not to anybody. Still in the open market."

"I close the market. Finished." She laughed and walked across the room toward me, hips swinging. Came a damn knock on the damn door.

It was the doc. I let him in, the crumb. He was decked out in a hundred-dollar maroon robe, a white silk muffler around his neck, and he smelled pretty. His hair was all in place like a toupee. If he'd had time, he'd probably have shaved. I found myself wishing he'd taken the time.

"Well, well," he burbled heartily. Too heartily, if you ask me. "Well, well. What seems to be the trouble. Hmm?"

I neglected to mention that Dr. Paul Anson was a movie-colony doctor. His prices were steep, his diagnosis was almost invariably correct, and his manner was straight out of a B movie. He made plenty of money, a lot of it from prescribing placebos for Hollywood hypochondriacs, and occasionally went on a bat in San Francisco. He was tall, and looked a little like John Wayne. Just a little.

He stretched Lina out on the couch and examined the gash on her side. He kept up a running commentary of small talk while he cleaned and dressed the wound. When he was finished Lina smiled and said, "Thank you so very much, Doctor," and he probably felt as if he'd been paid. I told him to send the bill to me.

He acted as if he felt it would be wise to give Lina a thorough physical examination, but I got him to the door and outside.

"Better?" I asked Lina.

"Better. His hands were very soft."

"Yeah. Nice soft clutching hands."

"But he did not clutch. He was most gentle."

She got up and said, "I wish to look around, here where you live, Shell."

I took her on a short conducted tour. Besides the living room, there's' a kitchenette, bedroom, and bath. The bath is clean white tile trimmed with green, and has a tub for relaxing and a shower for showering. Also the other incidentals. The bedroom boasts an oversize double Hollywood bed, draperies, and a black carpet on the floor, wall to wall, a couple of chairs, a dresser, and another hassock. Lina stopped in the bedroom and investigated the closet where I hang the clothes Connie Benstein tailors for me down on the Strip.

"They are pretty clothes you have, Shell," she said. "But such amazing ties! So bright they are!" She shook her head.

I was having a hell of a good time just following her around. It was like waiting for something to happen. Besides, she was luscious just to look at.

She took a peek into the kitchenette and came up with a bottle of bonded bourbon. "Aahh," she squealed, "for a party. We will have the party." She proceeded to open the bottle.

I took over and mixed us a couple of drinks, then led her back to the living room. She sat at one end of the divan; I sat at the other.

"Now," I told her, "we talk."

"Poof! I do not wish to talk."

"Baby, start talking before I start beating you. Now, tell me about what happened after I left earlier. And how about that cut?"

She sighed. "All right. But you are foolish. What shall I start with?"

"When I left you at El Cuchillo. Did Maggie try to make a phone call?"

"Dios mío!" she said, and her eyes got wide. "What a time it was. You left and I hurried to her office. She has the phone in her hand and she pushes it back down on the thing and looks at me. 'Whatta hell!' she yells. You know how she is, that woman."

"I know. Go on."

"Well, I tell her that I wish more money. That to have knives thrown at me all the time, I should have more money. She says all right, all right, and for me to scram. But I do not scram. I stay and ask her when, how much money, and so on, till she is mad. Oh, very mad. She chases me out and I run to the phone booth in the club. I say out loud that I wish a nickel and so many men hold out money for me. How many do you think, Shell?"

"Hundreds, anyway. What then?"

"Very fast I dial the number of Maggie—it is a different one from the booth. And her phone rings and she answers. I do very good, no?"

I nodded. "Very damn good."

"Well, I disguise my voice and talk, but she says she is busy. I should call back. I tell her I am looking for a job. I am a Mexican dancer. She gets mad some more. Finally she is not there, at the other end. I wait a while, then I look around. Madre de Dios! There she is. Looking in at me. She is like a fat volcano. She opens the door and says what am I doing. I start to hang up, but she grabs it out of my hand and pulls me outside. Then she yells, 'Pedro!' he is a waiter—and he runs over. She is frowning very much and she says, 'Pedro, go to the office and talk on my phone.' He goes off and she listens a while, then hangs up the phone and looks at me very fiercely and goes away. That is all."

I swallowed. "That's all, huh? Honey, I'm afraid I made you stick your pretty little neck right in it. I'm sorry as hell."

"But I was glad to help you?'

"Yeah. And the next thing, Miguel tries to stick a knife in you. How'd it happen?"

She pulled her lips back from flashing white teeth. "That Miguel!" she hissed. "I will fix him, myself, for what he has done. Ay! Es un perro y va a morir! Le sacaré los ojos con las uñas! Lo mataré! Voy a—"

"Whoa! Slow down. How'd it happen?"

"Caramba! Well, you have seen the act." She grinned. "You were part of it, remember? You know how it is. The act is over, then there, is one more knife to be thrown. Always that gusano, he waves his arms and bows, and then he throws the knife. It is all planned. But this time, he does not bow. He turns fast and throws the knife. I see him turn. He has seemed to be strange, and I have been watching him. I jump fast and I hit the knife handles that are stuck, but his knife, it cuts me here." She touched the bandage on her side. "I was so scared. To death I was scared."

I looked at her. "You poor kid. And I was the damn fool that almost got you killed. I'll take care of Miguel for you, honey."

"You ponch him for me."

"Yeah. I'll ponch him for both of us." I thought about it for a minute. "Lina, if that knife had been a little farther over, or if you hadn't jumped fast enough, it would've looked like an accident. Just a slip, a mistake."

"But it was luck," she said. "It was not serious."

I didn't say so, but I thought it was serious. Serious for Miguel."

"Enough,' she said suddenly. "It is enough talk. Come." She patted the cushions beside her. "Come sit by me."

I slid over beside her. She said, "Put your arm over my shoulders. I wish to say something to you."

I put my arm around her. She didn't have to ask me twice. She probably wouldn't have to ask me anything twice.

She said, "For you only did I fool with the fat one. And for you was the knife thrown at me. I think you should kiss me."

As I said, she wouldn't have to ask me anything twice. I set my drink on the coffee table in front of the divan, put my other arm around her, and pulled her close. She kissed me as if she was dying and it was the last kiss she'd ever get.

Me? I was living.

She leaned her head back on my arm and sighed. "Ah, querido. I like you. I like you Very much. You like me, no?"

"I like you, yes."

"That is better. I like you better this way, querido."

I kissed her again. She died again. This could lead to a deathbed scene. I said, "Lina, this querido. What it is?"

"It means 'darling,' or 'my dearest.'"

"Oh? I'm your dearest now."

Softly, very softly, she said, "Yes. You are my dearest."

Minutes later I said, "Honey, I can't stick around. I've still got things to do. Things that have to be done."

"You can do nothing now." She grabbed my arm and looked at my watch. "It is two o'clock and half an hour. In the morning. Do it," she smiled slowly, "mañana."

I shook my head. "Look. When I leave I'll tell the clerk no one comes up here. The place is empty. Nobody comes up but me. I'll take the key and keep it with me. Don't say anything if there's a knock at the door unless you're positive it's me. Answer the phone if it rings, but don't say anything unless you get proof it's me on the other end. There's food in the kitchen, so you stay put. Right here. In other words, talk to nobody but me. Got it?"

"Nobody but you, Shell." Her fingers played with the middle button on my shirt. Little shivers grew out of nowhere and danced along my spine. She put one cool hand on each side of my face and pulled my face gently down to hers.

"Mañana," she breathed, and kissed me gently on my cheek, on my lips, on my throat. "Mañana, querido."

Hell, what with one thing and another, I didn't get out of there till damn near five o'clock.

Chapter Seven

I CLIMBED INTO THE Cad and stared at the windshield. I was plumb tuckered out.

It had rained again, but the skies were brightening and it looked as if Sunday might be crisp and clear. I started the car, drove up to Sunset, and turned east, listening to the tires humming on the wet street.

There were a lot of things I had to do, but the one really important thing was: What had happened to Tracy? She was a girl I'd never seen, never even heard of till Saturday afternoon. I'd only known about her for fifteen hours, but I was starting to feel responsible for her. So far she was just a face and a description. Georgia had left two color photos—a portrait and a full-length study—and Tracy's description with me when she'd left the office.

In the portrait, the face was that of a young girl with wide-set, intelligent eyes and brown hair fashioned in a feather cut. It was a face like that of a fine porcelain doll, and the eyes were the color of jade in moonlight. She was smiling; a pretty smile, but a little sad, and there was a small mole at the side of her mouth. Not beautiful, but pretty, attractive.

The full-length study was of a small girl with a slim, curved body—a woman's body, but curves that were fashioned with restraint. She was wearing a bright print dress and was leaning against the arm of a chair on the lawn of the Martin home.

The description: age, 19; height, five feet, two inches; weight, 110 pounds; eyes, green; hair, brown; identifying marks, mole left side of mouth, small scar inside left wrist.

And that was Tracy Martin. But where was she? And why? And how the hell was I going to find her? Los Angeles is the largest city in area in the United States, covering 452 Square miles. If she was in L.A., that narrowed it down to 452 square miles. Great.

And she could be in the morgue.

There was a pattern, though, so far. And if she fitted into the pattern, there was a way. A damn-fool, stupid way, but it was the only one I knew. There was so much I needed to know, so much that was missing. But I'd give it a whirl.

First, though, I was going to get religion. I was about to become a lamb fat for slaughter. I headed for Silver Lake Boulevard and the temple of the Inner World Society of Truth Believers. Narda, you'd better be good.

He was good. And everything leading up to his appearance was intelligently planned and executed for its ultimate effect. And that was a surprise. It was to me, anyway, because Southern California is a mecca and melting pot for half the cults and societies of the civilized, and sometimes uncivilized, world. Maybe you live here or you've been here and know about it, and maybe you don't. I was born in this town. A quarter century ago, when I was a towheaded kid starting to kindergarten, Los Angeles and Hollywood weren't what they are now. Pepper trees lined Hollywood Boulevard and the movies were silent, flickery things. L.A.'s city limits were a fraction of what they are today, and the population was only about half what it is now.

I've watched it grow, and as it grew, and as people from all over the States and even the world poured in, a rash of religious, vegetarian, mystic, and occult healers and savers sprang up like no other part of the States ever saw. Messiahs sprang up out of the ground, milked the suckers dry, then faded out of sight. Healers laid on hands, read the stars for propitious signs, and stood on their heads to save the downtrodden and, incidentally, make a fast buck.

Don't get me wrong. Some of them were sincere, tried to do good, and believed everything they preached. But most of them were just out for the almighty dollar. And they got it.

So I was in a skeptical frame of mind when I pulled into Silver Lake Boulevard, found a "For Sale" sign on a house a block or so from the temple, and parked my too distinctive Cadillac in the driveway. I walked up and took a fast look at the headquarters of the Inner World, or IW, Society. It looked the same as it had a few hours before when I'd trailed Miguel out here. Real fancy, what I could see of it in the darkness. Sam had told me the sessions were held behind the temple, so I went over to the white-graveled drive and on down to the end of it looking for people. I didn't see any mob, but there was a light over to the right behind the building, and a white-robed figure stood there holding a candle. I walked over. It was a woman, rather an attractive woman with a cute, round little face like a pixie's. She was dressed in white, flowing robes that covered her entire body, almost to the ground.

I didn't know whether I should say, "Good morning," or "Holier than thou," or "Where's the meetin'?"

I said, "I am Francis Joyne. I understand, ah, that there was to be, ah, a meeting. Ah…"

She said, "Of course. The entrance is really on the other side at the top of the rise. Off Apex Street. It often happens that people come in this way." She had a soft, quiet voice. "Please follow me," she said.

She held the candle over her head and led the way up a sloping hill behind the temple, along a path worn into the grass. It was dark except for the dim light from the moon and stars, and the candle flame flickered brightly in the darkness. It was a strange feeling, following the soft-voiced woman through the night, the candlelight making her shadow bob and swirl on the ground, and picking highlights in the folds of her robes. It was alien, eerie.

I could hear music coming from up ahead now. Organ music. I hate organ music. It gives me the creeps. We kept walking and the music got louder. I felt almost like looking over my shoulder to see if another woman in long robes was floating after us. Or maybe just robes.

Usually I'm a pretty levelheaded guy. I don't mind walking under ladders, black cats are just cats that are black, and I don't believe in spooks or haunts. But I could have picked a better setting for a morning stroll. Creepy was the word.

The woman turned to the left and I saw up ahead an arched entrance in what looked like a wooden wall. Another woman, clad in the same kind of white robes and also carrying a candle, stood in the entrance. My guide walked with me up to the other woman, turned, and left me without saying a word. The other woman turned, also wordlessly, and walked inside the enclosure. I followed her. She paused and held the candle over a small table on which was an open book and a quill pen and ink. Scrawled signatures were halfway down the left page of the book. Apparently I was to sign the damn thing. I scribbled Francis Joyne and a phony address on Alvarado in the places allotted, the pen scratching in the silence. I looked up.

In the faint light from the woman's candle I could see that wooden chairs were placed inside in rows facing east. People were there ahead of me, but there wasn't a sound other than the organ music. The candle stopped beside an empty chair on the aisle up which we'd been walking. I stopped and opened my mouth to speak.

The woman turned her head slightly to the side and quickly raised one hand and held it palm out, fingers curled before her face. It was as if she were saying, "Not one word." I sat down quietly.

She went away with a whisper of robes and seemed to float through the darkness and out the archway. With her leaving, even the meager light from the candle was gone and I sat in darkness relieved only by a faint glow from the sky.

I looked around me. I could make out the shapes of perhaps ten or fifteen other persons sitting in the chairs, and there must have been more that I couldn't see. I wondered if I'd have to sit here quietly in the darkness till the sun came up before anything happened.

The woman came in again carrying the candle and followed by two people. It was a man and a woman, and in the faint light they looked old, close to seventy. They were seated and the woman went out again.

Minutes dragged by.

Then, again through the archway, the woman came. Only this time another was with her—probably the same woman who'd led me here from the temple. They walked down past the front row of seats and stood facing the crowd, separated from each other by about four feet. They were perhaps no more than twelve or fourteen feet from me. They stood holding their flickering candles while the organ continued to play.

As if on signal, the candles went out.

The organ music stopped.

Then, overhead and a few feet behind the spot where the two women stood, light began to grow and illumine a large mass I couldn't make out at first. Then as the light increased in intensity, I could see that it was a huge face. A massive painting or photograph, at least fifteen or twenty feet long and high. It was the face of a man who seemed to be looking directly down at us from his position of eminence, out of deep, glowing eyes, a white turban upon his head. The light increased in intensity only enough so that the outlines of the picture could be seen and the face seemed to be hanging unsupported in the darkness.

Nothing else happened for what was probably only a minute or two, but seemed longer. Then, with startling suddenness, a beam of light flashed down from somewhere up above and fell full upon the face and shoulders of a man standing four or five feet above the level of my eyes. His face was the face in the picture that seemed suspended in the air behind him, and on his head was a white turban. His arms were upraised and his head was bent down toward the people below.

There wasn't a sound anywhere around me. And then he spoke.

"Disciples. Disciples. Listen to me. Listen to me."

The voice was deep, resonant. A soothing murmur that reached my ears easily and without strain, as if I were heating it more from within my head than from that strange figure above me.

I put my head down and shut my eyes. Scott, old boy, I said to myself. Take it easy, chum. Don't get carried away here. The guy's got a big blow-up of a studio portrait behind him like a billboard, and he's probably standing on a rickety platform put up by nonunion labor. There's a baby spot stuck up on a beam or a tree limb, shining down on his kisser, and he's wondering what the take's going to be. Don't forget what you're here for.

I looked up at the turbaned figure again and my mind flashed back to pictures I'd seen of another mass hypnotist, a guy named Hitler, who used to perch himself up above the crowd with a big blow-up of his mug behind him, and scream of the place Germany was soon to take in the world.

So this was Narda. He was good. And he'd been reading books, I'd have bet my Cad against his turban that half of them had something to do with crowd psychology and hypnosis. You know hypnosis? It's not black magic anymore, or country-fair shenanigans; it's a tool of psychiatrists and psychologists, even doctors and dentists and advertising men who write the nauseous but effective air-wave commercials. It's a mental scalpel, anesthetic, medicine—a lot of things. And most of the favorite clinical techniques invariably include eyestrain, repeated suggestion, and a monotonous voice. I was beginning to appreciate Narda—the conditioning I'd been put through before he appeared, the strain on my eyes as I looked up at him, his words and the sound of his voice like the rise and fall of the surf as he launched into his spiel, which stretched credulity if you were looking for flaws, but was pretty good if you were willing and even anxious to believe him.

He didn't speak with the wild ravings of the hillbilly revivalist, the hoarse, impassioned scream of words with the tight, quick gasp for breath at the end of each phrase, but rather with the monotonous, hypnotic chant of a priest. Sometimes the words had less meaning than his voice. He could have been singsonging Latin or Esperanto, but I found myself listening to him in spite of my skepticism.

"Disciples. Disciples. Listen to me. Listen to me. I shall lead you into the world of Truth that has so long been hidden from you. Yea, hidden, even though it has forever lain fallow beneath the surface of your consciousness. Listen to me. The power and the strength that is in you has but to be stirred and it will awaken and flower into such force as belonged to the ancients; a force that has withered through neglect and is dormant on the vine of mortal consciousness.

"Listen to me. Listen to me. Ye shall follow whither I lead and I shall make you whole. Ye shall follow me; ye shall follow me; ye shall follow me. Ye shall follow, and I will lead you to the Cosmic Truth that is all-present and all-pervading.

"Listen to me. The mind is all. The mind is all.

"I will take your hand; I will lead you; I will strike away your fetters. Follow me. Listen to me. Follow me and I will make the Great Mysteries your Truths.

"I, Narda, say it, and it is therefore so."

There was more, a lot more, but all of it in the same vein. I jerked my eyes away from Narda and looked around me. On my left an elderly woman stared fixedly up at Narda, her lips parted, breathing deeply as she watched him. The people all around me appeared rapt; they didn't seem to notice my inspection.

I vaguely heard Narda saying, "As Christ, the Great Healer, the Son of God, gave unto His disciples food and drink, so shall I, Narda, give unto you." He talked on, but then I noticed the two women down front were again carrying their lighted candles, this time on trays burdened with glasses of liquid and what looked like cheese crackers.

Goody, breakfast. Old Narda was doing this thing up brown.

The women passed among the seats, giving each person food and drink, as Narda put it. Me, I could have used some prime ribs. The woman who'd led me across the grass extended the tray to me. I took a cracker and a glass and started to raise the glass to my lips. She quickly raised one hand before her face, palm out, fingers curled. This was the second time I'd seen that cute "No!" I'll bet they practiced in front of mirrors.

Apparently Narda was to give the signal. I looked back up at him and noticed something. No picture. Apparently while he'd talked, the light on the picture behind him had faded slowly till now Narda was alone, suspended, floating over our heads. Then he brought his hands into the light, holding a glass and a wafer. He placed the wafer on his tongue and slowly drank from the glass.

He didn't have to tell anybody. Of common accord arms raised around me and everyone I could see followed suit. Me too. I still guessed the wafer was a cheese cracker, and the liquid tasted like flat limeade, bitter as hell. Cheapskate. Keep down the overhead.

On my right, a middle-aged man drank fervently, his eyes closed and his Adam's apple gliding up and down accompanied by horrible noises issuing from inside his throat, glurk, glurk, glurk. Then he lowered his arm and returned his fixed gaze to Narda.

I liked to bust out laughing. It struck me funny, but I knew if I let out a peep I'd probably land on my behind outside. That made it worse; I came close to strangling. Nobody even looked at me. I wasn't there; I'd missed the cloud.

The girls collected the glasses quietly while Narda continued his spiel. I wondered how he was going to end this thing.

He did all right. He spoke for another minute, then stopped and threw back his turbaned head, his arms raised high. In that resonant voice he cried, "I, Narda, say it," and the light on his face winked out. A fiery corona suddenly grew around his head like a halo.

I blinked and tried to figure it out. Cute. The big picture behind him had blocked out the eastern horizon, toward which we faced. Timed to the split second, Narda had waited till the just rising sun would outline his head and upper body. Then, down with the picture, out with the spot. Miracle. I had to hand it to him.

The women very neatly herded us out and got the people started on their dazed way. I hung around outside. This was just the beginning for me. I felt a little dazed myself, and I was dying for a smoke.

I dug in my pocket, found a cigarette, lit it, and dragged deep while I thought about Narda. I took a couple more big drags and damn near threw the cigarette over the fence. Ugh, I stopped myself just in time, lit a match, and looked at the weed. It was the little item I'd picked up in Maggie's office. I pinched it out and stuck it in my inside coat pocket.

The women were off in the direction of the street, getting the last stragglers on their way. I leaned up against the fence and waited for them to come back. There was a little cold, murky light from the rising sun, so I slipped back inside the enclosure and walked over to the spot from which Narda had made his speech. There was a platform draped in black cloth, steps leading up from behind it. Farther back was the huge picture flat on the ground. Overhead I could barely see a dark blob that was probably a spotlight. I scooted back outside and waited.

The two women came back chatting together as if they were telling about their operations. I stepped away from the fence and conversation died a miserable death. They stopped still and gawked at me as I walked up to them.

"You may not remember me," I said. "You showed me the way here."

The women looked at me as if I had nine heads and they were all bald.

I added, "For which I shall be eternally grateful."

I went back to one head.

"I am Francis Joyne," I went on. "You may have heard of me, of my philanthropies. I feel that," I raised my eyes and lowered my voice, "Narda," I lowered my eyes and raised my voice again, "is leading a great work. I am most interested. I should like to help."

I think the best word I used was "philanthropies." They looked a little more interested, at least.

"If I could discuss the movement with you, or with someone else connected with the movement…I do not expect, of course, that Narda himself would…but anyone. I was extremely moved." I didn't tell her where I was moved, but I let myself choke up a little. All I had to do was think about the taste of that damn cigarette.

"Come," one said, and led the way.

It was light enough now so that the walk back across the grass wasn't so eerie. We made it to the temple and I followed the women inside the front door and into a massive room covered on all four walls with black draperies. The woman I'd followed about half my time here, the one with the round, pixie face, seated me on the floor—no furniture, not a stick and seated herself cross-legged opposite me. I thought maybe she was going to contemplate her navel, yoga fashion, but no such luck. This deal was on a high plane.

The other woman went through the draperies at the back of the room and disappeared. Maybe it was coincidence, but thirty seconds after she was out of sight, organ music swelled and throbbed in the room.

We sat in silence relieved by the organ tones for another thirty seconds. I looked at the woman, wondering what I was supposed to do now. Maybe get myself shot.

I still wanted a smoke.

On my right, on the floor, appeared a couple of big, black shoes. Above them, hanging down to their tops, was a shirtlike circle of heavy black cloth. I looked up.

Well, lo and behold. Nards. The old boy was going to handle this part of the caper all by himself. Strike while the iron is hot. I started to stand up but he stuck out a long, thin-fingered hand to indicate that I wasn't to rise. I couldn't, I'd have smacked into his paw. I eased myself back down and looked up at him. With that turban on his head he looked about nine feet tall. His head scraped the lofty ceiling. Eyestrain, huh? O.K., chum, get on with it.

So far nobody had said a word. Now the woman rose gracefully, faced Nards, and quickly and softly told him who I was and that I was interested in the "Secret Ritual of the Master Plan of the Inner World Society of Truth Believers." She called him Father, but the way she looked at him I guessed she'd rather have been calling him Daddy.

He said, "Thank you, Loren."

She skipped over the word "philanthropies" so fast I hardly caught it myself, but you can bet Nards got it. Then she bowed in front of him, the loose robes revealing, as they draped from her shoulders, not much to me, but I'll bet plenty to him. The word to describe what he did with his eyes is "ogle." The look he gave out was hardly fatherly, and not exactly in character, even from where I still sat on the floor.

She went out and he pulled his eyes away from her and back to me.

"I am Narda," he said as if he enjoyed it. "What, exactly, is your interest in the Inner World Society, my son?"

Son, he says. He probably wasn't much over forty himself, if any. A neat trick.

"I was present this morning," I said. "It was a revelation to me. Beautiful. It is what I have needed since…since the death of my beloved sister. I have been alone till now." I shut up and waited to see if he swallowed it. He'd have swallowed anything that smelled like money. I continued, "I should like to help."

He nodded solemnly.

My legs were starting to feel as if I had lumbago, and my neck was getting a crick in it. I took a deep breath and looked up at him, feeling a little dizzy and very damned silly. "I have a great deal of money. I should like to aid in the movement, the Society. I feel that I have been given a new reason for being and I am grateful to you." I almost threw up when I said it, but I didn't want to spoil the play. Not just yet.

"I am thankful," he said, "to have been the instrument of your salvation, my son. We are, in fact, in dire need of material assistance. Our spiritual wealth is great, but—"

The front door opened and two men walked in. They still looked like two prints from the same negative.

The hard-faced gent in front spotted me on the floor. His eyes narrowed, and like a spring uncoiling his left hand leaped to his right armpit and came out with a small, vicious-looking automatic. His lips curled back from his teeth and he drawled, "I'll be gawdamned."

I uncrossed my legs and started to get up. The twin's face didn't change, but he squeezed down on the trigger of his gun and blasted at me. The slug ripped through the padding of the left shoulder of my coat, and wound up somewhere in the floor behind me.

I glared at him, starting to burn.

"Thet wasn't no accident, Scott," he drawled. "Thet's where I was aimin'."

I got both feet under me and started up again. He sent another slug through the padding on the other side.

"Set!" he snapped. "Till I tell ya." He looked at me for a moment, then said, "O.K., Scott. You can git up now. Easy-like."

I stood up and hated him across the room. "You're good," I said. "You must be proud. That's going to cost you just two hundred fish, mister. If you stay alive."

He laughed. He jerked his head at the other twin. "Git his gun, Paul."

Narda looked as if he'd bet on four aces and was staring dismally at a small straight flush. "What…what…" he sputtered.

I took a good look at him. Now that I was on my feet, he wasn't nine feet tall. Without the turban, he would have stood three or four inches shorter than me, which would make him about five-ten or five-eleven—a little less than six feet—and in the heavy black robe that hung nearly to the floor, the only garment he wore other than the turban, he looked pretty stocky. But his face was thin, and filled with bewilderment now.

I said, "You should have looked into the future, Narda. It was all there."

"Shet your face." The twin with the gun waved it at me. He spoke to Narda out of the side of his mouth, barely moving his lips. "This jerk's a shamus. A private dick. He's playin' you for a sucker, Narda. He's workin' for the Martin dame."

Narda recovered his composure. He snapped his head around to me, then said to the gunman, "Take care of him, Peter. You know where to put him. Hold him there." Peter said, "I got a better idea."

"Hold him," Narda said quietly. He turned and went stiffly out of the room as if he was walking on eggs.

The twin called Paul walked up to my side, reached under my coat, and lifted out my revolver. I looked down at him, at the padded, extremely draped suit, the tight mouth, the cold blue eyes, and the dark wavy hair, carefully combed and pushed into place. I looked back to Peter.

"Which one of you guys has the Toni?"

I didn't see it coming. Paul had my gun clutched in his left hand. He threw up his arm and slammed the gun hard against my jaw.

I stumbled on still cramped legs and went flat on my back. I lay there a moment trying to get a grip on the rage building inside me. It didn't hurt, but when I put my hand against my jaw I brought it away with a spot of blood in the palm. I wiped my hand on the smooth tan gabardine of my coat; it was ruined, anyway. So was my jaw, probably.

"You bastards play rough."

"Be nice. We wouldn't hurt you, pal. We like peepers." It was the twin called Paul, the first time he'd spoken. He even sounded like his brother.

I said, "That's what I figured," and got up.

Paul turned to his brother and said, "Shall we kill him here? How about it?"

"Naw. Let's do it someplace else. Let's do it right."

They were having a kick for themselves. From what Narda had said, though, I didn't think I was supposed to be cooled. Not right now, anyway. I hoped I was right.

They didn't scare me, but they brought up a question. I said to Peter, "Tell me, sharpie. Just what are two hired gunmen doing working for a religious organization? You two the Inner World missionaries? You go out and cram your particular slogans down the chosen throats?"

Peter made a clucking sound with his tongue. "You talk like a unbeliever, Scott. Too bad. A unbeliever. Why, we send unbelievers to hell, Scott."

"Funny thing," I said, "but you make me sick. You can put your plaything away. Why, you're so good you'd draw and plug me before I could move an inch."

"You want some more work on your jaw, pal?"

I shut up. I'm not so tough…

They took off the blindfold and Peter said, "Here you are, pal. See, we didn't even hurt you much."

I didn't say anything. We'd come around in circles and wound up in a hall on the second story of a house somewhere. That's about all I could figure, but I didn't think we were far out of town.

The twins pushed me up to a door and one of them—I couldn't tell them apart now that they were mixed up—pulled a key out of his pocket. He pushed open the door and the other twin, with a gun stuck in my back, gave me a shove inside.

"Keep it quiet, pal," he grated. "We'll be around."

The door slammed shut behind me, and I took my first look at Tracy Martin.

Chapter Eight

YES, SIR. That's how you find a girl. Go down to the gas and light companies. See if she's put in for a change of service. Same for the phone company. Check the post office for a change of address. Dig into the marriage files and see what home town she put on her marriage license, who her folks are, where she was born. Go talk to folks at her church. Check charge accounts, automobile registrations.

Or go get yourself slammed on the jaw and tossed into a room with her.

She was sitting in a squat wooden chair, the only piece of furniture in the room, and she looked up at me as the door slammed shut. She was the sweetheart in the pictures and she looked like the girl you were out with on your first real date when you were very young, and very much in love. She was grown-up now, more mature, more womanly, but the same girl.

We clicked like new dice rolling up a seven. You know what I look like: the busted nose and clipped ear, the screwy eyebrows—face a little off center. You know what I mean. Well, she was a little bit the same way. Her face wasn't quite right. It wasn't a face you'd see on magazine covers or featured at premieres. Not that kind of face. You figured she'd look better without that mole at the side of her mouth, but after you'd been with her an hour you wouldn't have had her any other way. Her eyebrows were a little too full and a little too straight, but she did have a nice mouth. Warm. Full lips. Red, kissable. The upper lip was too short, but it was cute. And the eyes were really beautiful. Green and deep and cool. Everything added up to a gal that wasn't a glamour-puss, but she was nice just the same. Wholesome. She looked as if she'd be fun to talk to.

"Friend or enemy?" she asked casually in a small, quiet voice.

"Friend."

"Thanks for coming. I was lonesome."

"Forget it. It was nothing. Nothing." I grinned at her and started walking around the room, looking it over.

"It's not going to do you any good," she said. "I've been all over it fifty times. The only way out is the way you came in. No windows, the door's thick, and it's locked. Period."

I walked over to her and squatted down beside the chair. "Doesn't look so good, does it, Tracy?"

Her eyes opened wide in surprise. "How did you know my name? And who are you?"

It hit me with a kind of sickening shock that she must not know her sister was dead. Murdered. She'd been cooped up in here, probably since Friday.

I said, "It's a long story, Tracy. I'll tell you all about it in a little while. We've got lots of time."

"I suppose. Golly, I've been in here so long I could scream. I haven't even been out once. What are they keeping me here for? I haven't done anything." She shook her head slowly. "I can't understand why. Is it still Saturday? Or is it Sunday? I'm mixed up on what day it is."

"It's Sunday. Sunday morning. Almost seven o'clock."

"Golly. Dad and Sis must be worried sick."

"I talked to them yesterday."

"Oh?" Her eyes lit up. "How are they? They must be looking all over for me. Say, you haven't told me who you are or anything. What's going on, anyway?"

"My name's Shell Scott, Tracy. I'm a private detective."

"Detective?"

"Uh-huh. Your sister hired me, She came to my office yesterday and told me you were missing. She wanted me to help her find you. But there was more to it than that. Frankly, she acted a little strange, and I'm not sure just what all she wanted—besides you, of course. I'm sure there was more. Maybe if you can tell me how you wound up here, the whole thing, I can make some sense out of it. O.K.?"

"I guess so. You said you talked to Dad. What did he say?"

I shook my head. "Uh-uh. You first." She was taking the mess she was in like a little trouper. But it was obvious she didn't really know the kind of jam she was in—that both of us were probably not long for this world. Maybe I should have been more worried myself. I hated the thought of telling her what we were up against. And the truth about Georgia.

She smiled. "Me first? That how detectives work?"

"That's how this one works."

"Well, all right." She looked into my face, then at my clothes. She frowned. "Golly, what happened to you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, your face. And your clothes. Did you get in a fight?"

"Oh. Yeah, sort of. Those nice guys that tossed me in here. They wanted some laughs. Never mind that. You were going to spin me a story."

Her face sobered. "Where'll I start?"

"How'd you get here? How come you're here at all?"

She shook her head. "I'm not sure, really. It's something about Sis, I guess. That's what started it, anyway. She got to acting so funny it worried me. You want to know all this, Mr. Scott?"

"Shell. Yeah, all of it."

"Well, about a month back, maybe two, Sis got to acting so mean and snippy I got worried. It wasn't like her. Sometimes she'd be all right, then sometimes she'd yell at me and tell me to leave her alone, not to bother her. I couldn't figure it out. Well, she'd always been a little wild." She smiled shyly. "Not like me. Ready for anything. I thought maybe she was in some kind of trouble. Then I remembered she'd just started running around with a new fellow. I thought maybe she was having man trouble, you know." She dropped her eyes, then looked back at my face again. She went on seriously, "A couple of weeks ago I decided I'd find out what was wrong, try to at least. She was still seeing this man. Guess who."

"I couldn't guess."

"Peter Seipel."

"Who's Peter Seipel?"

"He brought you in here—one of those awful twins."

I heard it, and I digested it, and I goggled at her, and I didn't like it. "One of the twins?" The pattern was getting nuttier.

"Uh-huh. Anyway, I got an idea. I figured he might be the reason for Georgia's acting like she was, and I figured if I got to know him, maybe I could find out what was wrong. Georgia wouldn't tell me anything."

I got a cold chill up my spine thinking about this sweet little kid trying to pump an obvious gunman who played games that included shooting holes in my coat—and probably me a little later.

"That's real fine," I said. "So?"

"So I managed to run into him 'accidentally' and acted like I thought he was just too marvelous. He loved it."

"He would."

"He took me out three or four times, and then last Thursday—no, Friday—I was supposed to meet him in the afternoon. I met him and we went to a bar. I'm not supposed to drink in bars—I'm not old enough. Besides, I don't drink. But I thought maybe I could find out more if he drank some."

I shuddered again.

"Well," she went on, "I started asking him questions, what was the matter with Georgia, what was wrong and so on, and he got real quiet. Then when we left he took me to a big house like a palace out by Silver Lake Reservoir. He left me in a room. There wasn't any place to sit down, and I had to just stand there. Anyway, Peter came back in with a man in a kind of black cloak and a turban. He looked so funny I almost laughed. But he asked me what was wrong and asked me a lot of questions and finally I got mad and told him I wanted to know what was wrong with my sister and what business was it of his and a lot of things. I told him something was awful funny and why had Peter brought me there, anyway.

"Then he turned and glared at Peter and Peter mumbled something I couldn't hear. Then they started saying, 'What are we going to do with her?' and so on, just like I wasn't there. That's about all. Then both those twins brought me here."

I thought it over for a minute and asked, "Nothing else? Before you were brought here did you hear anything else or see anyone? They bring you straight here?"

She frowned and fingered the mole at the side of her mouth. "Let's see. First they started to take me upstairs there someplace. We got up to the top of some stairs and I was so mad and a little scared, I—" she paused, embarrassed—"I started to cry a little. Just about then a door right opposite the stairs opened and someone looked out and then slammed the door shut."

"Who was it? What did he look like?"

"I don't know; I couldn't see. My mascara was running all over my face. I must have looked awful."

"What then?"

"A man's voice behind the door yelled, 'Peter!' and he went over to the door and talked through the crack a little, and then came back and took me downstairs. Then they brought me here."

I tingled a little. I leaned forward on the balls of my feet and put a hand on the chair Tracy was sitting in. "That voice, Tracy. Could it have been a woman's voice? A deep voice, but a woman's?"

She fingered the mole again. "I don't know. I suppose so. I was all excited. But I suppose it might have been."

I digested it, all of it. Then I asked, "Tracy, did you know Georgia had been drawing a lot of money out of the bank recently—the last few weeks?"

She frowned. "No, I didn't know that. Was she?"

"Uh-huh. You know of anything she might have bought? Or any way she might have spent a lot of money?"

"No. She didn't buy anything that I know of. Just the usual little things. She got a mink coat about a month ago, but Dad paid for that. That's sure funny."

"I thought so, too. Now, Tracy, think about this one. Is there any chance anybody could have been getting money from her? That is, blackmailing her? Do you know of anything she might have wanted kept quiet? Wanted it badly enough to pay somebody for keeping it quiet?"

She frowned at me, pulled gently at her short upper lip, then shook her head. "Not a thing. Like I told you, Mr. Scott, she was a little wild and all, but I know there couldn't have been anything. Not anything I know about, at least."

I chewed on that a while. I was still chewing when she said, "Your turn."

"What?"

"Your turn."

I got that sick feeling deep in the pit of my stomach. "Yeah. Look, Tracy. Let's skip it for now. Let me try to figure a way out of here."

"No, sir. You said you'd tell me everything. You said…"She stopped talking and her face paled a little. "Nothing's wrong, is it? Isn't everything all right?

I didn't say anything.

She was quiet for a few seconds, then she swallowed and looked squarely at me. "If something's wrong I want you to tell me, Mr. Scott. I'll be all right. Is it Dad? Is he all right, Mr. Scott?"

"Yeah. He's O.K. Shell; call me Shell."

"Tell me."

She had to know sooner or later. "Tracy, it's your sister."

She looked at me, waiting, not saying anything, her face tight.

"I…She was shot."

She blinked once, then stared at me fixedly out of those eyes like jade in moonlight. Then she asked in a voice so low I could barely make out the words, "Is she dead?"

"Yes, Tracy."

Nothing happened. She turned her face from me and looked unblinking at the wall. She sat that way for five minutes or more, not saying a word, her jaw clenched and her face held rigid. Then, finally, her jaw slackened, her face twisted and she moaned, "Oh, oh, oh," over and over. She put her head down on her knees and cried quietly, sobs shaking her slim shoulders.

I left her alone. I got up from where I'd been kneeling by her chair and walked over to a corner of the room. I sat there while she cried some of it out of her system.

Minutes later she raised her head. "I'm all right," she said, not looking at me. "Have you a handkerchief, Mr. Scott?"

I handed her the handkerchief from the breast pocket of my coat and said softly, "Look, Tracy. It's tough, I know. But now we've got to figure how we're going to get you out of here." Maybe she'd feel better if she got to thinking or talking about something else. "Any ideas?" She shook her head. "They're both outside there, I know."

"Where are we? Where is this place?"

"I don't know, Mr. Scott."

"Shell."

"Shell."

I had an idea. "They give you anything to eat yet this morning?"

"Not yet. They do give me food, though."

I stood up and yelled, "Hey! Hey! Hey!" at the top of my lungs, then ran over beside the door.

I heard quick footsteps outside, then something banged twice on the wood. Not a fist; more like a gun.

I tensed myself to grab the door and swing it open as soon as it started to move inward. My heart pounded.

"Shet up!" a voice snarled outside. "What's the trouble?"

He wasn't going to barge inside. I relaxed a little. I backed up a few steps and said, "We're hungry. How about some food? Or do we get starved?"

"Shet up, Scott. You'll get it when we're ready." The footsteps went back down the hall.

I paced the floor and racked my brain. Five minutes went by. Or it could have been half an hour. Footsteps pounded down the hall and I raced over beside the door again. "Room service," the voice said. Then a laugh.

I took a deep breath. I felt good. I felt as if I could tear the house down. I clenched my fists and waited for the door to open. From somewhere in my head came a screwy idea that this was going to be fun.

The door didn't open. Some of the exhilaration went out of me. The voice said, "I'm comin' in. There's a gun in my hand, and if the both of ya aren't in the middle of the room, settin', I start blastin'. Got it? Got it, pal?"

I got it. I walked back over beside Tracy and sat down on the floor.

In a few more seconds a key turned in the lock and the door was suddenly kicked open. One of the twins stood there with one of those small automatics in his hand and his lips peeled back in a wolfish grin. He looked as if all he needed was an excuse to start shooting. Blood hungry. Some of them get that way.

His grin faded a little and he stooped over and picked a tray off the floor, his eyes never leaving us. He carried the tray inside the door with one hand and put it down on the floor.

"One hand," I said. "Heavens to Betsy."

The wolfish grin came back for a moment, then went away. He turned and went outside. The key turned in the lock.

I got up and brought the tray over to Tracy's chair.

"Nice try," she said. "Only it didn't work. Nothing's going to work." Her voice was a little high-pitched and quavering.

"Can it," I said sharply. "We'll get out." I almost believed it.

The food was stew in a cardboard container like milk shakes come in. I should have been starved, but I wasn't hungry enough to eat much. We'd been given paper plates and paper spoons to eat with. The twins weren't missing a beat.

When we'd finished with the stew there didn't seem to be much to talk about. I went over and sat down and leaned up against the wall. I tried adding the logical ways of getting Tracy and me out of here alive and came up with a zero. Nice going. I tried it some more.

Christ, I was tired, My eyelids felt as if they weighed a ton each. I felt as if I couldn't move if the house was on fire. I yawned and blinked my eyes and yawned some more. I yawned for what seemed like ten minutes.

Chapter Nine

MAN! YOU SHOULD have been there. The place was terrific. Right at the end I knew I'd been dreaming, but I still didn't want to leave. Would you leave a Shangri-la where it rained champagne and the rainbow was made out of rubies and diamonds and emeralds and jade and gold? Hell, no. But that was only half of it—the other half. A statuesque blonde wearing a ruby undulated across the green grass toward me.

She said, "Sheldon. I've been waiting for you."

"Great, honey. I been looking all over for you, too."

She frowned. "Please. You mustn't be crude. We are never crude here. Back there," she waved a hand vaguely behind her, "some are crude. But not here."

"Where's here?"

"You don't know?" She was shocked to death. "This is the Inner World."

"Inner World, huh? I've been wondering what it was like." I leered at her. "Not half bad. Where's Narda?"

"He is here. He is everywhere."

"Lucky dog."

"Shhh. You must not speak so of the Master."

O.K. How'd you get here, honey?

"I was converted. Back there," she waved a hand vaguely again, "I was a stripteuse. But I learned the Secret Ritual and was admitted."

"A stripteuse?"

"A stripteuse."

"O.K. Teuse me. "

She frowned again. "Sheldon. We are not crude here."

She sat down on the velvety green grass, pulled me down at her side, and pillowed my cheek against her soft white breast. Somebody was pulling my arm, but I didn't want to leave. I looked around. There was another one. Her twin. The only difference was that this one wore an emerald.

The emerald pulled vigorously on my arm. She had a soft white breast, too. I couldn't make up my mind whether I liked the ruby better, or the emerald.

I had to leave it all behind. Tracy was shaking my arm. No emerald. I was sprawled out on my side. The soft white breast my cheek was nestled against was the dirty wooden floor.

I sat up. "Hi," I said. Half-remembered visions of jewels and champagne and twins floated through my foggy brain.

I said, "I've just had a look inside me, Tracy. I'm a horrible lecher."

"What are you talking about, Mr. Scott?"

"Dunno. Still asleep."

"What are we going to do, Mr. Scott? What are we going to do?"

"Huh? What time is it?"

"I don't know."

I remembered I had a watch. It said six o'clock. "Good Lord! Did I sleep all day?"

"Oh, a long time. I dozed, myself. What are we going to do, Mr. Scott?"

She had me there. I slapped my face a little to wake myself up, and my jaw damn near fell off. Pain ran up to my skull, lifted it, then slammed it back down on the jagged edges. That was enough to start it all over again. I ran my hand gingerly over the swelling on my face and everything came back to me. I got up and started pacing the room. Tracy sat down in the chair and I looked at it as if I'd never seen it before. An idea started fermenting in my brain. I stole another thought from the dream I'd just had, and the outlook got brighter.

Ten minutes later I walked over to where Tracy was sitting and squatted down beside her.

"I've got an idea. You probably won't like it, but it's the only thing I can think of that might work. Look, kid, you've got a pretty good notion what's going to happen to us, don't you?"

She ran her tongue over her lips and nodded slowly.

I said, "You've been lucky so far, but after last night's developments—and this morning's—there isn't much doubt about what they'll do. They've probably just been waiting till it got dark. It should darn near be dark now. That means anything we pull has to be pulled in a hurry, and we won't get two chances. One break in our favor, those guys didn't tie either of us up. Maybe because they'd like nothing better than an excuse to shoot us both. They're killers, Tracy. All they need is an excuse. That means this thing has to be done right the first time. And you're the star of the show. It sounds nutty, Tracy, but it's the only way I think it might work. Got that?"

"Yes." She was a little scared, but she was game.

"O.K., honey. Here's the play." I gave it to her, then went right back over it again. "All right?"

"All…all right." She smiled wryly and added, "I guess it's better than dying."

I grinned. "Baby, you've got a lot to learn." Then I grabbed her by the shoulder and squeezed gently. "Don't worry, kid. It'll come out O.K."

She got up and I picked up the chair and looked it over. It had a thick seat, with legs about an inch in diameter and glued in. I put the chair bottom-up on the floor and twisted hard on one of the front legs. I pressed down on the seat and heard the crack as the leg broke loose and bent from the seat. I worked on the other front leg and it, luckily, was already loose. I pulled it clear out of the hole where it had been glued, then shoved it loosely back in. I cracked the back part way through—not a clean break—and set the chair down on the floor. It stood up on the busted legs, but it was tilted at about a thirty-degree angle.

"O.K., kid," I said. "Remember this has to be timed right and it has to be fast. We can't give the guy time to stop and think. He's just got to be carried along too fast to figure it out."

She nodded and took off her dress.

I took the dress from her and dropped it on the floor where it would be hidden when the door was open. I kept my back toward Tracy and waited.

"Mr. Scott…Shell."

"Yeah?"

"I can't break it. I…I'm not strong enough."

I turned around. She'd torn the pink slip she'd worn under the dress so that it hung free of her body, dangling from the one unbroken shoulder strap. She had both hands bunched at the center of her brassiere, tugging on it.

I walked over to her and she let her hands drop. I wrapped the fingers of both my hands around the center of the brassiere, gave one quick jerk, and the heavy cloth parted.

I wondered why I'd been calling her kid.

She blushed and the pink glow covered her from her ankles to the roots of her brown hair. I turned my eyes away from her and said, "Sorry, ki—Tracy. This has to be right."

"I know, Shell. It's all right."

I picked up the chair and handed it to her. She grabbed it by the back and lifted it over her head, her back to the door.

I reached up to the light scab that had formed where my own gun had slugged me and scraped it off. Blood crept down over my chin and I smeared my hand in it and rubbed it on my forehead and down the right side of my face. I said, "O.K., Tracy, here we go." I put my fist against my mouth and let out a muffled yell. No words, just noise. I banged my feet against the floor.

The footsteps came charging down the hall. I winked at Tracy. She swallowed twice in succession, rapidly, her eyes staring, her breath coming faster, her lips pressed tightly together.

I scraped my feet on the floor and banged some more. The key clicked in the lock and I nodded to Tracy.

She screamed.

God, how she screamed! It damn near curdled my blood, and I'd been expecting it. The door flew open and I lunged at Tracy.

She came through as if she was living it. Only she made a mistake. She screamed again and rammed the chair down hard on my head. But she misjudged it a little and the heavy seat lit on my scalp. It damn near split my head open, but the chair splintered where I'd cracked it, and twisted in her hands. I got a glimpse of one of the twins leaping through the door with his gun raised and pointing into the room as I crumpled and let myself fall heavily forward on my face.

He snarled, "What the hell! Then I heard him take one step toward me and his pointed shoe dug into my ribs. I gritted my teeth together, my head clearing.

Tracy sobbed, "He tried to…" then screamed again.

I heard a masculine voice mutter softly, "Well, whadda ya know? Well, goddamn." I risked opening an eye.

He was standing about a yard from me, but for a second he didn't know I was there. He was partly turned, looking at Tracy, his automatic angled slightly toward the floor.

She had her arms raised high, her fists buried in her hair, sobbing, her shoulders shaking, bare breasts swelling from the shreds of her clothing.

For just a breath he stared at her and stopped thinking; just a moment. For the space of a couple of heartbeats he let his guard down.

It was time enough.

I got my feet under me and was in a half crouch coming up off the floor by the time a startled gasp burst out of his lips and he swung toward me. He didn't have a chance. I got my shoulder behind my fist and came up out of the crouch hard into his stomach. The breath screamed out of his mouth like steam bursting from a safety valve, and his eyes bugged. I slammed my left hand into the thick hair on his head, jerked him up, and smashed my right fist three times into his face. I felt the crunch of his teeth and pain ripped through the back of my hand.

I let go of him and he crumpled like a soggy scarecrow. I scooped his automatic off the floor as someone raced down the hall outside. I snapped up the muzzle of the gun and started pulling the trigger as the other twin turned in the hall and sprinted in through the doorway with his gun raised.

I fired four times, but I could have saved the last three. The first bullet tore through his throat. Blood spurted from his jugular vein and splattered on the wooden floor. For a second it didn't even slow him down. His momentum carried him halfway across the room; then his feet faltered, and he pitched forward on his face and lay in a pool of spreading crimson.

I grabbed Tracy's dress from behind the door, shoved it under my belt, and started out. Tracy was still standing where she'd been when I climbed off the floor. Her mouth was stretched tight and her eyes were blank, turned toward the body of the dead guy. Her right hand was pressed against the hollow of her throat.

I stepped up to her and slapped her with my left hand.

She jerked her eyes to me and I said, "Come on." She let out her breath in a sigh and ran after me down the hall.

I didn't have any idea what was coming next, but I kept the automatic ready in my right hand as I came to the top of the stairs. I ran down them, turned, and waited for Tracy. She ran down the stairs two at a time, her clothes flying. She came up beside me and I grabbed her hand and pulled her after me.

We were in what looked like the huge front room of one of those old houses built about 1880. I found the front door and stepped out onto a porch. We were in a residential district with trees along the streets and a few lights brightening the gathering darkness. In a driveway at the right of the house was a long black car. It looked like the same one that, together with the one Miguel had been in, had blocked the road for me the night before. I hoped to God the keys were in it.

They were.

I helped Tracy in on the driver's side, then slid in myself and got the hell out of there. I tossed Tracy her dress and she wriggled into it. I damn near ran into a mailbox.

"Tracy," I said, "I'm sorry about that up there. The clothes business, the mess. And the slap on your face. But we were in a spot and I didn't know; there might have been some more boys around outside. You know what I mean."

"I know what you mean, Shell. Thanks."

"But, baby," I said, "you damn near busted my skull."

She laughed. And then she started to cry like a baby.

Women.

At the Martin place on Van Ness I got out and opened the car door for her. I went with her up the steps and inside the front door of the house, then turned her around.

"Now listen," I told her. "Stay here. Stay inside. You've got guns in the house?"

She nodded. "Dad's got a whole arsenal."

"O.K. Give some to the servants. Keep one yourself. And don't budge out of this place. I'll send somebody out here and I'll get in touch later. Now beat it."

She looked at me for a minute, then put her arms around my neck, lifted herself up, and kissed me on the lips. Not like a little girl. She turned and ran up the carpeted steps toward the second floor.

I blinked after her. I hadn't thought about it at the time back there at the old house, but she'd sure looked cute running down those stairs.

Chapter Ten

CORNELL MARTIN STEPPED out of the doorway to his study on my right. He hurried toward me, holding out his right hand.

"Let me shake your hand, Mr. Scott. I saw Tracy running upstairs. What's the matter? Is she all right?"

"Yeah. She's O.K."

He pumped my hand up and down and asked, "Where was she? What happened?"

"In a minute, Mr. Martin. I'd like to use your phone."

"Certainly. Certainly. This way."

He led me to a stand beneath the stairs up which Tracy had run. I grabbed it, dialed, and got Samson.

"Sam? Shell. You know a pair of ugly twins? Peter and Paul Seipel?"

"By reputation. No wants on 'em. Why?"

"I just had a run-in with the mugs. I left them upstairs in a big two-story house out on Aloha Street. Second house off St. George. Don't know the number. One of them's dead; the other one's knocked out. He may not be there now. It's been about twenty minutes."

"What the hell? What happened? Hey, you O.K.?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. I couldn't call you sooner. Those guys were holding the sister of the Martin girl out there. I brought her home."

"Damn you, Shell. O.K., we'll get out there."

"And Sam. This Tracy. Tracy Martin—the sister. Somebody might try for her again. She's home now, but it would help a lot if somebody could keep an eye around there."

"Yeah, yeah. What else, Commissioner?"

"That's all, Sam. I'll recommend you for promotion."

"You go to hell!"

"Yes, sir. I'll be down to see you later."

"Don't make it too much later. I got to sleep, too, pal. A bachelor like you wouldn't understand, but my wife misses me when I stay here twenty-four hours a day."

I told him to quit pulling my leg, and hung up.

I turned to Cornell Martin. His face was puzzled. "Holding her?" he asked. "But why?" His blue eyes stared at me and he rubbed one thin finger alongside his sharp nose.

"Frankly, Mr. Martin, I'm not sure. I was lucky to find her, and luckier to get her here. Tracy can tell you about it."

"Do you know who…who killed Georgia?"

"No. I've got some ideas, but I'll keep working on it. Mr. Martin, Tracy said you had guns in the house. That right?"

"Yes. I have a fine collection."

"Just so they shoot. If I can make a suggestion—same one I just made to your daughter keep some of them loaded and handy just to be on the safe side."

"I shall. I see what you mean."

"I think there'll be someone out from the police department, but it wouldn't hurt, anyway."

He was looking at me curiously, at my face and my clothes. "Good Lord," he breathed. "I was so pleased to see Tracy, I hardly noticed the condition you were in. Are you all right?"

"Yeah. Look, I've got to take off. I don't have anything definite to give you now, but when I have I'll check back."

He smiled. "Tracy is definite enough for me, Mr. Scott," he said warmly. "Do whatever you think best; I'm sincerely grateful. Oh, and I've mailed you a check."

I opened my mouth, but he cut me off characteristically. "Say no more about it. Can I offer you a drink.

"No, thanks. Next time, maybe. You might not hear from me for a day or two—I'm a one-man agency, no secretaries or anything—but when I have something solid I'll phone or come back out."

He shook my hand. "That will be fine, Mr. Scott. Thank you. Oh, and Mr. Scott—there are some peculiar red smudges on your mouth."

He grinned gleefully at me as I wiped off Tracy's lipstick.

I parked across from the Spartan Apartment Hotel, went up to my room, and let myself in.

Lina put down the quart bottle of bourbon she'd been preparing to bat me with, stepped back from the door, and shrieked, "Dios mío! What happened to you?"

"Hi," I said.

"But what happened?"

"I had an argument."

"This argument. Did you lose?"

I chuckled. "Nope. I won. Just barely."

"Pobrecito," she sighed.

"Be right back," I said. "You won't know me. Mix us a drink, Lina."

I went through the bedroom into the bathroom and took a look. Friend, I was one God-awful mess. The blood I'd smeared on my face was dried and ugly-looking, and my jaw swelled out like a misplaced goiter. On each shoulder, the tan gabardine was laid open and white tufts of cotton and cloth stuck up like comic epaulets. Where there wasn't blood on my face there was dirt from the floor I'd slept on, faintly streaked with perspiration. I looked as if I'd been resurrected after a week in a moldy grave.

It pained me to do it, but I climbed out of the suit, cleaned out the pockets, and stuffed two hundred bucks' worth of cloth into the wastebasket. I saved the suspenders.

A hot and cold shower made me feel better and look more like myself. In the bedroom I dropped shirt, shorts, and socks into the laundry bag, climbed into clean shorts, and picked out the teal-blue, tropic-weight, double-breasted suit from the four left in the closet. A white shirt with a wide, spread collar, a blue and yellow tie, knit wool argyles, and a pair of barely broken-in cordovan shoes, and I was ready to start all over again.

When I got back into the living room the combination of Lina and the bourbon and water she handed me made me feel like spending a quiet evening at home, but I knew that was out. The mess was coming to a boil and I wanted to be around when it spilled over.

Lina had discarded the costume she wore in her act and had on one of my white dress shirts and a pair of dark-brown gabardine trousers rolled up so they didn't drag on the floor. The black hair she'd worn piled high on top of her head was loose and fluffy around her shoulders, and an old pair of my slippers flopped around on her small feet when she walked. She was dressed like a man, but she didn't look like one; she didn't even look like a boy. I told her so.

She laughed. "You are the man. Come, sit down with me."

I shook my head and stayed on my feet. I knew better.

"Sorry, honey. I've got to leave right away. Couple things I've got to do."

"But you have been gone so long, Shell. I was worried. All day you were gone. I wish you to stay with me a little. I am lonesome."

"I know it, Lina. So's Georgia." I downed my drink and put the glass on the coffee table. "So long, pepper pot. I'll see you later."

She pouted. "I will call the doctor. With his soft hands he will bandage me."

"Uh-huh," I growled. "With my soft hands I'll wring your neck, too. You're strictly out of touch with everybody for a while. See?"

"I see."

At the door I turned and said, "You stick tight. See you later."

"Marrano cochino!"

"Sure, kid. Same to you."

She stuck out her tongue at me and shut the door in my face.

I'd been sitting in my Cadillac, off the road and under some trees at the side of Silver Lake Boulevard, for over an hour and nothing had happened. The black buggy I'd swiped to take Tracy home in was down at Headquarters, and I'd since picked up my Cad where I'd left it before visiting Narda's sunrise services what seemed like days before. Apparently nobody had paid any attention to it where it had been parked; at least it didn't blow up when I started it.

I looked at my watch. Almost eleven o'clock Sunday night. It had been quite a day. I was starting to wonder if maybe staking out at the IW temple hadn't been a waste of time, but I decided to give it another half hour.

I didn't have to wait that long. In less than ten minutes, a banged-up little coupe raffled down Silver Lake Boulevard from the direction of town and turned in the graveled drive alongside the temple. About all I could see was that there was one guy alone inside it. I patted the little .32 automatic in my pocket, wondering if Sam's boys had got out to Aloha Street in time to pick up the twin I'd left sprawled out there with his dead brother. If they hadn't, there wasn't much doubt that one Seipel was gunning for one Shell Scott. It wasn't a particularly happy thought.

The coupé stopped halfway down the drive and a guy got out. I was too far away to get a good look, but it seemed as if he was carrying something in his hand. He walked to a door in the side of the house and was let inside immediately.

I slipped out of the car and trotted across the street and down the drive. Opposite the house, on the far side of the driveway, was the clump of thick bushes and tall eucalyptus trees I'd noticed on my first visit there. I left the drive, went into the bushes, and squatted down where I'd be hidden, but had a good view of the door the guy had gone in. The car was only about ten feet from me.

I'd no more than got settled when the door opened again and the guy came out. In the brief splash of light as the door opened, I saw the turbaned, black-robed Narda framed in the doorway for a second before he shut the door. The guy climbed into his coupé, went in reverse out into the street, and started back the way he'd come.

I'd sure learned a lot. I was really sleuthing. I knew from nothing.

I sprinted back to my car, slipped it into gear, and followed the bouncing taillight up ahead. Twenty minutes later he turned off Hollywood Boulevard into a parking lot beside the Cinema Hotel. I ducked into an empty parking spot about fifty feet before I reached the lot, got out, and started walking down the sidewalk. He came out of the lot just before I reached it and I got a good look at him. I'd never seen him before. He was a kid in his twenties, nice-looking, about five-eleven or maybe six feet. He was wearing dark slacks, a vivid sport coat, and a multicolored sport shirt buttoned at the throat. He turned and walked up the steps of the Cinema Hotel. Me too. A sign out front said, "No Vacancies."

He paused inside the door and lit a cigarette. I walked up to the desk.

"Good evening," I said. "Any vacancies?"

The clerk took a mangled pencil out of his mouth and said, "Nup." Then he looked past me. "Hi, Jord." He reached into one of the pigeonholes behind him, pulled out the key to 316, and tossed it to the kid I'd been tailing. He went on up the stairs.

I said to the clerk, "Thanks. You've been a great help."

"Nothin'," he mumbled, the pencil back in his mouth.

"Mind if I take the load off my feet for a minute?"

"Nup."

I sat down on a couch and waited for ten minutes to go by. I wanted the kid to be relaxed, maybe even in bed, when I went up.

At eleven-forty I glanced over at the clerk. His back was to me and he was reading the late edition of the Examiner. He didn't even budge when I got up and quietly walked across the floor and upstairs.

I knocked softly on the door of 316.

Springs squeaked inside, then a voice on the other side of the door said, "What is it?"

I didn't say anything. I knocked again.

The door opened about halfway and the kid stood looking out at me. He had on a brown robe and his hair was rumpled. A partly filled highball glass was in his right hand. I walked right inside, past him, and sat down on the edge of the bed.

"What the devil goes on here?" he exploded. "Just who the hell do you think you are?"

I still didn't say anything. I looked him over. He wasn't much over twenty-four or twenty-five and he was a nice, pleasant-looking guy. I couldn't figure where he fitted into a setup like the Inner World bunch.

He came over and stood in front of me, left hand jammed into the pocket of his robe. "I don't know what you want, mister," he said quietly, "but I do know I don't like people busting in on me." He looked me up and down. "I don't know if I can toss you out on your ear or not, but if you don't tell me what you're doing here, I'm sure gonna try."

I peered up at him. "You don't look like a hired killer. You don't look like any I ever saw."

His eyes bugged at me. "What the hell are you talking about?" He laughed a little, then sobered. "Hired killer? You kidding?"

I shook my head. "Uh-uh. That was my first guess. You don't keep very good company, friend."

He pulled up a chair and sat down in it. "Will you please gimme the score? You don't make any sense at all. Who are you, anyway?"

"Scott. Shell Scott. I'm—"

"The hell. I know you. Heard about you, I mean. Got anything to prove it?"

I tossed him my wallet and he looked through it and tossed it back to me. "This is good," he chuckled. "I'll be damned. Maybe I can use it." He chuckled some more.

"It's not funny, friend. I followed you into town from Silver Lake Boulevard. I saw you go in that phony temple and I tailed you back here. I'm curious to know what you've got to do with an outfit like Inner World."

"Is that all?" He took a swallow at his drink and grinned. "This is gonna kill you. I'm a Writer, Scott. Jordan Arthur Brent, that's me. You never heard of me, but I'm Narda's thunder."

Well, well. He started making a little sense. I said slowly, "There's been at least one murder that I know about and a couple more tries, not to mention a kidnapping and God knows what else. And that Narda you mentioned so casually is mixed up in all of it some way."

"Murder!" He stared at me. "On the level?"

"On the level. And if you're pulling my leg with this surprise act, I won't forget about it."

He took a long breath and blew it out through his lips. "Good God Almighty," he breathed, "I could use another drink. How about you?"

I told him O.K. and he dug in a drawer, I took my hand out of my coat pocket when he came up with a bottle, not a gun. A bottle of bonded bourbon, yet. I warmed to this guy. He said, "You'll have to take water, Scott. Nothing else here."

Yes, sir, a prince of a fellow, this Brent.

He got another glass from the bathroom and mixed a couple of healthy highballs. He handed me one, then sat down again in front of me.

"Honest to Christ," he said, "you knocked me for a loop. Bring me up to date, huh?"

"First, what were you doing out at Narda's tonight?"

"Like I told you, I'm a writer. Wanna see my rejection slips? The hell with it. Anyway, I fell into this deal. I scribble off a bunch of guff about 'the mind is all,' and 'I will take you by your little hand, madame,' and for that I get fifty bucks per copy. And no rejection slips. Softest touch I ever saw. How you think I got this bourbon? Saturday Evening Post? Nope, old holy Narda, that's how."

"That what you were doing out there tonight?"

"Fact. Took him out a speech. A beauty. Listen to this. 'Disciples, Disciples—'"

"Never mind. I've been out there."

"Yeah? Pretty good, huh? When'd you dig it?"

"This morning. Never mind that. What else do you know about Narda or his racket?"

"Racket is right. Did you ever see such stuff? He must be coining the dough, though. Trouble is, Scott, I don't know much about it. All I do is write the stuff and take it out there at a certain time, prearranged. Always the same way: Knock on the door, give Narda the stuff, collect my fifty bucks. And by the way, for the love of Pete, keep it under your hat. That's one of the reasons I get the fifty—keep my mouth shut. You kind of surprised me, and besides, you're sort of a cop, so I thought it'd be all right." He walked over to the dresser and dug a fifty-dollar bill out of his wallet. "Look at that," he said, and planted a big kiss on Grant's whiskers. "Love it. Love it. Hey! You're not gonna mess this deal up, are you?"

"Maybe. If I'm lucky I am. Look, you might be able to help me. Anything you know about Narda or his gang might help. How about it?"

He thought a minute. "I'm afraid I don't know much."

"What did you mean, prearranged? You said you go out there at a prearranged time."

"Well, they call me when they want some new stuff and tell me to come around on such and such a date at a certain hour exactly. Like tonight it was eleven o'clock."

"Any idea why?"

"Uh-uh. Unless they don't want me messing up a conversion or something. Anyhow, they always give me a time. That's all I know."

"Who calls you?"

"Narda usually. Sometimes that babe of his."

"Babe of his?"

"Yeah. The one that's always making goo-goo eyes at him like he's really got it."

"I think I know the one you mean," I said. "Loren."

"Yeah. That's the one. Course, I don't know anything, but times I been out there when they were together, they both looked at each other like they were sick at the stomach. Never lay a hand on each other, though. Not while I was around, anyway."

"Anxious for you to leave, though, huh?"

He took a big pull at his drink, made a face, then said, "I thought about that, Scott. But they're funny together. Long looks and all that sort of thing, but the way they act, I'd bet a buck he's never laid a hand on her. Platonic, that's the word."

"Platonic."

"Uh-huh. I make it a point to notice people, Scott. That's my business—kind of like it's yours, I guess, only in a little different way. Yes, sir, I'd bet a buck."

"O.K. How'd you fall into this job? Narda hire you? And who is the guy?"

"Don't know who he is. Seems like nobody knows. Just Narda's all there is. Funny how I got the job. Here I am with no checks coming in. Maybe once in two, three months. Really hard up. Well, I did some odd jobs for folding money, and one of them was a publicity job for this little night- club. The old gal liked it so well that about a month later here she comes with a proposition and gives me the address of old Narda."

"This gal," I said, just as if I didn't have the faintest idea. "Who was this gal?"

"Don't remember her name, but she was the most God-awful old bag I ever saw in my life."

I let that seep in. The "most God-awful old bag I ever saw" could be nobody but Mrs. Margaret Remorse. Enter Maggie again. I said, "This night, club. Could it have been a little dive called El Cuchillo?"

"Yeah!" He snapped his fingers. "I'd forgotten—so long ago. Now how the devil did you know that?"

I didn't explain. Instead I asked him, "How long ago was this—when you started the stuff for Narda?"

"Let's see…about a year back. Yeah, almost exactly a year now."

"And you don't have any idea who this guy is that calls himself Narda?"

"Nope. I went out to see him. Him in his fancy robes and turban—who's he think he's kidding? Always decked out like a sultan. Anyway, we gab a little and he tells me he wants speeches—you know, you heard one. He tells me about what he wants, then he tells me what I'm to get paid and he's got a deal so fast it must have made him dizzy. Fifty bucks. Man!"

"How often you take him this stuff?"

He shook his head. "Not much any more, damn it. At the first, I did a whole flock of the things. Thirty of 'em. Christ, that was fifteen hundred bucks. I'm still using it. Now it's only once, maybe twice a month. Hell, they can use the same ones over and over. The suckers don't know the difference. Besides, he gets a new bunch—class, I guess you'd call it—about every month. 'Novitiates,' he said they were. They graduate or something."

Something else was puzzling me. "How's he make any money? I didn't see any collection plates."

"Must have been a new bunch—first time. He usually starts them off on a Sunday. About every fourth Sunday. I wrote him some special tripe for those deals. I've been to a few of the things. Don't worry, the old collection plate comes out soon enough. When you're hooked good. He does all right."

"Yeah. I imagine he does." I still couldn't figure the mess out, but maybe I'd got a little more to tie in with the rest when it started making sense. I'd been making headway on the bourbon, and Brent took the glass from my hand.

"Mix you another." he said.

"Thanks. Make it light." While he mixed the drinks, I ran over the few things I had in my head. There was starting to be a glimmer. I played with it and it got better. But it still wasn't good enough.

When Brent handed me the drink, I was working on an idea. I said, "Got anything else you can give me?"

"Can't think of anything. I just take the drivel out there, get my dough, and flash out."

"O.K.," I said. "You can help if you want to. Maybe. How about it?"

He thought a minute. "I could be cutting my own throat, but I'll go along. If you weren't kidding about murder, count me in."

"I wasn't kidding."

O.K. Who got murdered?"

I shook my head. "It wouldn't make any difference to you. The less you know, the better for you. Now, how about the setup out at the temple? And have you got a phone number you can call Narda on?"

"Yeah. I got a number. But I don't know much about the layout. Sometimes I go in the front in a big, black-draped room and just wait there, and sometimes I go to Narda's room, like tonight. You know where that is—on the side—if you saw me out there."

"Ever see anybody else there besides Narda?"

"Just that doll. That Loren. Sometimes I'd hear others, but they never came in."

"Where's the phone in the house?"

"I never saw it, but I heard it ring. Seems like it was just outside the big front room."

I let it fit together in my head. Then I said, "You said you had the number. Who generally answers?"

"Sometimes Narda. Sometimes one of the women."

"O.K. If you want to help, do this." I looked at my watch; it was a minute or two before twelve-thirty. "Put in a call out there at exactly one o'clock. Exactly. If Narda answers, fine. If not, get him. You've got to talk to Narda himself. Then when you can get him on the line, keep him there as long as you can. I don't care what you give him, but hold him if you can do it without making him leery. Can you do that?"

He frowned. "Sure. I guess so. What for?"

"The less you know about it, the better. One other thing. If he should hang up, call him again, fast. Right away. Let the phone ring two or three times or till someone answers, then hang up. Hang up and forget all about it. Got it?"

"Got it. Call him, get Narda, hold him, then if he hangs up I call him right back and hang up myself. Kinda nutty, don't you think? You used to bourbon?"

I grinned at him. "Yeah. I'm used to bourbon. Just don't forget. One o'clock sharp. What time you got now?"

He got his watch off the dresser and peered at it. "At the gong, it will be exactly twelve-thirty. Gong."

My watch checked. "You seem O.K., Brent," I said. "But if you're pulling my leg, I'll come back and break your neck."

He grinned. "You look like you could do it. But it's all straight, Scott. Let rife know what cooks."

"Sure. Mighty good bourbon you serve here. Thanks. Try some of mine sometime. It's the same stuff." I got up.

He stuck out his hand. "I'll make the call."

I shook his hand. He grinned lopsidedly and said, "And peace be with you, brother."

Chapter Eleven

I WAS SPENDING a lot of time in these damn bushes. It smelled damp and musty, but I waited and smoked a cigarette cupped in my palm till exactly twelve-fifty-nine. I snubbed out the cigarette, made sure the little automatic was in the right-hand pocket of my coat, then walked quickly across the graveled drive. My feet made little scraping sounds on the gravel, but I walked right up to Narda's door and waited. A thin slice of light showed under the door, and I could hear someone pacing back and forth inside. Narda must have things on his mind.

I checked my watch again. One on the nose. The phone rang inside. Brent was right on time.

The phone kept ringing, then it stopped suddenly. In about thirty seconds I could hear somebody knocking on the far door of Narda's room.

The sound of pacing stopped abruptly. The mellow voice I remembered from Sunday morning said, "Yes? What is it?"

"It's me, darling. Loren."

"Yes. What is it? What is it?" Rather brusque, I thought.

"It's Mr. Brent on the phone. He wants to talk to you."

"Can't it wait till morning? What an idiotic hour! What time is it?"

"One o'clock. Open the door."

"No!"

Silence for a moment. Then, "Are you coming?"

"Yes. I'll be right out. And…forgive me, Loren. I didn't mean to be so abrupt. I was taking a nap."

"Of course."

I heard Narda moving around again. About two minutes later, I heard him open the door and shut it behind him. I pulled the keys I'd brought with me out of my pocket and had the door unlocked in thirty seconds. I held my breath, cracked the door open, and peered in. Empty. The bed was rumpled and the light was still on, but the far door was closed. I eased quickly inside and shut the door behind me. I got busy.

I looked over the room. Bed, chair, dresser, closet, and an open door leading into the bathroom. I gave the closet a quick peek. Robes and turbans, that was all. If he had any business suits, they were someplace else. I knew I wouldn't have much time, so I shut the closet door and started going through the dresser. I found shaving tools, talcum, handkerchiefs, shorts—nothing important. I turned around and something sticking out from under one of the pillows on the rumpled bed caught my eye. If Narda was sleeping on something, it might be good. I went over and jerked out two registers that looked familiar. I opened one and took a look. It was the same kind of register I'd signed at the sunrise service. I flipped the pages till I came to a blank spot. I checked the last entries, and sure enough, third from the bottom was "Francis Joyne." I didn't see any other familiar names. I started to look into the other register, flipped it open, and noticed it also was a list of scrawled signatures.

Outside, the phone rang.

Damnit to hell, Narda must have hung up. He was probably on his way back to the room, and I didn't have what I'd really come for. I stuck the registers under my arm and made a jump for the bathroom, found the switch, and flicked it on. The first thing my eye lit on was a drinking glass over the washbasin. I stuck my fingers down inside it, whirled, snapped off the light, and took two quick steps back across the bedroom.

The phone had stopped ringing and I could hear the vibration of footsteps close in the hall. I yanked the door in front of me open, stepped outside, and shut the door.

Not a second too soon. I heard Narda come into the room at almost the same instant I shut the door. I stood a minute, listening. Nothing happened. I got out of there.

I barged inside the City Hall and started for the elevators. The uniformed man that stands—or rather sits—guard over the register in the lobby said, "Hey!"

I walked back to him.

"Sign," he said.

"No bombs. No plot."

"Sign."

"Real name?" Hell, I wasn't trying to be smart. I thought we could make jokes and be happy.

"Sign?"

I signed. This gent had no sense of humor whatsoever. I don't suppose I would either if I sat in a big lobby in a nice uniform with a nice book, and then stupid lugs like me walked right on by without signing. Miserable of me. Oh, well. I took the elevator to the Spring Street floor.

Sam stuck the long, black cigar back in his mouth when I came in. "Wondered when you'd show up," he said around the cigar. "Where the hell you been? My wife's gonna divorce me if this keeps up."

"And a good thing it would be for the poor woman," I said. I briefed Sam on what had happened to me up till the time I'd called him from Cornell Martin's, then added, "Just now I been raising hell. Including breaking and entering."

Sam pulled a wooden kitchen match out of his pocket, looked at it, laid it on the desk, and took the cigar out of his mouth. "Breaking and entering," he growled. He stuck his big chin out at me. "Breaking and entering. Didn't kill anybody else, did you? And what the hell you doing with that silly glass?"

I was holding the glass upside down, my fingers stuck up inside it. He reached for it.

I yanked it out of the way. "Uh-uh. Mustn't touch. One of the things I broke and entered for. Fingerprints."

"Fingerprints? Whose fingerprints?"

"I got the glass out of Narda's bathroom. It's logical to assume they're Narda's. No?"

"Yeah. What's this 'no'?"

"Company I keep. Anyway, since nobody seems to know who this Narda character really is, and since I think he's a crook from 'way back, maybe if we get prints, we can find out who the guy is."

"Yeah."

"O.K. How soon can you get the dope on this if there's latent prints you can lift?"

"After we lift them, or get pictures—if you haven't messed them all up like you probably have—we check here. If that's no good, we'll check Sacramento, and put them on the wire down to San Diego and back to Washington. If it's got to be fast, we can probably get an answer back in just a few hours from the FBI in Washington. We've got identification in two hours before this."

"Efficient," I said.

"Damn right, efficient. Don't believe all you read in the paper. We're plenty damn efficient." He twisted his big mouth up. "No?"

I grinned at him. "Yeah. How about the Seipels?"

"You took long enough to ask, Shell. Also, you took long enough phoning in. Result, we get one Seipel. The other one's taken a walk. We don't know where yet."

"Great. Sorry, Sam. I was more interested in the girl."

"I sent a man out there to talk to her. Too bad you couldn't stay and hold her hand, Romeo."

I got a charge out of Sam. He was gruff, and sometimes he made with the wisecracks, but he was a damn good cop, and he just ribbed me for fun. He'd have stuck his neck out for me—and he could have had my right arm if he'd asked for it. He wouldn't ask, though. That's the kind of guy he was.

I asked, "You didn't see my gun out there, did you?"

"No. No guns at all. You throw yours away?"

"Yeah. I left in a hurry. Something else, Sam. I want an opinion."

"On what?"

I reached into my inside pocket and pulled out the funny-looking, funny-tasting cigarette I'd put in my pocket when I changed suits—the cigarette I'd got off Maggie's desk at El Cuchillo. I gave it to Sam and said, "I picked this up yesterday. Just before I went in to see Narda, I took a few big drags on it before it dawned on me it was screwy. Could that be a got-butt?"

He took the cigarette from me, split open the end, and looked at the tobacco. Then he lit it and took a puff.

"Marijuana? Hell, no. It's just a cigarette. Off brand." He squinted at one end. "Here. The name's stamped right on the paper. Sounds like a Mexican cigarette."

I lit a Lucky and tried to feel my level best. It didn't work. "It is," I said. "That's what it is, a Mexican cigarette."

"What you pulling, Shell? This a joke of some kind?"

"No joke. Joke's on me. I'm laughing. Look, Sam, you'll check the prints, huh?"

"We'll check the prints. Oh, yeah. That car you swiped. It was registered to Paul Seipel. He's the dead one."

"Paul's the dead one? Then Peter's probably looking for me."

"Probably."

I got up. I hadn't told Sam about the registers I'd picked up at Narda's. I would, but I wanted to give them a little going-over first. "Say hello to the wife," I said. "I think she's a brave little woman."

Chapter Twelve

THE GUPPIES ALL crowded up against the front of the aquarium and darted back and forth when I stuck my nose in front of the tank. I was a low character—the fish in the office hadn't been fed since Saturday afternoon. Sometimes it's good for them, though. Fact, I sprinkled a little sardine meal in the feeding ring and they ricocheted off each other trying to get there first. I checked the water temperature, then went over and sat down behind my desk.

You look at my desk and you'd think I made a hundred grand a year before taxes, and brother, would you be wrong! The desk is a solid, heavy chunk of mahogany I got after successfully completing a jewel job, and it makes the office look as if things get done in it. As a matter of fact, about the only time I spend in the office is when I come in to pick up mail addressed there and to feed the fish, or when I'm just sitting waiting for a job to turn up.

Besides the desk, there's the swivel chair behind it, a couple of leather chairs for clients, one empty filing cabinet and one nearly full, and a bookcase stuffed with the Encyclopedia Britannica, Who's Who, and a three-volume set of Frank Harris' My Life and Loves, among other things, on top of the bookcase, a ten-gallon aquarium containing the dozen guppies. Dark-blue wall-to-wall carpet, and that's it.

I'd brought the two registers with me and I had an idea they might turn out to be plenty important, so I looked around for a place to hide them. Finally I cut half the insides out of two old copies of True—sacrilege—and stuck one register in each. They fitted nicely, so I left the magazines in plain sight on top of the desk. Hardly original, but good enough.

I put my cordovans on the desk—gingerly—and leaned back in the swivel chair. The last time I'd been in here had been when I'd talked to Georgia. Georgia Martin. Back when it had all started. How long ago had it been? A month, it seemed like, but actually, just thirty-six hours before. From two o'clock on a gloomy Saturday afternoon to two o'clock on a dismal Monday morning. Thirty-six hours punctuated by violent death and soft lips, hypnotic phrases and the hot breath of guns.

I shut my eyes for a minute and pictures danced through my brain: Lina in black shorts and scarlet bolero, screaming and leaping from the path of a thrown knife; piercing eyes under a white turban; blood spurting from a dying man's throat; the shy glance of a green-eyed girl, blushing from head to toe; an imposing figure with arms raised, under a huge, almost nebulous portrait; a fat woman slapping her stomach and wheezing; a white arm sliding slowly down the seat of a car, twitching once…

I jerked myself upright in the chair and dragged my feet off the desk. I looked at my watch. Two-thirty. I'd come close to falling asleep for the night.

I got up, stretched, and took the little .32 automatic out of my coat pocket. I pulled out the clip and looked at it. Two rounds left. I felt naked without my .38 under my arm. I wondered where that sweet little Colt was. The last time I'd seen it was when Paul Seipel had lifted it out of my holster when Narda and I were getting along so famously. And me? I've got one gun. Uh-huh, one whole gun. No arsenal. You know why? In the first place, it's all I need. In my business you need a gun, sure. You need it maybe one case out of ten. Nine times out of ten you'll never need it. It's that tenth time. If you don't have it then, there may never be an eleventh. And also in my business, if you get your gun taken away from you, usually you either get it back or you don't have any more use for guns. Or anything. I'd just been lucky, but that left me with plenty of cartridges for a .38 revolver, but a .32 automatic in my pocket.

Two-thirty of a Monday morning, and I still had a long way to go before everything fitted. The pattern was getting clearer as it got crazier, and the clearer it grew, the more vicious and evil it became. I got up, turned off the light over the aquarium, flicked off the overhead bulbs, and went down to the street. I had a hankering to see the mountainous Mrs. Remorse again.

It was a little after two-thirty, but there was a chance I could catch Maggie out at El Cuchillo. I turned the nose of the Cad up Broadway and sniffed the air. It was heavy, damp, getting ready to rain again. I had enough now to justify asking Mrs. Margaret Remorse some pertinent and possibly embarrassing questions. That was one gal, though, I'd hate to have really mad at me. She'd probably take two falls out of three.

L.A. at around two-thirty in the morning is like any other big city a half hour or so after the bars close. Not much traffic, few people on the streets, a handful of cars filled with die-hard celebrators or high-school delinquents hopped up on bennies or goof-balls and looking for something with a real kick, a new pop.

So I didn't pay too much attention at first when I kept catching the reflection of lights in the rear-view mirror. But when I left Sunset behind and headed up North Broadway I half unconsciously watched the corner behind me and, sure enough, the lights kept about half a block back. I'd been idling along about thirty, so I kicked it up to fifty. So did the lights. I slowed down again; the lights slowed down. Eenie meenie, two plus two. It wasn't hard to figure. The lights followed me into College Street, and I had a good idea who was back there.

I wasn't happy about it, and it worried me. I could have been wrong. I wasn't, but I kept hoping I was.

After so long a time you get a little sick of violence. You see guys gasp and bleed and die, and it makes you feel a little funny, a little sick while it's happening, when it's right in front of your eyes. But it isn't ever quite real when it's going on, when you're in it. Maybe a muscle man slugs you, or a torpedo takes a shot at you, or you're pulling a trigger yourself or smashing a fist into a guy's face, and you're hurting or crippling or killing some trigger-happy hood. But when it's actually happening, you've got adrenalin shooting into your blood stream, your heart pounds, your breath comes faster, pumping more oxygen into your veins. Glands and body organs start working overtime to keep you sharp, keep you alive, and you're not the same; you're not thinking like the same guy. It's all kind of a blur like a picture out of focus jumping in front of your eyes, and you don't think much about what's going on, just let your reflexes take over. If the reflexes are trained right, and if you're lucky, you come out scared but O.K. Nothing to it, all over.

But when it is all over, when you've got time to think, that's when you get sick remembering vivid little details you hardly noticed at the time. The way a body jerked when a bullet ripped through fine skin and flesh and muscle and bone, or the way it jerked just before it stopped being a man and became what they call down at the morgue a "dead body" or the "deceased." Maybe you even wonder what kind of man he was, what he liked for breakfast, where he was born, stupid things like that—and wonder what made him get a gun in his hand and like the feel of it. Maybe you even wonder what it is that goes out of a man when 158 grains of lead drive into his brain or his heart. Maybe you get sick and your stomach turns upside down and then it's all over and you forget about it. Almost.

So the hell with it.

I pulled into the parking lot at the side of El Cuchillo, switched off the car engine, doused the lights, and left the door swinging when I got out. I walked over to the back of the club, beyond the door leading inside, and waited.

There was a light on inside the club, creeping under the door. Somebody was in there, but right now they didn't count. I took the little automatic out of my pocket and held it in my right hand down at my side. I heard a car door click shut out in front. He was coming back.

My stomach was balled up in a knot and I discovered I was breathing with my mouth wide open as if I couldn't get enough air any other way. Sure, I was scared, plenty scared; I'm human.

I gripped the barrel of the .32 in the fingers of my left hand while I wiped my moist right palm against my trousers. I grabbed the small, checked butt of the automatic again and pressed it hard against the corded muscles of my thigh. I could hear him now, his feet crunching softly on the ground as he walked along the side of the building.

Think of El Cuchillo as a square box set on the ground. Out front, the street; on the right, in the direction I was facing, the parking lot; no light behind me, but a little escaping under the back door of El Cuchillo; and the guy creeping down the right side of the box, the night club.

He knew I was back here, maybe guessed I was waiting for him. He'd seen me drive in. But I don't think he gave a damn. He wasn't a cool, methodical killer anymore; he was raw nerves and emotions and hate.

I saw him when he came around the corner, just a dark blob that separated itself from the building and stood still a moment. I could imagine him standing there tense, nostrils distended as if he were trying to smell me out like an animal, another little automatic gripped in his left hand.

"Seipel!" I said. "Hold it. Don't come any closer."

It didn't mean a thing to him. Right now he had a one-track mind, one big idea like a fire in his skull. He had it all figured out.

He started moving again toward me no hurry, all the time in the world.

"Seipel. Don't come any closer. Damn it! Hear me? I'll kill you, Seipel!"

He kept on coming. He was fifteen feet away when the blast cracked from his gun and flame squirted from his hand. The bullet whistled by me, at least a foot away. He was gone, real gone.

I leveled my gun and pumped two shots, evenly spaced, just to the left of the flame, into the dark blob he made. I was shaking a little.

I felt as if I were dreaming. The long dark blot sagged and melted to the ground. Another ribbon of fire angled from the ground upward, pointing almost over the roof of the building. The automatic made its little crack and a bullet smashed into the wood of the building's wall.

I walked over and knelt down by him on the ground. The automatic was still in his left hand, but he couldn't lift it. There was a little noise in his throat, and then nothing at all. Two twins dead. It was funny; I'd killed Peter with his own automatic.

Another notch in my gun. Boy, was I proud.

I picked up his gun with my left hand and dropped it into my pocket. I left him there, his face in the dirt, and went back to the door into El Cuchillo.

It was unlocked, so I opened it and stepped inside into a lighted kitchen that smelled like peppers and spices. A big range was against the wall in the corner and cans of sprees and chilis and purées lined the far wall. Red and green peppers hung against the right wall in little bunches. Nobody was in the room. Across the kitchen, on the left, an open door led off into the interior of the club.

I started to take a step toward it, the gun loose in my right hand, when I remembered I'd just used the last two rounds in the clip. I stuck my left hand in my coat pocket for the other automatic just as Miguel Mercado stepped through the open door and faced me.

In his left hand, down at his side, he held—point forward, thumb along the blade—one of those long, sharp-pointed knives he played with at showtime. It looked wicked and menacing as hell, but it wasn't that knife that worried me. The one that bothered me was deep in his right fist, point against palm. His right arm was cocked behind his head.

All things considered, I was in one lousy position.

I said, "Easy, boy."

He didn't say anything for a minute. He looked at me out of wide, staring eyes that held the warmth and friendliness of a sentence to Siberia. The pupils were contracted almost to pin points, and he was breathing slowly.

He stopped just inside the door, left hand holding the thin-handled knife at his side, right hand holding the other one still cocked over his head, and said slowly, with exaggerated emphasis, "Hello, Mac. Hello, Mac, old Mac. You son-of-a-bitch."

Miguel was higher than a trial rocket and dangerous as a startled rattlesnake. I'd rather have been someplace else.

I swallowed nothing and said, not moving a finger, "Hello. How are you, Miguel? How is it?"

He giggled a little, as if he thought that was funny. Maybe it was. He said, "What you want, Mac?"

"Want to see Maggie."

"Maggie's gone. What for?"

"Nothing. Just talk."

"Oh, no, Mac. You lying son-of-a-bitch."

As I said before, knives give me nine kinds of creeps. They're not like guns; they're cold and vicious and ugly. They scare me. But I can only stand around so long and let a crumb like Miguel call me a son-of-a-bitch.

I snapped, "Stow the language, you hophead. I don't like it. What're you doing here, anyway? Maggie know what you're up to?"

His lips had been slightly lifted in a sneer. He pulled them down at the corners and his right arm uncoiled from behind his head and snapped out at me. No warning, no words, no nothing. Just the flick of an arm and he hurled the knife straight at my chest.

I stuck my right hand up in front of me in an instinctive gesture of defense, the empty automatic flipping out of my grip and clattering to the floor. I didn't have time for more than that. The knife smacked into my spread palm, and the thin steel blade sliced through the flesh, between the small bones, and thrust three inches of pointed steel out through the back of my hand.

Miguel came at me on the run, his left elbow cocked, ready to drive the other knife into my belly. I jumped to my left, arcing my body, as he lunged and ripped the knife up in a half-circle. My left hand was out of my pocket and clutching for the blade, his wrist, his arm, anything I could get my fingers on. The knife curved and flashed up, a glitter of light driving for my middle. I felt the point flick against the palm of my left hand, then the blade slid past my fingers and my hand jarred against his wrist. I clutched his wrist with all my strength, twisted it, and pulled him up close to me. I couldn't do a damn thing with that knife sticking through my right hand. I couldn't let go of his wrist or he'd shove a hole in me.

Miguel opened his mouth and stuck his head forward on his thin neck as if he wanted to get at me with his teeth. I brought up my left knee hard, and slammed him between the legs.

That was it. That was all of it. Miguel didn't have any fight left in him. He bent over, gagging; the knife dropped from his hand, and he fell. He was bent over so far that his head hit the floor before any of the rest of him; then he flopped all the way down and lay on the floor squirming and moaning.

Sure. It was a foul, a dirty blow. I hit below the belt. O.K., friend. Give Miguel the decision.

I picked the knife up off the floor where he'd dropped it. I should have stuck the damn thing in him, but I just looked at it. It was a long, thin blade with practically no width of handle, and the edges were dull. Only the point was sharp. It was a good thing. I stuck the knife in my belt and looked at my left hand. There was a little rip where the point had gouged it, but where the blade had sliced across the skin there was only a fading crease. A sharp edge would have laid my hand open to the bone.

I lifted the automatic out of my left coat pocket and went through the rest of the club. I left Miguel where he was. I figured he'd be there when I got back.

The other rooms were empty. Apparently my pal had been here alone. So I didn't find anything of interest except that Miguel must have had a couple of cast-iron constitutions. Because when I got back to the kitchen, I found I was all alone in El Cuchillo. Somehow the hopped-up Mr. Mercado had scrambled out of danger. Just as I got to the kitchen I heard the roar of a car motor, then taxes screaming, burning rubber into the street. Period. Another lovely thought struck me where my brains were supposed to be. I checked the kitchen floor and, you guessed it, the little empty automatic was gone with Miguel.

Ah, you're great, Scott. Real sharp. I took a check in back to make sure Peter Seipel hadn't got up and walked off. He hadn't.

I hunted up a phone and called Homicide. Samson answered.

"Sam, I said. "Shell. You still there?"

"Where the hell you think I am? Home in bed?"

"Knock it off, Sam. Send somebody out here, will you?"

"You don't sound so hot, Shell. What's the matter?"

"Some trouble. I found Seipel. I mean he found me. He needs a basket. I'm at El Cuchillo, out on Bernard Street. That knife-thrower Mercado jumped me. He was hopped up to the ears and I had to give him a knee. I thought he was planted for a while, but the hop must have made him tougher than I figured. He took a walk while I was wandering around out here. And I've got a knife through my hand. Send a doc out. I'll let him pull the thing out and fix the hand up for me."

Sam didn't say anything for a couple of seconds; I could almost see him mangling the end of his cigar. When he spoke, all he said was "Sure, Shell. Right away. We'll put a call out on Mercado."

"Thanks, Sam. See you tomorrow." I hung up…

I'd answered all the questions. The doc had taken the knife out of my hand and bandaged the gash, and put a little gauze and tape on the left one. Seipel had been hauled away, and the gun I'd taken from him was down at the police lab. And I was ready for bed.

I opened the door of the apartment, turned on the lights, and went inside. I was mixing a drink in the kitchenette when Lina came in. She looked at me, at my bandaged hands, and said, "Someday you will get yourself killed, Shell. You will not come home. What has happened this time?"

"I had an argument with a guy, Lina. Also I saw Miguel. He ought to be in worse shape than I am."

She didn't press me for any more details. "Come," she said. "Bring your drink and sit with me on the couch. You are tired."

We sat on the couch and Lina spoke to me softly in Spanish, long, liquid, flowing phrases. I didn't know what she was saying, but it didn't make any difference. It was the way she said it.

She pulled my head around to her, slipped her arms around my neck, and kissed me. I put my arms around her and held her close.

My hands hurt, my side ached where Seipel had kicked me, and when I kissed Lina, my jaw hurt like hell.

Ahhh, but it hurt good.

Chapter Thirteen

THE BIG GUY WAS thirty feet tall and he had one hand wrapped around my ankles and the other hand around my neck and he was slowly bending me back the wrong way. Just a couple more inches and there'd be a pop and I'd bust in two like a dry cracker. The hand around my neck was cutting off my wind and I couldn't even tell this character he had the wrong guy. I struggled and twisted and pulled and I got my head craned around a little and blew in his big left eye and he disappeared. Whoosh, like that.

I peeled open my eyes and felt my lips relax from their whooshing position, and I looked up from under white eyebrows at two ghastly, naked feet sticking up from under a blanket. They were disgusting. I wanted no part of the things. The back of my head was crammed up against the end of the front-room divan, and my neck felt as if it was shaped like a pretzel. Well, well. Good morning, Scott.

Noises. Noises came out of the kitchen. Revolting odors came out of the kitchen. Lina came out of the kitchen.

"Breakfast," she said brightly.

"'Way."

"What?"

"Go 'way."

"Come. Breakfast. Eggs I have fixed."

Oh, no. Not that. Eggs. Please, not that. Eggs. Ugly, slimy, smelly, nauseating eggs.

I wrapped the blanket around me, got up and tottered into the kitchenette, and peeked through slit eyelids down at the top of the little gas range, into the frying pan, the greasy, smoking frying pan.

Eggs. My stomach went plop.

I got out of there and went back to the divan. I crooked a finger at Lina. "'Mere."

She came over and sat down. I said, "Thank you. Thank you very much for the eggs." Ugh. "But I forgot to tell you. In the morning I'm somebody else. I'm weak. I…No eggs."

She lifted her eyebrows a little. "I am sorry. What shall I fix?"

"Nothing. Coffee. Mush, maybe."

"Mush?"

"Mush."

"This mush…like pablum?"

"Like mush. Oatmeal. Coffee. That's enough for now. Toast and coffee."

"You feel all right?"

"I feel horrible."

She went back into the kitchen, presumably to put on mush. I hugged the blanket around me and made it into the shower. I turned the water on cold, full blast, gritted my teeth, and jumped in. No blanket.

I woke up. I turned on the hot with my left hand, kept my bandaged right hand outside the spray, soaked a little, finished up with a cold spray, and rubbed down awkwardly with a thick towel. I was whole again.

In the bedroom I traded the blanket for tan slacks, a brown tweed coat, white shirt with a Windsor collar, a maroon wool tie looped in a thick knot, wool argyles, and cordovans. I pranced into the kitchen.

"Morning, pepper pot. Where you been?"

"Cooking mush. You are awful."

"Careful, honey. Don't antagonize me till I've had my coffee."

"Now you want eggs?"

I winced. "No. Still no eggs. For lunch, maybe. For dinner, maybe. Not for breakfast. Never."

She shook her head, black hair swirling, and sat down at the little breakfast nook.

I sat down opposite her at the place she'd fixed for me and said, "I like your hair down."

She smiled, her lips curving deliciously around her white teeth. "So? Thank you, Shell. You do not like it up?"

"I like it up. I like it down. Any way."

She smiled deliciously some more.

I ate my mush.

"A big man like you," she said. "Eating mush."

I paused, holding a spoonful of the stuff in my left hand. "Can't help it. Constitutional weakness. Inbreeding or something. Later I'll have red steaks, and chops, and mountains of spuds. Not for breakfast." I stopped for a minute, surprised. "What time is it?"

"Twelve o'clock. Noon it is."

Come to think of it, I hadn't had anything to eat since Saturday night at El Cuchillo, except the stew that the Seipels had given Tracy and me on Sunday morning, and I hadn't eaten much of that—and here it was noon on Monday. I had an idea I'd be sinking my teeth into a two-inch steak in about an hour.

I polished off two quick cups of coffee and got up. "Do the dishes, woman," I said. "Sweep the floors, get the ring out of the bathtub, feed the fish…Murder! Did you feed the fish?"

"But yes. I gave them one of those little boxes."

"Boxes!"

"Not the box. Only what was in it."

"What was in it! I charged into the front room, Lina on my heels. The box of blue crab meat was empty beside the big aquarium. She'd given them enough food to last them six months. The fish were frisky as pups, though, and the banquet hadn't seemed to hurt them. A big pile of uneaten food lay in the bottom of the feeding ring. I dumped it out in the kitchen sink and put the feeding ring back in the tank.

"Did I do wrong?" Lina asked.

"Uh-uh. It's O.K. Thought maybe you gave them something else," I lied. "Well, honey, I think before long you can get out of here."

"Perhaps I do not wish to get out of here."

"Don't argue, sweetheart. I think pretty soon there'll be no reason for you to stay."

"No reason?" She tossed her head a little and laughed that liquid gurgling deep in her throat.

I leered at her, walked over to the couch, sat down, and dialed Homicide.

"Don't you ever leave?" I asked Samson. "Wife kick you out?"

"She will," he grumbled. "I suppose you just got up." I told him I had, and listened to him groan. "The automatic I sent down last night, Sam. The slugs in it check with anything?"

"Not a thing, Shell."

"I, uh, thought maybe it might fit the bullet in Georgia."

"Nope. She was killed with the same caliber gun, but not that one."

"O.K., Sam. What about the prints?"

"Got some good ones. A little smudged, but good enough. Why don't you come down and chin about it?"

"What for? Don't you know who they belong to?"

"Yeah, we know. That's what's funny. A con man—guy named Walter Press."

"What's funny about that?"

"This Press—he's dead."

I held the phone out at the end of my left arm, looked at it stupidly, blinked, and stuck the phone back on my ear. "Say that again."

"This Press guy. The guy that belongs to the prints. He's dead. Been dead over a year."

I said, "Maybe you're right. I'll come down and chin with you. See you in twenty minutes, Sam."

I hung up, told Lina I'd see her later, and took off for the L.A. City Hall.

I gunned the Cad straight up Rossmore and took a right on Sunset Boulevard, shifting with the heel of my bandaged right hand. Fifteen minutes later I turned right on Main Street and went down to First, found an open parking space, luckily, and snared it. I walked back half a block to the cement steps of the Main Street entrance, climbed them, went inside, and took the elevator up one floor.

Sam, I was pleased to see, had his cigar already lit, so I wouldn't have to go through the sometimes agonizing suspense of waiting for him to light it. Could have been, though, that the suspense would have been preferable to the dense clouds of foul-smelling smoke that billowed over his desk.

"That's where the smog comes from," I said. "You, and guys like you, smoking dried leaves and llama dung."

He bit into the cigar and lifted his upper lip. "Hah. Takes a real man to smoke one of these."

"Takes a real man to watch one smoked. What's the inside on this Press guy?"

Sam looked at me. "How's the hand?"

"Not bad. Doc fixed it up. Didn't bleed at all, hardly."

"Umph. Should have been your throat. Well, we wired those prints to the FBI—nothing here in the files—and they check back that they belong to Walter Press, supposed to have been killed in an accident in September of last year. Over a year ago."

"Supposed?"

"Yeah. They find him in his car at the foot of a cliff, burned all to hell-and-gone. Identified by rings, car, personal belongings. That kind of a deal. Which is why his prints weren't in the dead file. Yeah, I know what you're gonna say—it could have been somebody else." He ran a hand through the fringe of his iron-gray hair. "If it wasn't somebody else, how the hell did his prints get on that glass?"

An idea started growing. "This Press. What did he look like?"

Sam picked a paper off his desk and read briefly from it: "Walter L. Press. Description: Male, White, American, thirty-nine years, five feet seven and one-quarter inches tall, hundred-thirty pounds, medium complexion, brown eyes. He's bald, with a fringe of brown hair, and he has no identifying marks or scars. What's that give you?"

The idea stopped growing and went away. "Nothing," I said disgustedly. "Not a thing. Give me that height and weight again."

Sam rolled the ash from his cigar into a big glass ashtray. "Five-seven and a quarter, hundred and thirty pounds.. What you think, Shell?"

"I'm damned if I know what to think." I lit a cigarette and played with ideas for a couple of minutes. "Sam, either Press was the guy in the car or he wasn't. Brilliant, huh? Anyway, if he was, then how the devil those prints got on a glass in Narda's room, I can't figure. If he wasn't the guy, it still doesn't add up fight. What else you got on Press? You said he was a con man. How about that?"

"Well, we've been doing a lot of checking since the dope came from the FBI—trying to make it fit. Not much so far, but we know from the information we picked up that he worked the confidence games, made a few touches—none of 'em very big. He wasn't an especially good operator, it seems. It looks like he got in some kind of a jam. Can't get the straight of it yet, but he was working with another character and they made a big haul. Got a lot of dough from some guy. The pay-off is, Press skips with the load, the whole roll."

"Interesting. Then he's found dead, huh?"

"Not yet." Samson stuck out his heavy jaw and grinned, his cigar sticking up at an angle past his nose. "Not often I get a chance to surprise you, Mastermind."

"Oh, you're going to surprise me now?"

"Maybe."

"Surprise away and be damned."

"Walter Press is the guy that originally started what they call the Inner World Society of Truth Believers."

"The hell! Explain it."

"Not much to explain. We get it little by little, and we'll get more, but that much is sure. Not much else. It stacks up like so: Press was some kind of a gum-game artist, a salesman. Then back around the middle of summer—that's last year—he pops up with this IW Society. Right around then, too, he makes this touch with some other guy—don't know who, yet—and doesn't split."

"And then he has an accident and gets all burned up."

"Something like that. But don't jump to conclusions, Shell. We don't know the exact dates of anything except when he's supposed to have died."

"When's that?"

"September twelfth. Last year, up in Oregon."

I said, "How about some of the people Press knew? Guys he worked with or ran around with, or people that started this IW racket with him. A little chat with some of them might be real interesting."

"Funny thing about that, too. Seems like Press went along with this cult thing a while, and then, bang, he gets rid of everybody connected with it. We talked with one of the gals—woman named Lucille Stoner. That's where we got the dope about Press firing everybody. We're looking for a couple of the local men he's supposed to have worked with on the con games.

I got the three names from Sam, including the woman's address, and we chewed it around some more. While we chewed it, I briefed Sam on everything that had happened to me up till now, except my swiping Narda's registers, which he didn't know about. Well, almost everything. Stuff concerning the case, I mean. We always wound up guessing about those prints, so I stubbed out my cigarette and stood up.

"Time I was moving, Sam. Thanks for the info. I've got some ideas, but I've also got a feeling they all stink. Figured I was coming along pretty good for a while there." I thought a minute. "Say, this little guy, Press—you know if he ever operated down in Mexico?"

"Uh-uh. Not so far as we know. What's that got to do with it?"

"Nothing, I guess. Just an idea."

Sam ground out his cigar and leaned back in his chair

"I'm picking up this Narda," he said. "We'll find out who the hell he is then—and what those two hoods were doing out at his place. You should have spilled that sooner, Shell."

"Yeah. Uh, Sam. I got something cooking. If you can hold off a little, I'd like to go out with you when you pick him up. I'll be back up here later if you can wait. It might be important. Won't hurt anything, will it?"

He frowned. "Guess not. What you thinking?"

"Hell, I hardly know myself right now. But I'll come back in later. O.K. by you? Maybe I'll have something."

He was still frowning; but he said, "O.K. Only don't wait all night."

I beat it.

Chapter Fourteen

I WAS SO HUNGRY I was shaking like a butterfly with delirium tremens. I stopped in Mike Lyman's and ordered prime ribs of beef au jus. While I worked on the shrimp cocktail, left-handed and awkward, I tried to make sense out of everything that had happened since Saturday. I didn't get very far. Always pieces missing, something off key. It was making me dizzy.

The prime ribs came and I lost myself in the delicious morsels and succulent juices. Before I was half through, I knew one order wasn't going to be enough, so I flagged the waiter and sent him off for more. It was one-thirty before I was back in the Cad, but I felt as if I could wrestle gorillas.

I drove back down to Broadway, took a left past Fourth, and swung in behind the Hamilton Building. I parked and went up to the office.

There wasn't anybody there, and the gal at the PBX in the employment office down the hall told me nobody'd left word for me, but I did have some mail. None of it was important except the message from Mr. Martin. It wasn't a letter, just an oblong slip of paper signed by Cornell Martin: a check made out to me for ten thousand dollars. I hoped I was earning it. I addressed a stamped envelope to my bank, scribbled a note that I stuck in with the check, left the envelope with the gal at the PBX, and was off to see people.

The people I wanted to see are the backbone of any kind of investigation—official, unofficial, private, what have you. Informants. Guys who got around where they might pick up information I could use. Some of them were personal friends of mine; some of them were just willing to pick up a buck the quickest way. Nearly all of them came in handy one time or another. I almost struck out, though, before I had any luck.

I was trying to find either or both of the guys Sam had told me were at one time associated with Walter Press of the fingerprints: Fred Vincent and Foster S. Matthew, known to his friends as the Cardboard Kid. Why "Cardboard," I never did find out. I talked to bootblacks, bartenders, bookies, runners, waitresses, waiters, and more. After an hour I'd found a couple who knew one or the other, but not where I could find them. Then I stopped at Lucy's, a little cocktail spot on Hill Street. The far end of the bar was empty, so I walked down there and climbed on a stool. Lucy was wiping glasses with a clean white towel. He saw me, draped the towel over his shoulder, and came over.

Lucy is a big, fat Italian with a round, pink face like Santa Claus with no beard, and dingy teeth about the size and color of postage stamps, glue side out. His name is Lucieri, but nobody ever calls him that, at least not on Hill Street.

"What you know, Shell?" he said, and showed me the postage stamps in a huge, gluey grin. "What you say?"

"Draw me a beer, Lucy. I'm dry. I'm tired of walking."

"You lookin' for somethin', hey? Hokay. A minute."

He drew me a cool-looking beer and waddled back. "What you want, huh?"

"Know a guy named Fred Vincent, or one called the Cardboard Kid?"

"Sure. Know 'em both. Whatsa matter?"

I'd heard that much already today, so I let some of the cold beer trickle down my throat before I asked him, "Where'll I find them?"

"This Cardboard Kid—he's a guy named Matthew—you no gonna find. He's a dead one. He tries a heavy rackets when things get tough, and boom, he's inna morgue. Vincent, he's round. In here two, three days back. Got lotsa dough."

I perked up on the stool. "Where's Vincent now?"

He shook his head. "Dunno. Blowin' the roll, most like. Hey, he come in with this little jockey, this Waiter Duprel. Know him?"

"No."

Lucy fished under his apron for the stub of a pencil and wet it against his tongue. "I give you his address. He's not workin' right now. On a suspension or somethin' like." He scribbled the address on a bar check and gave it to me.

It went like that for another forty-five minutes and a hundred bucks. Legwork. Shoe leather. Run around, ask questions, go nuts. From Lucy to Walter the jockey to Cookie Martini to Johnny Wolfe. But finally I found out where Vincent was. He'd been blowing a roll and he was still blowing. Wolfe told me I'd probably find him in the back room of the Lords and Ladies, 'a private club where people with loose cash played bridge or pinochle or canasta out front, and roulette, craps, and the ponies in back. Wolfe gave me a card he said would let me in.

The Lords and Ladies didn't look like a club where gambling might be going on. It was an old-fashioned-looking building on Jefferson Boulevard, about half a block down from Grand Avenue. Stone steps ran across the front of it, and at the top of the steps were three cement columns like you see in front of courthouses. The entrance was two solid oak doors that swung together in the middle and were always closed unless somebody was going in hopefully or coming out disillusioned. I'd never been inside the place, but I'd heard about it.

I walked up the stone steps, glanced at the little gilt sign over the doors giving the name of the club, and pushed the conspicuous buzzer. A little guy in a tux let me in the front part without any trouble, but without the card and the name of Johnny Wolfe I'd probably have had to wrestle the gorillas Mike Lyman's prime ribs had made me feel equal to. The gorillas being two long-armed, short-brained mugs who protected the portals to the back room.

Short Brain on my right glanced at my bandaged right hand but didn't say anything. He took the card from my left hand and squinted at it. I could almost see him spelling out the letters.

"Johnny Wolfe," I told him. "He said I could get in O.K."

He kept on spelling, then glanced at me. "O.K."

I wondered if he knew any whole words. I stuck out my hand for the card, but he folded it into a fist like a Swift's Premium Ham and said, "I'll keep it."

I shrugged. I wanted in more than I wanted to wrestle.

For three-thirty in the afternoon, the spot was getting a good play. About ten well-dressed men and women stood around the roulette wheel spinning in the middle of the room, and another half dozen concentrated on one of the two crap tables near the right wall. Other games were on the left, and a circle of quiet guys played poker at a felt-covered table in back.

I got twenty bucks' worth of green chips from the cashier—four chips—and stepped up to the roulette table. I dropped one chip on the layout under the first column of figures—that's the column of twelve numbers headed by one, with four, seven, and so on underneath—and looked around while the croupier spun the wheel. I didn't have too good an idea what Vincent looked like, so I had to find someone I knew that might tell me, or else ask a perfect stranger.

The ball fell into number 26 and I watched my green chip go the way of most of the others on the layout. I tossed another green under the first column. The ball clicked into 17. Bye-bye. Another chip. Seven this time; I was back with four chips, where I'd started. No way to get rich.

Somebody said, "Hey, Shell," in a soft voice at my side. I looked around and down at the pinched face of Irv Coward. He ran a tip-sheet service from, but not limited to, L.A., and he made enough to hang around places like this in the afternoon. The injustice. Back in my horseplaying days, before I got cured by just the kind of tips he put out—plus my own selections and, finally, my own system that just couldn't lose—I'd even played a few of his choices at the track. Naturally, when they won, as occasionally they did, he got the results of a five-dollar win play from me. When they didn't win, as they usually didn't, I got nothing from little Irv. Somehow, it didn't seem quite cricket. We'd got to be friends, though, in spite of the horses.

"What's the tip, Irv?" I grinned at him. "And when you going to break down and tell me you tipped ten horses in every race?"

"Uh-uh. Never did. Never did. Look, Shell, that's not why I stopped you. I got a tip, all right, but it's no good. C'mere." He grabbed my sleeve and pulled me over to a corner. "There's a wiper out for you, Shell. A real bad guy. He means it, from what I hear, and he's hotter than hell. Guy named Seipel. I couldn't grab what it was all about, but I know he's gunning for you."

"Thanks, Irv. It's O.K. Nothing to worry about."

"The hell. This guy means it. Far as he's concerned, you're good as lost. I picked it up last night. I tried to get in touch, but you been nowhere."

"He's dead," I said. "But thanks for the tip, Irv. How's about selling me a couple selections?"

He wiggled his head back and forth. "The hell. I tell you because I don't want you lost, see? That's all. No selections." He screwed up his lips, looked up at me, and said slowly, "He found you, huh?"

"Yeah. He found me. Say, you know Vincent?"

"Fred Vincent?"

"Yeah."

"Sure. You want him?"

"Where is he? He here?"

"Sure. Roulette. He can't win. He's over at the bar now. The big redheaded guy."

"Thanks, Irv. Thanks a hell of a lot." I started for the bar.

"A cipher," Irv said behind me. "A nothing."

I wondered if Vincent would spill anything. Confidence men as a class are personable, intelligent men that know their way around, and which side of the bread has the butter. Among grifters, those men who make their living by using their wits instead of guns, the con man is the acknowledged top dog. And he should be. He couldn't exist if his suckers, or marks, weren't larcenous themselves, and looking for the "best of it." Well, either he'd talk or he wouldn't, depending on how he sized me up and how he felt.

I ordered a bourbon and water and turned to the redhead. "Can I buy you a drink? I'm going to try to pump you. O.K.?"

He turned and faced me squarely, a big, good-looking, almost handsome man about forty-five. He grinned widely. "I'd be glad to accept the drink. I can't say I'll cooperate on the other matter, though."

"Good enough." I bought him a rye and soda and walked right in. The nearest occupied stool, was halfway down the bar, so we were safe from big ears. I said, "I understand you once knew a man named Walter Press."

He lifted expressive eyebrows. "Press? Press? I can't say I know anyone by that name."

"I'll put it to you straight, Mr. Vincent. My name's Scott. Sheldon Scott. I'm a private detective. I'm working on something in which Press may be involved. I'm stumbling around half in the dark, and anything I can find out about him may help. I want to know what kind of a guy he was, trouble he might have been in, anything." He pursed his lips. "You know my name?"

"Sure." I grinned. "I know your name, your occupation, that you knew Press, worked with him. Hell, I spent all afternoon just hunting you down."

"Indeed. Well. Assume, Mr. Scott—merely assume—that I should know a Mr. Press, and could tell you something about him. Isn't there some possibility that telling you might, well, reflect on me?"

"Not a chance. Unless you had something to do with that accident he had a year or so back." I grinned when I said it.

He frowned.

"Besides," I went on, "like I said, I'm a private detective. Ninety per cent of the information I get on most of my cases comes from asking people questions, or from dope that's given to me voluntarily by people who know I want the information and will pay for it or do them a turn if I get the chance. Sometimes they're just friends of mine. But the point is, Mr. Vincent, if I let it be known where I got the information, who told me what—even one time only—I'd be out of business. I wouldn't have a chance of getting a peep out of anybody. So I can't afford to let anyone worm that dope out of me or beat it out of me. It's been tried."

He looked directly at me, twirling his glass slowly on the bar. "I see," he said.

"All I want's the background," I told him. "It goes no farther than me. But I have to know, myself, or I can't make sense. I don't want affidavits, written statements. All I want is to know, myself, what's cooking."

I stopped and swallowed part of my drink. He didn't say anything. I put my drink back on the bar and said, "Look, Vincent. I'm not looking for any stem-court juice or anything like that. I don't want to give you any trouble at all. Anything you tell me stays with me. My word's good—it's got to be. Here." I pulled my identification, license, and papers out of my pocket. "These show I'm Scott. You want to check on me, O.K. I just don't have much time. And this doesn't concern you, personally, at all. Christ, Vincent, how the hell long do I have to work on you? You want some of my blood?"

He laughed out loud, then tossed down his rye and soda. "O.K., now I'll buy you a drink." He stuck two fingers up at the bartender and turned again to me. "Mr. Scott, you have vague, undeveloped abilities in my direction. You ever consider…"

I shook my head and grinned at him. "Uh-Uh. You stick to your racket; I'll stick to mine."

He swallowed at his fresh drink and started to talk. Now that he'd thought it over and made up his mind, he relaxed and talked as if I were on the grift myself.

We left the bar for a small table in the corner and he said, "What do you want?"

"First, how were you connected with him? Second, what do you know about the accident he was supposed to have been killed in? Third, what was the deal when he skipped out on one or more of his pals with a pile of jack, and last, how and when was he connected with this religious gang that calls itself the Inner World Society?"

"You don't want much. You got all night?"

"I've got as long as it takes."

"O.K. It won't take long to tell my part, anyway. Press was a tear-off rat, and he should have been selling shoes. I worked with him myself once; that's how I know. That time we worked together was one too many. This mark we stung was a bald-headed pappy from Tucson. We gave him the point-out, then I told him the tale and gave him the convincer. Press had to hole up with the guy for nearly a week while he waited for his cush, and it must have been murder. The only reason the mark doesn't chili is he's such a lop-eared savage. Press was roper on the deal and how he ever steered even that winchell in I'll never understand. The mark acted like he wanted to blow his chunk. Press cracked out of turn and did everything wrong, but I kept patting the mark on the head and he blew twenty thousand. So it worked out O.K., but why Press didn't rumble him, I'll never know."

I nodded my head, just as if I had more than a vague idea of what he'd just told me. "This Press wasn't so sharp, I take it."

"Excess baggage. Strictly a heel grifter."

"What did he look like?"

"Little sawed-off shrimp. Skinny."

"He was American, wasn't he?"

"Hell, yes, he was an American. Think he was Egyptian?"

"O.K. What can you give me on the rest?"

"I don't know anything about that Inner World racket you mentioned, but it must have been after that runout he took when he didn't cut up the score. That was last year, up north, and he was working with Little Joe Hayden. Somehow Press roped this Dallas oil man and got Little Joe for inside man. They got the mark in the store up Frisco way, and put him on the send for sixty-five thousand. What happened then was that Press met the guy when he stepped off the train, told the winchell there'd been a change in the plans, and relieved him of the whole sixty-five grand. It wouldn't have worked if Little Joe hadn't tightened him up so good even Press could hardly knock him. Press didn't say boo to Little Joe or anybody else; just copped a heel with the whole score and didn't even try to cool the mark out. He might just as well have stuck a forty-some-odd in the chump's ribs. Well, naturally, the mark got hot and beefed gun and got the whole mob in trouble. Little Joe told me when the mark figured it out he really had a brain-blow. Started yanking out his hair like it was in a wig. Big fistfuls. Anyway, he beefed gun and ranked the store, and there was hell to pay all around.

"Wasn't it right after that Press had his accident?"

"Yeah. Two, three months later. But, Scott, I know what you're driving at, and it just sounds silly. Word gets down to me from some of the boys that Press got killed in an accident in Oregon someplace, but if you're thinking maybe one of the boys lumped him for tearing them off up in Frisco, forget it."

"Sure. They wouldn't do anything like that, huh?"

"Not that so much. It's just silly. Too many marks, Scott. Just like Barnum said."

"O.K. You don't know anything about his getting tied up with the Inner World thing?"

"No. Must have been after the Frisco mess, though."

"Good enough. That makes it between the time he skipped with the money and the time he got killed." I thought again about those fingerprints and added, "Or when he's supposed to have been killed. You hear anything funny about the accident?"

He shook his head. "Not a thing. I hear it from the boys, is all. Nothing smells. I didn't even wonder about it. It didn't mean anything to me, so I just took what they said."

"Sure. When did Press pull this caper up north?"

He thought a moment and answered, "Around the first of July. The mark was on a vacation over the Fourth, I remember.

"O.K. Well, thanks, Vincent. It might help. I'm damned if I know for sure, but thanks for the story. Sorry I can't send you a mark in payment."

He grinned. "It's O.K. I might want a private eye sometime."

Chapter Fifteen

IT WAS ALREADY four o'clock, and I had a lot of places to go. And the first person I wanted to see was Lucille Stoner, the gal Sam had said was connected with Press in the beginning of IW.

I checked her number in the phone book and gave her a ring from a drugstore to make sure she'd be home. I didn't want to waste so much time that Sam would get tired of waiting.

She was home. And from the way she sounded, she was plastered like a California duplex. I gave her my name and told her I'd like to talk to her, expecting a possible argument. She didn't argue.

Even made a little tinny by the telephone, her voice didn't sound bad at all. "Why, sure, honey," she cooed. "You come right on up here. Right now I'd talk to an Eskimo. You're not an Eskimo, are you, honey?"

I assured her I wasn't an Eskimo, and she chattered on like a senator on a filibuster. "Honest, honey, I'm so damn bored. Where is everybody, anyway, huh? Where'd everybody go, honey? Nicest party. Sure was a nice party. All I did was just go to sleep for a little while. Just the littlest while. An' everybody just went home. You come on up, honey. I just need somebody to talk to. I just need somebody. You got anything to drink, honey? Hey, what do you look like, huh? What time is it?"

I told her I had a fifth of bourbon in my hip pocket, I was sixty-two years old with a long white beard, it was just after four o'clock, and I'd be right up.

I'd have given eight to five she was a blonde.

She was. But she was more than simply a blonde. And she must not have believed I was sixty-two. She'd dressed for younger company.

She was dressed fit to kill, and the result was manslaughter. I'd say she was close to twenty-eight years old, and none of the years had been wasted. About five-five and a hundred and thirty pounds, which made her a little plump in places, but I'll bet nobody ever objected to her face. Or to her back, or her front, or her top, or anywhere.

She had a cute, round face with brown eyes and a flock of yellow-blonde hair that tumbled halfway down her back, but you lost track of the face and the hair when your eyes wandered. And they wandered.

She was wearing a bright-red, ankle-length gown split down the front in the latest fashion, and if the front had been split another three inches, she'd have been naked for all practical purposes.

She stood in the open doorway for a moment, looking me up and down as if she was going to write a thesis on me, while I involuntarily wiggled my ears and said I was Shell Scott.

She sort of hummed a throaty chuckle that there's no word for and said, "Long white beard. Well. Honey, you were foolin' li'l ol' me. Li'l ol' Lucille. You just come on in."

I went inside and held up the bottle of bourbon I'd brought with me, thinking it might make conversation smoother. If her conversation got any smoother, it was going to be in another language.

The bottle gurgled pleasantly. Lucille gurgled pleasantly.

She took the bottle, pinched my cheek, and said, "You sit right down. What's your name? Shell? You sit right down, Shell. I'll just make us a quickie. A li'l ol' quickie."

She went off on a tangent toward the kitchen in back, and I heard the clink of glasses and a half chorus of "Home on the Range" while I found myself a seat. Not on the low divan at the left. In a chair. I was beginning to wonder about Lucille.

There'd been a party, all right. Half a dozen ashtrays on tables at the ends of the divan and against the walls were overfull of cigarette and cigar butts, and highball glasses stood on the tables and floor.

Lucille came back into the living room carrying two tall frosted glasses that looked as if they were intended for zombies. She was a gal that gets four drinks out of a fifth of bourbon. But the motions she saved making highballs she got reckless with coming back across the room. She walked as if she were on a runway.

She had an idea before she got all the way over to me, and veered toward a radio at the left of the front door. She set both drinks on the radio, switched it on, and turned her vocal "Home on the Range" into bebop while she waited for the radio to warm up. She found some dance music, turned around, and held out her arms with what is sometimes called reckless abandon.

"Come on," she piped. "Yes dance. Yes dance, yah-te-tah. Yeeees dance." All this with snapping fingers and more reckless abandon.

"Honey," I said, "I want to talk. Like I said on the phone. I want to ask you some questions."

"Talk? Talk?" Hiccup, burp. "'Scuse. Yes dance. Shell an' li'l ol' Lucille."

"Honey. Lucille. All I want out of li'l ol' you is some information."

"You just be nice to me or I won't tell you any…thing. Come on an' dance with li'l ol' me."

"Sweetheart," I said, "I want to be nice to you. But I've got an awful lot to do. Lots of places to go. I'd appreciate it if you'd answer some questions for me. About Walter Press."

She walked to the radio, took two inches out of her zombie glass, and put the glass back on the radio. "Told police everything," she bubbled. "Just everything. Forget about it. Huh, Shell? Shellie?"

She giggled and walked up close to me and grabbed the lapels of my coat. "Huh, Shellie?"

I said weakly, "So many things to do. Very busy. Maybe it'd be better if I went, and came back later for that talk."

She pouted, lower lip moist and glistening. "That's mean. You better go way and leave." She giggled again. "Sure, honey, you just better leave."

That was a laugh. The way she pushed you away was to put both hands behind your back and wiggle.

I croaked, "Can't we just talk?"

"Nope. Gotta dance with me."

What could I do?

She was some morsel. She was a woman by what's called an act of God, but the way she proved it was her own idea. You couldn't miss. On the phone, she'd sounded plastered, but dancing, she was plastered all over me. I knew this kind of thing couldn't go on indefinitely, worse luck, so I pulled her in close, held her tight while she did a rumba, and kissed her the way she obviously wanted to be kissed.

She kissed as if she was chewing bubble gum.

It was a long, hard struggle, and I kept getting weaker and weaker and weaker, and finally I weakened.

I danced with her again.

But I got what I wanted: information. She said she'd known Press about a year when he'd told her about the setup for the Inner World Society, and she'd gone in with him at the start of it. There'd been another woman besides her, and one man besides Press—a total of four in the outfit. The idea was simply to start up another cult, like so many that flourish in Southern California, and if the take from the "converts" was big enough, they'd make a good thing out of it.

"And was it a good thing?" I asked.

"Pretty good. Pretty good. Slow, real slow to start with, but it picked up. Just when the take's gettin' real good after a couple of months, he cans us all. Just cans us. Then, boom, couple days he's dead an' gone, he's dead an' gone. Poor li'l ol' Pressy."

"He got killed right after he fired everybody, Lucille. Doesn't that strike you as a little strange?"

"Uh-uh. Hell, no."

She seemed a little more sober, but her eyes looked like brown ball bearings. I said, "What would you think if I told you Press was still alive? That maybe he wasn't killed in that wreck?"

She rolled the ball bearings up at me. "Wouldn't believe you."

"Why not? You sure he's dead?"

She puzzled it over a minute. "No. Not sure, come to think. Thought he was dead. Killed in his car. Boom, off a cliff. Wasn't he killed?"

"I don't know, Lucille. I'm wondering myself. You never saw him anywhere after the wreck?"

She shook her head. "Never saw him. Don't care if I don't never see him."

"Didn't you like Press?"

"He was a worm. A li'l skinny worm. No use for him.

An' he fires us all. Just for nothin', out of a blue sky."

"Was he much of a hand with the ladies?"

"Him?" She giggled again. "That li'l bald-headed shrimp? Not him. He wasn't like you, Shellie. You're big an' strong an'—"

I changed the subject. "You ever check back with the IW outfit since you left it?"

"Never, never. No sense to. I got a deal, different deal now. Pretty soft."

I looked around the beautifully furnished apartment, but I didn't ask her what her deal was now. Instead I asked, "How come the outfit's still going strong? When Press got killed, that took the guiding light away, but it's still going."

"Don't know, Shellie. Don't know. Could be anybody, one of his chums, maybe. If I'd still been 'round, maybe I'da tried it myself. Lotsa money in it."

"Was there enough dough in the racket to make it worth while for somebody else to muscle in once the thing started going strong? Some tough boy, maybe? A guy with guns?"

"Sure, I s'pose so. Lotsa money. Not when it first started, but it was getting better and bigger."

I stopped for a minute and thought about it. So far, the way the whole thing shaped up, Press had made a big touch with the help of some of his con friends, then double-crossed them and skipped with all the dough. The double-crossed pals were griped and might have fixed his wagon, but from what I'd gathered they'd probably just ignore him and besides, there wasn't anything yet to show his death wasn't accidental. If he was dead. Press had skipped out around the first of July, then shortly after that he'd started up the Inner World Society, run it a couple of months-or so till it started going good, then fired everybody connected with him. Right after that he was supposed to have wound up dead in a car. Something smelled somewhere.

I asked Lucille, "How long after all of you got fired till Press was reported burned up in his car?"

"Right after. Couple days, dead an' gone."

"O.K., thanks, honey. Thanks for everything." I got up and started for the door. "Be seeing you."

"Hey," she squealed. "Shellie!"

I glanced back over my shoulder. She was coming up off the divan with her arms stuck out toward me.

I got my hand on the doorknob.

"Shellie. Yes dance."

I shut the door quietly behind me. She was a good dancer, one hell of a good dancer, but I was all danced out.

Chapter Sixteen

WHEN I WALKED out on Toberman Street, cold air slapped me in the face and cleared my head of the bourbon fumes I'd carded, down from Lucille's apartment. The sun was a low, red ball of fire behind a palm tree across the street. I stopped my car around the corner on Pico and called Samson and told him I'd be down in a couple of hours; things were taking longer than I'd expected. He told me to get on my horse and get downtown, and after a little good-natured beefing I hung up and headed back to the Cadillac.

I sat in the car for a while, thinking, and then drove down to Fifth and parked.

I got out, walked across the street to the Los Angeles City Library, and went up to the Science Room.

I came out with four books, got back in the buggy, and drove down to Broadway and then to the Hamilton Building, I spent an hour over the library books and my Encyclopedia Britannica. After that I dug the registers I'd swiped from Narda out of the magazines where I'd hidden them. Probably Narda had missed them by this time and was having a fit.

I started with the register I'd signed myself on Sunday morning. Apparently the registers were a record of attendance at Narda's ghosted lectures, and I noticed that there was a series of signatures, then a couple of spaces skipped before the next series. At the top of each group of names was a date. It appeared to be a running, record of daily attendance, and on the Sunday morning I'd been one of the disciples there'd been twenty-two others who'd signed the register. No signatures appeared after those entries for the simple reason that I'd had the book. I remembered the young writer, Jordan Brent, had said it was probably a new "class" I'd been with, and sure enough, I couldn't find any of the names listed under last Sunday's date on any of the previous pages of either book.

There was one interesting point about the dates. They showed that the first entries had been made late in September of last year—and Press had been reported dead on September twelfth. It looked as if somebody had put the Inner World Society of Truth Believers on a businesslike basis all of a sudden.

I poured over the books for a few more minutes, then got out pencil and paper and made two short lists. The first one was half a dozen names and addresses of people who'd been present at the same time I was, apparently making their first trip to an IW session. For the other list I went back in the registers about six months and copied down a few names of people who seemed to be regulars; people whose names appeared in the books day after day. I guessed those were the true "disciples." Maybe they could clear up a few things for me.

I put the registers away in the magazines, left the magazines on the desk, stuck the two lists of names and addresses in my pocket, and was on my way.

Nobody was home at the first place I stopped. I crossed the top name off the list of newcomers to IW. The second address was a small frame house on Toluca Street. I rang the bell and the door was opened by an elfish little man about sixty years old, with big ears and a black tie looped snugly around his prominent Adam's apple, then tied into a fight knot like shoelaces. He blinked at me owlishly.

I hadn't thought about it till now, but I decided chatting might be easier if people didn't know I was a private detective.

"I'm Francis Joyne," I said. "Are you Mr. Petersen?"

"Sure. I'm Petersen. What can I do for you?"

"Well, Mr. Petersen, I'm very much interested in the Inner World Society of Truth Believers. I was present and listened to Narda this Sunday morning, and as I've learned that you were also present, I hoped we could talk about the Society."

He opened the door wider and said, "Come in Mr. Joyne, was it? Please come in."

I went inside and he showed me to an old Morris chair, much used and comfortable. I sat down and said, "The thing is, I've only recently become aware of the Society, but I'm interested in the work. I might be interested enough to aid the organization, well, financially, but of course I'd like the opinion of others. I'd like to be sure the organization is, shall we say, reliable."

"I see." He grabbed one of his big ears in a small hand and scratched it vigorously. "Could I fix you some tea, Mr. Joyne?"

"No, but thanks. I really don't have much time. Just thought I'd stop in for a minute and ask you about the organization. Your opinion."

"Sure. Sure. Well, I guess I can't tell you much, Mr. Joyne. First time I was ever there was Sunday."

"How did you happen to go there?"

"Just read about it in the papers. Seen it before, but just didn't never go. Paper said it was a new outlook on life, new peace of mind and suchlike. I live alone here, Mr. Joyne. Sometimes it gets kind of lonesome, you know, so I just up and went. Thought maybe I'd get something out of it."

"How did the service impress you, Mr. Petersen? Did you enjoy it? Was it about what you expected?"

"Don't rightly know." He played with his ear some more. "Was a strange thing—felt like I was off somewhere else when that Mr. Narda was doing his talking. Couldn't understand more'n half what he said. Seemed like a real smart one, though. I guess I liked it all right."

"Do you plan to go back again? Regularly, maybe?"

"Well, I didn't go back this morning, but I was thinking about it for tomorrow. Can't see no harm in it, and it's a place to go. Made me feel kind of peaceful. I suppose I'll be going back. How about you, Mr. Joyne? You be going back there to them meetings?"

I got up, "Yes," I said. "I'll be going back."

"Good. We'll see each other there, maybe?"

"Maybe we will, Mr. Petersen. Thanks for your time."

He went with me to the door and just before I left he said, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down behind his tightly knotted black tie, "Say, Mr. Joyne. Any time you want to come back and talk, I'd be glad to have you. Always drink tea myself, but I could get something else if you'd like."

I thanked him, knowing I wouldn't be back, and left feeling a little sorry for Mr. Petersen.

I killed another forty-five minutes checking the rest of the names on my first list, and the story was just about the same. A man and his wife had attended the Sunday session because their pastor had by some strange set of unimaginable circumstances become involved in a most unseemly scandal, and as a result of this blow they were window-shopping. Yes, they really thought Narda had a lot on the ball—a revelation. A young kid and his girl just saw the light and went over to see what was going on. They both got a big kick out of the deal and, like me, they "like to busted laughing." The last name on my list was a woman of forty-odd years with an inquiring mind, who was investigating the "multiple facets of religious expression in Southern California." We had quite a talk. When I left there it was after eight P.M., and I dug out the list of what I supposed were the regulars, or active disciples of Narda's hooey.

The first name was Alfred P. Fresnell, and I had to ring three times and knock to get him to open the door. The conversation was interesting, if not very enlightening.

He was a tall man dressed in a maroon silk robe and his face looked like a large blob of mayonnaise. He was thin and pale.

He looked as if he'd just waked up and he said grumpily, "I don't want any," and started to shut the door in my face.

I leaned easily on the door and said, "I'm interested in discussing the Inner World Society with you. I understand you're acquainted with the organization."

He glared at me, growled, "Beat it," and slammed the door shut. I heard a key turn in the lock and footsteps receding from the door. It looked as if the conversation was ended.

Back to the Cad, out to Harvard Boulevard, and up to the door of 824½. It was a big place set back behind a lot of green lawn that was getting ragged and long, and it looked as if it had cost somebody a pile of dough. I pressed the buzzer at the side of the heavy door and chimes went off inside like the "Prelude in C-sharp Minor." Rachmaninoff was still bouncing gloomily off the walls when the door opened and a woman about thirty years old looked out at me.

She was sallow-complexioned with pleasant, regular features and brown hair tied on top of her head in a colorful bandanna. She was the second gal I'd seen in the last few hours with a highball glass in her hand, but she either hadn't had much to drink or she held her liquor better than Lucille. Praise be.

She gave me a glassy-eyed look and said inquiringly, "Yes?"

I'd been Francis Joyne for over an hour now; I switched back to me to see what happened. "Good evening," I said. "I'm Shell Scott, a private detective. I wonder if I could talk to you for a few minutes."

She narrowed her eyes and squinted at me, chewing nervously on her lower lip. "A detective? What's the matter?"

"Nothing's the matter." I tried to grin at her reassuringly. "You're Mrs. Kelland, aren't you?"

"Yes, of course, but what…" Her voice trailed on and she continued nibbling at her lip.

"I'm working on a case and I thought you might be able to supply me with some of the background I need. You're not personally involved, Mrs. Kelland."

She licked her lips with a furred tongue. "Well, all right. All right, I guess. Come on in."

I followed her into the living room and perched on a chair.

"Mrs. Kelland," I said, "I've learned you were, for a time, actively interested in the Inner World Society of Truth Believers. I wonder if you could give me a little more information about the Society."

She gulped the last half of her highball before she answered, "I've got nothing to do with that outfit."

"You did go to their meetings for some time, though, didn't you?"

"Just a couple times. I told you, I've got nothing to do with them."

I knew better, but I let it ride. "What did you think of the organization, Mrs. Kelland? Did you find that Narda's philosophy was, well, of benefit to you? Of any real worth?"

She put the highball glass on the floor, then leaned back into the cushions of the divan and yawned. "Listen," she said at last. "I don't know anything about it, Mr.—whatever your name is. I'm tired; past my bedtime. Don't want to talk about it. Don't know anything about it. Leave me alone. Just leave me alone." She closed her eyes and let her head relax against the cushion behind her head.

I sat and looked at her for a minute or two, wondering. Finally I said, "One other thing, Mrs. Kelland, and I'll go. Mrs. Kelland?

My conversational abilities apparently weren't of the highest order. Mrs. Kelland snoozed quietly, breasts rising and falling with her breathing, and her lips making a tiny puffing sound as she exhaled. I must have been the most exciting company she'd had for a week.

I got up quietly, said, "Pleasant dreams, my love," and let myself out. It was eight-forty-five Monday night.

I drove to the nearest pay phone and called Samson.

"This is Shell, Sam. Finally. Let's—"

"Where the hell you been?"

"Never mind that now, Sam. What say we call on Narda?"

"It's about time. Where you at?"

"The two of us ought to be enough to arrest dear old Narda, huh?"

"O.K., genius. We arrest him, huh?"

"Yeah. On suspicion."

"Suspicion of what, genius?"

"Murder, Sam. Suspicion of murder."

Chapter Seventeen

WHEN WE PULLED up in the graveled driveway at the side of the temple, Samson clicked off the car lights, still growling.

"Sam," I said, "I know this is a little unusual, and I might be about to make a damn fool of myself, but string along with me, will you? Something might happen. There's just one way everything makes sense at all, and I'd like to try it that way. I'd appreciate it if you'd let me handle the play and make a fool of myself if it works out that way."

As we got out of the car Samson stuck one of his black cigars in his mouth and growled, "Damn you, Shell. If it was anybody but you…This better be good. If it's not, I got a good mind to clump you in a cell where you'll be out of my hair.

"It'll be good, Sam." I tried to sound sure of it myself.

"I'd like to keep him in the dark a while about why we're out here."

After we rang, the door was opened by Narda himself. He looked out at us without saying anything, but his jaw dropped when he saw me.

"Surprise," I said. "What's the matter, Narda? Didn't you expect to see me anymore?"

He started to slam the door shut, but Sam and I leaned against it and walked into the black-draped room where Narda and I had first chatted. No organ music this time.

Narda backed up stiffly, black robes hanging heavily around his ankles, his dark eyes staring at us from under the white turban.

I said, "This is Captain Phil Samson, Narda. He's from the Homicide Division of the Central Detective Bureau."

"Homicide? Why…what are you doing here?" He'd recovered a little of his composure, but he didn't wear it very well.

"He wants to talk to," I went on. "Me too. Just a little conversation. What say we go to your room?"

He blustered a little. "We can talk here. This is an invasion of my privacy. This is my home. You can't—"

"Stow it, Narda," I said. "We're bigger than you are. Let's go."

He pressed his jaws together, but turned and led us to the room I'd burgled the night before. Outside the door I said to Sam, "Sit tight with him, will you? I'll be back in a couple of minutes."

Sam glared at me and almost bit off the end of his unlighted cigar, but I turned and took off before he exploded.

I went prowling for Loren, the white-robed, round-faced gal I'd first run into here, and the one who exchanged intimate glances with the now nervous Narda. I had the beginnings of an idea that she might be able to toss some light on. There wasn't much downstairs: the big front room, Narda's room, and a couple of others, empty. In one of the rooms upstairs I found the other woman who carried a candle for the sunrise services. The door was unlocked and I was trying it when she opened the door and looked out at me. She was surprised as hell.

I said, "Nothing to worry about. Your boss is in a little trouble. The police are here."

Her eyes got wide. "Police?"

"Yeah. Relax. I'm looking for Loren. What room's she in?"

"Why, two doors down the hall." She gestured with her head. "What's the matter?"

"Don't worry about it now. We'll clear it all up later. Thanks. You'd better stay in your room for a while."

She swallowed visibly and said, "I will. Yes, sir, I will."

I waited till she'd shut the door, then walked down the hall. The first door was directly opposite the stairs; the second was just beyond it and to the right of the stairs. I stopped at it and knocked. Nobody answered, so I opened the door with the skeleton keys I still carried and went in.

Loren hadn't been dead long. Her bluish flesh was still firm and warm, and she looked as if the last tortured breath might just have passed her lips. She lay on the floor just inside the door as if she'd given up trying to reach it when the pain became too strong and the will too weak. A dark-blue robe lay loosely about her twisted body.

Her eyes were wide open and staring with that peculiar, soul-shivering fixity and blankness of the dead. A little froth was on her lips. Her left arm was bent under her and the right was extended before her, both fists tightly clenched. Near her, on the floor, was a gleaming hypodermic syringe with the thin, hollow needle that had poured death into her veins.

I didn't pick up the syringe, but I knew if there were prints on it they'd all be hers. I sniffed cautiously at the needle and the barrel, and the characteristic peach-pit odor was the same as that on her lips.

What had happened was obvious enough. Loren had squeezed the hypodermic plunger and sent a few deadly grains of cyanide of potassium directly into her blood. She'd have died fast: dizziness and pain, the heart pounding and straining, muscles constricting, the entire body screaming for air that wouldn't come. She'd have died fast… and horribly.

I didn't touch her except to feel for the pulse I knew wasn't there. I sat down on the floor, leaned back against the wall, and thought about a lot of things: faces, words, glances, violence, slammed doors, and murder, among others. I hadn't expected to find Loren like this, and for a minute it threw me for a loss, but it cleared up something that had been puzzling me all along. I sat with the dead woman and thought about the last couple of days and nights, and thought quite a lot about Narda. Then I got up and walked back down the stairs and found the phone.

I lifted the phone wearily and dialed the number of my apartment. I heard the phone removed from the hook, but nobody answered.

I said, "Lina, this is Shell. I want you to do something for me."

Still no answer.

I got a cold chill for a second, then remembered I was the guy who'd told her to clam up till she was sure it was me. I'd never called her on the phone before, so she couldn't be expected to know my voice positively.

I fixed that. I said, "O.K., pepper pot," and mentioned an incident of the night before that nobody could have known about except me.

She laughed and said, "It is my querido, Shell. What do I do for you?"

"You know where the IW temple is out on Silver Lake Boulevard?"

"I know where it is, yes."

"This might sound silly, honey, but I think it'll help. Do you know this Narda? The big wheel out here?"

"No, Shell."

"Well, I'm out here at the temple with a big, gray-haired cop named Samson. He weighs damn near as much as I do, and he's got a kind of pinkish face and a jaw that looks like a chunk of rock. He'll probably be chewing a cigar. There'll be him and me and another guy in a room out here. The other guy is Narda. I want you to grab a cab and get out here as fast as you can. Don't stop to pretty up." I told her where we'd be in the house and went on: "Knock on the door of the room we're in, then walk right inside and start laughing at Narda. Get it? Start laughing like you'd just heard the funniest joke in the world. And the front door's open. Slam it when you come in so I'll know you're here. That's all. Got it?"

She said without hesitating, "Sí, querido. I will do what you say, but I think you are crazy."

I said, "Maybe I am, honey," hung up, and walked back to Narda's room. Samson was sitting in a wooden chair by the door and Narda stood opposite him, nervously twisting his bony fingers together.

Narda glanced at me as I came in the door and walked across the room toward him. I stopped in front of him, grabbed him by the loose front of his black robe, and with my other hand jerked the white turban off the gleaming bald head of the very active corpse of Walter Press.

Chapter Eighteen

PRESS CLAPPED HIS hands to his bald head and struggled a little as I spun him around and jerked at the padded, quilted robe that covered his body.

He tried to fight me. He screamed hoarsely, "Stop! Stop it. You can't, you can't!" but I slammed him up against the wall, pain lancing through my bandaged right hand, and ripped the robe from him and flung it to the floor.

He turned and flattened his back against the wall, arms spread and the palms of his hands pressed against the wall behind him, as if he could force his way into the wood and out of our sight.

He was a sad specimen of a man without his trappings of divinity and clad only in a pair of baggy white shorts. His frame was shrunken, hollow-chested, and potbellied, and his hairless chest was pale.

His mouth opened wide and he pulled his lower lip down from his teeth in an anguished grimace, then rolled his eyes to the robe crumpled on the floor, the heavy robe that had covered his thin shoulders, scrawny chest, and bony knees, and made him look like a man. Without the protecting folds of the robe to hide them, the clumsy shoes on his feet made it obvious, too, how he'd grown from the five-seven of Walter Press to the more imposing five-ten or five-eleven of Narda. And it explained why, when he left the room after our first inverview, he'd looked as if he were walking on eggs—stiffly, awkwardly.

I said, "We came out to arrest you for murder, Press."

"Press? Press? I'm not Press. He's dead. He's dead. I'm Narda. Narda! Do you hear me?"

The booming voice was incongruous now, coming twisted and harsh from the almost naked man. Not at all like the "Disciples. Disciples. Listen to me…" I remembered from Sunday morning.

"Shut up, Press," I snarled. "You murdering bastard. You'll die in the gas chamber, Press. Want to tell us about it, Press?"

He was starting to crack just a little. He'd been Narda—powerful, masterful, almost divine Narda—so long he probably partly believed he was what he wanted others to think him. But it was tough going right now.

"I haven't killed anybody. I haven't. I swear it. I swear I haven't killed anybody."

"The hell you say, Press. And, Walter, I didn't mean lately. I meant about a year ago. About the twelfth of September, How about then, friend?"

He clamped his teeth together and pushed himself back harder against the wall, his eyes darting from one side of the room to the other. He didn't say anything.

I asked him again, "How about it, Press? Going to tell us?"

He lifted his eyes to glare at me and his lips twitched, but he didn't speak.

Samson had risen from his chair and was holding his cigar in his hand. He said, "Goddamn."

"Sam," I said, "take him. I'll be right back." I went out the door as Sam stuck the cigar back in his mouth.

I ran upstairs and banged on the door of the room where I'd left the other woman. She opened the door immediately.

I said, "What's your name, and where do you fit into this racket?"

She gasped, "I'm Phyllis. Phyllis Strong. I don't know what you mean."

The hell she didn't know what I meant. I barked at her, "Phyllis, you lie to me, or the police downstairs, and you'll get more trouble than you're already in. How much do you know about what goes on in this cockeyed setup?"

"Nothing," she said too quickly. "I just work for Narda."

"You ever see him without his robes and turban? I want that straight, baby. I mean it!

She shook her head. "No. No, I really haven't. I thought it was strange—"

"You sure?"

"Certainly I'm sure. I've wondered why myself."

"O.K., honey. You're going to see him now."

I told her almost the same thing I'd told Lina over the phone. For her to walk right in and burst out laughing. When she agreed I added, "And, baby, no tricks. A captain from Homicide's in there with him, and I'll be right beside you. Laugh like you're delirious. You're in enough trouble already, so follow instructions. If you've never seen him without his pretty clothes, it'll be easy."

I told her to give me about a minute, then ran back down the stairs.

Samson had Narda's shoes off and was shaking his head over the built-up soles and heels, while Narda sat on the edge of his bed with the spread pulled up in front of him like a coy bride. I walked up. Whim and with my left hand yanked the spread away from him, then pulled him into the center of the room.

"You might as well spill, Press. You haven't got a prayer."

He told me to go do something to myself that would never have occurred to Narda. He was starting to pull himself together, getting a little defiant.

"O.K., Press," I said. "If you—" That was as far as I got. Phyllis opened the door and walked into the room, and she came through with her part as if she were working on an Academy Award. It didn't look like all acting, even to me. Maybe it wasn't.

She glanced at Samson and me as she walked in, her face a little frozen and set.

I said, "Say hello to Narda, honey," and she turned and looked at Press standing with his small fists clenched.

Her eyes widened, eyebrows shooting up, and her mouth dropped open as she stared at him. She gasped incredulously, "Narda?" then literally exploded into laughter. She bent over, gasping, laughter catching in her throat and choking her, then bursting from her mouth and ringing in the room. She bent over, shrieks spilling from her throat.

It was a little sickening to watch Press wince and crumble. The defiance faded from his face and he seemed to shrink, his bony arms unconsciously rising to hide his spindly nakedness from the woman.

Sometimes you can be more cruel to a man than if you beat him with a club or a whip. Press was being whipped. Each ripple of laughter was leaving a welt across his mind, exploding in his skull like the end of his world. He was living one of those nightmares where you're naked in the sun and the whole world points at you and laughs and screams and gasps in its throat. He was the idol-with-feet-of-clay come to life in a frenzy of hisses and jeers: half Narda, half Press; half saint and half devil; and now half sane and half insane, for a moment.

He wrapped his arms across his chest, then around to grip the knobs of his shoulders, and backed slowly across the room. He stopped against the wall, then slid down it to the floor, his face screwed up, grimacing as a bound and frightened man grimaces before another blow. He sat huddled on the floor, arms about his knees and his face turned to the side, eyes staring, the shocked brain only half comprehending that the glorious figure of Narda he'd built for a while in the minds of his disciples, and finally in his own mind, was disappearing, dissolving in laughter.

I pushed the still gurgling Phyllis gently out of the door and went back and knelt in front of Press. "How about it, Walter? You still Narda? Don't you want to tell us about it now?"

He lifted his twisted face up and stared at me. His face moved slightly around his tight-pressed lips, but the lips didn't open. He didn't speak.

"Come on, Press. You'll get nowhere this way."

He turned his head away from me and stared dully at the wall on his right. Still tough enough, still clammed up. I put my hand Under his chin and pulled his face around till I could stare into his eyes. I said softly, "Where's Loren, Narda? Where's your little sweetie? You kind of go for little Loren, don't you, Narda?"

I felt like the lowest kind of animal as I said it, but I knew there was one lower—the guy I was talking to—so I kept it up. I'd keep it up all night if I had to, even if I hated myself for it.

"How about Loren, Narda? I mean Press. Yeah, Walter, I mean. Ever sleep with her, friend? Or were you just hand-holding sweeties, platonic? Was it platonic, Walter? Hey, Press. She ever see you like this? Loren ever get a good look at you, Narda? I mean Press?"

I didn't have to hold his face around to mine anymore. He was looking at me with a fixed, horrified expression that told me more than any words he might have said. He was half panting, half sobbing, his thin chest rising and falling with each choked breath.

I remembered it was about time for Lina to get here.

I reached up and tapped him gently on the chin with my bandaged hand. "I'll go get her, Narda. I'll go get your sweetie." I grinned at him.

"No!" The word came out like a cry. "Please," he said, "please don't. She's never seen me like this. She…she wouldn't understand. Please…"

I backed away from him, and he leaned forward onto his hands and knees like an animal, staring up at me. I kept telling myself he was an animal, the lowest kind of human on the face of the earth.

I stood in the middle of the room and looked down at him. The front door slammed. Lina.

I said, "Maybe that's Loren, Walter. I'll go get her."

His face got frantic. He screamed at me, "No, no, no. Please, don't get her. Don't."

I knelt down and glared at him. "You going to spill? You going to tell us everything? The whole damn thing, you low bastard. Come on, Press. Start talking. Fast."

He was right in the middle; he'd practically stopped thinking. He was still on his hands and knees on the floor, looking at me. He lowered his head for a moment, then raised it again and looked at me from dazed eyes.

Lina knocked on the door.

I said softly, "Come on in, Loren. Come on in."

The door started to open and Press screamed and scuttled into a corner of the room and cowered there, his face buried in his hands.

Lina came into the room, still dressed in one of my shirts and my trousers. She laughed shrilly and loud and without stopping. Press's body jerked and quivered. He ground his hands into his eyes, then slowly, his face terrible, he took his hands away and looked at Lina.

His mouth grew lax and moved stupidly, nothing coming out. Then he realized it wasn't Loren; it was someone else. His face screwed up and he started to cry.

I was sick and disgusted. Disgusted with Press and with myself, with everything. I raised my voice for the first time and yelled, "Go get her, Lina. Get Loren and bring her down here. Let her see what kind of man Narda is."

Press held up a hand, not looking at us. "Wait," he sobbed. "Wait, please. I'll tell you anything. Let me be. I'll tell you anything you want to know."

I went over by him and waited for him to pull himself together a little. I motioned Lina outside and she stepped out the door. Press finally calmed down a little and started talking. For a moment I didn't have to ask him anything; he just started spilling over and kept it going.

"I killed him," he said. His voice was a little less wretched now, a little stronger. He knew he was finished; he'd probably known it ever since Sam and I pushed our way inside. But he'd been pretty tough for a while. It had taken a kind of beating to get it out of him. That and the fact that with everything else crumbling around him, he'd been afraid to face the laughter of Loren, a woman I'd guessed he thought a lot of, and who looked up to Narda as something he wasn't at all. Press had seen his fiction crumbling around him, but he could salvage out of the ruins a Loren to cling to. One person who thought he was something special. Well, he could have that much. It was funny, but I didn't get any kick out of it. He'd been afraid of Loren's laughter, but she couldn't laugh at him. Loren was dead.

"I killed him. I hardly know now why I killed him. I'd run off from some friends…taken money that belonged to them. I was afraid they'd catch up with me, do something to me. I got to where I was sure they'd find me and kill me, make a lesson of me…and then I wanted to go on with the Inner World the way it was planned. I had to work it all out some way. It seemed, then, like the best way to drop out of sight was to die, make it look like I was dead. I knew this wino, a skid-row wino, name was Robert Fisch. I got him in the car—my car—and took him up north. Clear up to Oregon."

Press paused a moment, breathing deeply. Then, still sitting on the floor in the corner, resting his arms on his upthrust knees, he put his head down on his arms, and without looking at Samson or me continued to talk all in a rush. "I knocked him out with a wrench, then put my watch and rings and everything on him. He was just my height and build. That was why I used him. I poured gasoline in the car and on him, set it afire, and ran the car over a cliff. Coroner didn't even think twice about it. Fisch was all burned. I came back down here on the train. I became Narda. Everything was fine…fine."

"O.K. so far, Press. Something else, though. You seemed awful surprised to see me a little while ago. Didn't you know I was running around? Haven't you seen the Seipel boys since they hauled me off?"

He shook his head wearily. "No. Thought you were still out…there."

"Then you haven't seen either of the Seipel boys?"

"No."

"You didn't know they were dead, then?"

It didn't even surprise him. He just shook his head.

"All right, Press. What I'm really interested in is lately. What about the racket? The Inner World gimmick? You know what I mean, friend."

"All right. All right," he said wearily. "It can't make any difference. But don't—"

We all heard it at the same time. Someone running headlong down the stairs. Press jerked his head up, the tenseness starting to return to his face.

Then we could hear Phyllis screaming as she reached the bottom of the stairs, "She's dead! Oh, God! She's dead!"

Phyllis threw open the door and ran into the middle of the room, her face white and her voice shrill. She screamed, "She's dead! Loren's dead!" and fainted and fell in a crumpled heap to the floor.

Chapter Nineteen

THAT FINISHED PRESS. He stared in amazement at Phyllis where she'd fallen. His face went blank, then he pulled his lips back from his teeth, scrambled up from the floor, and came at me as if I were two feet tall. Samson grabbed him before he got to me and Press collapsed like a punctured balloon. He let himself be led to the bed and he sat there quietly. His eyes were open, staring, but he wasn't seeing anything. Unless, maybe, it was the round, pixie face of Loren.

Samson bent over the girl on the floor and felt her pulse. She started to stir and her eyelids quivered slightly.

Samson looked up at me. "She's O.K. Now what the hell's this about another corpse?"

"Loren," I told him. I jerked a thumb toward Press. "One of his helpers. Poison, Sam. Cyanide. She shoved it into her own veins with a hypodermic."

Lina appeared in the doorway. "What is it, Shell? Can I help?"

Samson said, "Rustle up some cold water and see if you can find some smelling salts or ammonia. You might put on a little coffee, if you can find a kitchen. I'll take this one to bed. She'll be O.K. A little shock, but rest'll fix her up." He lifted her in his arms as if she weighed a good ten pounds and asked me, "Where's her room?"

"Head of the stairs. First one on the left across the hall."

"And where's this Loren?"

I told him and he went out carrying Phyllis. Lina scurried off in search of the stuff Sam had mentioned. I turned to Press. I didn't expect to get anything now, but it wouldn't hurt to try.

"Press, you started to tell me something. What was it?"

He didn't even move, didn't look at me.

"Might as well get it off your chest, Press."

If he heard me he gave no indication that he had. I tried a couple more questions with no better results, then gave up and waited for Samson. I heard him dialing on the phone, Homicide probably, then after a brief conversation he came to the door of the room and signaled me outside, away from Press but where we could see him in case he made a break.

"Lousy mess, Shell. You, uh, you have any idea that upstairs was going to happen?"

"You know better, Sam. Not the faintest. It knocked me spinning. If I had, I'd have told you about it. I think you know that."

"Yeah, Shell. Forget it. But you keep too much to yourself."

"Maybe. But I didn't have anything. Except an idea. Not much more than that."

"There was a good chance Narda and Press were the same guy, Shell. But what made you sure enough to bust in here and raise all this hell?"

"I wasn't sure. But that's one advantage a private eye has over a cop—especially a damn good cop like you, Sam. I don't have a big organization behind me, but that means I can make a stupid ass of myself and it doesn't reflect on anybody but me. I can mess around with thugs, and women of questionable character, and even get drunk and fall in the gutter working on a case—as long as nobody jerks my license—and I'm just sticking my own neck out. Nobody's going to point at me and say, 'Look at the cop. Just like all the damn cops.' Follow me?"

"Sure I follow you. Only, part way, though. But what made you so sure of yourself?"

"I wasn't sure. But nothing else made enough sense to play with. Narda was always in that big robe that covered him all over his body. He always wore a turban—that could be covering a bald head. The first time I saw him out here he walked funny—could mean fancy shoes. Narda popped into the picture right after Press was supposed to have been killed. A dead man's prints in Narda's room didn't make good sense. Another little thing—the night I swiped that glass from Narda's room he was walking around inside. I could hear him. When Loren came to the door he wouldn't let her in. Claimed he was taking a nap when I knew damn well he wasn't. Then he moved around inside for a couple of minutes. He could have been putting on his pretty duds so he wouldn't be caught with his pants down, so to speak. Another idea along that line—I talked with a guy that writes little speeches for Narda's spiels. He always delivered the things here at a definite, prearranged time. Could be for the same reason Press wouldn't let Loren barge in: so nobody'd catch him without his padding. Little things; it's always a bunch of little things, but there was enough to make a guy wonder a lot. There's more, too, Sam, more little things that tied it up tighter." I thought of something. "Sam, where's Lina?"

"Upstairs. With that Phyllis woman. She's O.K. I…Here come the boys."

I could hear the siren now. It shrilled, then slid down the scale in a diminishing moan as the car pulled up.

"Radio car," Sam said. "Lab boys oughta be right behind."

The print men, photographers, chemist, all the crew from Homicide and Scientific Investigation were finished. The coroner's two uniformed deputies had come and gone, taking with them the body of Loren. Press and Phyllis were on their way to Headquarters. Part of it ended.

Lina and I rode in with Samson in his official car as far as my apartment. Sam waited while I took Lina up, then said to me when I came back down and climbed in, "You got everything settled in your pointed head now?"

I shook my head, which, incidentally, is not pointed. "Almost, Sam, but not quite. I'm fouled up somewhere."

"You hadn't finished what you were saying when the boys came up outside. That's the impression I got. What's the rest of it?"

"Like I said, Sam, I'm fouled up. I've got to think about it. There are a couple of things out of line. Besides, I don't feel so good. It wasn't fun watching Press go through the deal he got. Not even him."

"It was pretty rough on the guy, Shell. What got you so tough all of a sudden?"

"I had good reason, Sam. Or I thought I did. Let me shove it around a little. O.K.?"

He let it ride. Sam didn't get to be Detective Captain Phil Samson making dumb plays or missing any bets. And I'd never crossed him yet. But he also knew one Shell Scott could be just as fouled up and stupid as the next guy on occasion. He wasn't happy, but he let it ride.

He dropped me off at my car, which was parked near the City Hall, and I drove on up to the office on Broadway. Driving there, parking, riding up in the elevator, and letting myself into the office, I shoved it around, played with ideas and theories and guesses. It seemed like I had everything filed away in my brain; I was sure of it, but it wouldn't fit down to the last piece. I was forgetting something, skipping something. I should have been remembering. A word, or a warming, or an idea—something—was scuttling around in my subconscious, trying to burst out, and I didn't like it. It gave me a creepy shiver of apprehension along my backbone.

I went inside the office, settled into the swivel chair, and stretched my legs out over the edge of my desk, and the phone rang.

I let it ring a few more times, then grabbed it and growled, "Sheldon Scott Agency."

I almost didn't catch it. The voice was a whisper and it said it just once. "If you want the answers, Junior, go to Century and Main. Pick up the guy in the black suit." Just once, in a whisper, then there was the soft click of the phone being replaced on the hook.

Chapter Twenty

I YANKED MY FEET off the desk and slammed them down on the floor.

"Hello. Hello. What's that? Who is this?" I was yelling into a dead wire. I got the operator. No, she couldn't trace the call. It would take about forty-five minutes and I'd have to keep my party on the line. Sorry, sir, is there anything else?

There wasn't anything else. I let it rattle in my head for ten seconds, then I got up and raced down to the Cadillac. Main at 100th. I swung left from Broadway down two blocks to Main, took a right, and stepped on the gas. About Twelfth Street I eased my foot off the accelerator and said to myself, Whoa, Scott. Slow down Where the hell you going, cluck? Here I was whizzing down Main Street as if I were on the last lap at Indianapolis. Size this up, Chum. What gives? Who's out at Century and Main? What's he got for you? What's the caper. Maybe a little friend wants to scramble your brains. Brains? I tried to remember whether Main at 100th was a busy corner or mainly nothing.

My bandaged right hand went automatically under my coat up to my armpit. No gun. Naturally, Scott, you soft-headed soft heel.

Wham! A ton of ideas reared up and smacked me in the back of my skull like a twenty-pound sledge. The last piece, the little thing that had been nagging me, stumbled out of my subconscious—and it scared me. It really scared me.

My eye caught the lights of an all-night service station on the corner, and I pulled over and skidded to a stop.

I left the motor running and the headlights on, scrambled out of the car, and ran inside the station office, my eye finding the pay phone on the wall, my left hand pulling a dime from my pants pocket.

I dialed the number of my apartment and the phone clicked at the other end of the line.

"Lina, this is Shell. You O.K.?"

No answer. I swore a blue streak, remembering. I said, "Pepper pot. Querida." In desperation, knowing seconds were important, I repeated the tidbit I'd used to identify myself to her before. I heard her gurgling laughter.

"Lina," I snapped, "you all right?"

"Yes, Shell."

"Good. Stay put. Don't let anyone in. Anybody call you?"

"No."

"Good. Don't answer the phone. See you later." I hung up.

I did what I'd have done in the first place if I had a brain in my head. I pushed another dime in the box, riffled the pages of the phone book till I found the number of Cornell Martin, and dialed it. His calm, crisp voice answered.

"Mr. Martin?"

"Yes."

"This is Shell Scott. Is Tracy there?"

"Why, no, Mr. Scott, of course not. I appreciate—"

"Skip it. What do you mean, of course not?"

"I don't understand, Mr. Scott. Why are you calling again?"

"Again!"

"Mr. Scott." His voice got a little crisper, a little sharper. "Didn't you call a few minutes ago?"

"No. Quick, man. Who called? How long ago? What happened?"

He snapped the answers back fast. "About fifteen minutes ago. Tracy answered the phone. She left immediately. Said she was going to meet you. Something important assumed you had called. What is it?"

"Where did she say? Where was she meeting me?"

"She didn't say. Mr. Scott—"

"I'll fix it," I snapped. "Hang up."

I slammed the receiver down on the hook, jiggled it, used another dime, and called Samson at Homicide.

"Sam. Shell. Listen and listen good. I got time to say it once, and it's life or death. I mean it. Grab Press and get over with him to my office. Fast—no siren. Park around the corner and hightail it straight to my office unless I stop you. Fast, Sam!"

I tossed the receiver at the hook and didn't wait to see if it connected. I spun around and sprinted back to the Cad, jerked the door shut, and gunned the buggy out onto Main Street, headed back downtown. I leaned on the horn, pressed the accelerator to the floor boards, and let it rip. I went through a red light and a stop sign, horn blaring, but I made it in one piece down to Third Street.

Samson should have been just about getting started with Press. I hoped to Christ we were in time. I let up on the horn, skidded left into Third, gunned across Broadway. I yanked on the emergency and left the car double-parked in the street. Then, hugging close to the buildings, I sprinted back to the corner and up Broadway.

Down in the middle of the block I saw a girl that looked like Tracy, turning into the entrance of the Hamilton Building. I didn't know; the state I was in, almost anybody would have looked like her. I couldn't yell at her.

I sprinted with all my strength through the thin crowds and turned into the entrance of the Hamilton. The lobby was empty, but the door of the self-service elevator was just closing. I leaped for it, but it slipped shut before I could get my fingers on it. It was moving up.

I turned and leaped up the steps of the cement stairway three at a time. I got to the top just as the elevator doors started to open. I ran toward them as they opened wide and Tracy stepped out. I clapped a hand over her mouth, pushed her back inside, and shoved the button for the ground floor.

I took my hand from Tracy's mouth and said, "Sorry, I'll explain. Just a minute." I was all out of breath.

The elevator stopped at the bottom and I pulled Tracy out into the lobby. "Wait here, honey," I told her, then walked to the entrance of the building and looked out. In another ten seconds I saw the police car turn from Broadway into Third. Samson and Press. Sam would see my car there. Good enough. I saw the two of them coming up the street the way I'd come, leaned out of the entrance, and waved them on.

They came up puffing and I led them inside the lobby. When we were all in a bunch I turned to Tracy. "You must have been seen. Not much time. Here's the play. We'll all go up to my office. Tracy, you knock and say, 'Mr. Scott…Shell. It's me. Let me in.' Then you get the hell out of the way. Wait in the hall, then when I call you, come in, follow my lead, and when I ask you a question say, 'That's the one.' "

I turned around to Sam and Press. "After she knocks, we shove this snake up in front of the door. You got that, Press?" I kept my voice low and growled at him, "Be sure you get it, Press. You just stand there, see? And if there's even a peep out of you, I'll bust your dirty skull." I meant it. "Then we go in, Sam—with a gun. And the party's all over. Case finished. Everything's ended. Come on."

We didn't stop for any more chatter or explanations. Outside my office, we stood at the side of the door and Tracy stepped up in front of it and glanced at me. I nodded at her and she knocked. "Mr. Scott…Shell. It's me. Let me in."

I held my finger to my lips and jerked my head down the hall. Tracy walked quietly toward the elevator and Sam shoved Press in front of the door. Sam and I stood at the side, out of line with the door, and waited.

The door swung open suddenly and a deep voice exploded, "Walter! What the hell…"

I stepped up behind Press and shoved him hard into the room, then stepped right after him, Samson on my heels with his police revolver in his hand.

The shocked face of Maggie Remorse collapsed into a fat mass of surprise. She swung her big head from Press back to me with a look of complete bewilderment in her eyes. A shiny revolver hung forgotten in her big fist.

Chapter Twenty-one

MAGGIE GAWKED AT ME, then at Sam as I took one step up to her and took the gun out of her paw with my left hand. "Hello, sweetie-puss," I said. "Party's over."

She blinked at me as her mind started to function again. "You bastard!" she roared.

I grinned at her. "You're all washed up, Maggie. You're going away for a long, long time. Maybe up forever."

She said dirty words and added. "You got nothin' on me."

While Samson herded them both over against the wall I said, "We've got plenty, Maggie. For a start, how about Division Ten of the Health and Safety Code of the State of California?"

Samson swung his head around fast to stare at me, but Maggie's face just looked puzzled. I went on: "That, Mrs. Remorse, is more commonly known as the State Narcotics Act. We can start with a rap for narcotics possession. That's a felony for court procedure and should hold you a few years all by itself. There's a lot more—things like receiving stolen property, attempted murder—but we wind up with the clincher that's enough all by itself: accessory before the fact of murder. The murder of Georgia Martin, sweetheart. You didn't do it yourself, but your hired trigger men did—those Seipel hoods. And that's just as good as if you did it yourself."

She cleared her throat and spat on the floor. "Prove it," she rumbled.

I glared at her. "You're not at El Cuchillo now. I like my floor clean. I don't even like you standing on it. Maggie, you're about as low a creature as I can imagine—yeah, you and not-so-holy Narda over there, too. Only you probably knew him first, and best, as Walter Press."

She swiveled her head around to stare at Press, then back to blink at me. "What you talkin' 'bout, Mac? Never seen him before in my life."

I raised an eyebrow at her. "Oh? Then who the hell besides Walter were you calling Walter when Walter was standing in front of the door just now?"

She didn't say anything.

Samson came over. "What's this narcotics rap, Shell? The murder fits."

"The narcotics fits too, Sam. Big-time stuff, this deal. The Inner World Society of Truth Believers, with Narda and hypnotic chants and sunrise services, was just a big, fancy front for shoving dope."

Maggie's fleshy face sagged a little more. She pulled the biggest chair in the office over to her and sank into it.

I went on: "You're finished, Maggie, and I hope to Christ you get what's coming to you. Sam, listen to this, then tell me just how it smells. You listen too, Maggie. Only you already know the answer—you and Narda."

I turned and told it to Samson, but Maggie and Press were listening. "Remember when I briefed you about the first time I went in to see Narda? I pretended I was a guy named Francis Joyne and, right after Narda's sunrise service, I got in to see him. Well, there I was sitting on the floor looking up at him, way up in the air. I feel a little dopey, but I don't think too much about it. He looks like a giant, but when I stand up he's only five-ten, maybe five-eleven. Anyway, while I'm on the floor the twins come in. They've got guns. One of them shoots the padding out of my coat—and I've got a healthy respect for guys with guns. Well, I'm not much scared. I'm braver than hell. Now, get this, Sam. I crack wise I'm so brave, and one of the twins lays a gun barrel across my jaw, here." I tapped the still swollen spot gently. "It's nothing; a trifle. It knocks me flat on my back, but it doesn't hurt at all! I still crack wise and get up off the floor. I'm so tough I eat guys like them.

"O.K. So then they take me out to that place out on Aloha Street where you found the one twin, and shove me in with Tracy. I can't think of a way out for hell. While I'm not thinking of a way out, we get some stew. I haven't eaten for maybe twelve hours, and I've been up all the time, but I'm not especially hungry. Well, I wander around the room, and twice I go over beside the door hoping the guy's going to come in so I can eat him alive or tear him apart with my bare hands. There's a big chair in the room I could use to bat the guy with, but I don't even notice it. My brain's spinning like a roulette wheel, but I'm getting double zeroes. I think I'm doing fine. I'm going to squash the guy with my fists. More—I sit down, yawn a while, then sleep like a baby for ten or eleven hours. And the dreams, Sam. Lord, the dreams I had! Sometime I'll tell you. But when I wake up, things are right and we get out of there." I stopped and swallowed a lungful of air. "Add it up, Sam. You can't miss."

Sam pulled a wooden match out of his pocket, struck it, and held the flame against the end of his cigar. He puffed at it a minute, looking at Maggie and Press, took the cigar out of his mouth.

"Dope."

"You're damn right it was dope, Sam. And if you do a little snooping around El Cuchillo and Narda's temple, you won't have any trouble proving it."

I watched Maggie when I said it. She'd been staring down at the floor, but she raised her eyes and peered at me. Press peered some, too.

"You sweating a little, Maggie?" I asked her. I laughed. "You're just starting to sweat, baby. It's all tied up tight." I turned back to Samson. "For a while I thought it was the drags I took on that damn cigarette I gave you. Then you told me it wasn't marijuana and that idea flopped. Dig this, Sam. Here's how I got it. Oh, it was fancy. Real fancy."

I looked at Press and chanted in a deep voice, "As Christ gave unto his disciples food and drink, so shall I, Narda, give unto you." I glared at him. "You low, crawling, stinking bastard. Sam, I drank the stuff, or chewed it up in a little wafer and swallowed it. Neat, huh? I did a little checking on narcotics at the library earlier. The stuff can be taken orally, by mouth, and it works just like sticking it in your veins with a needle, only a little slower. And a normal, healthy guy like me probably wouldn't get much euphoria, or kick, out of some drug like, say, morphine till after several little shots of the stuff." I stopped a minute and looked at Samson. "How you like it, Sam?"

He just had the fragments, pieces from the edge, but he got it in a rush; he was 'way ahead of me. He pulled another cigar from his pocket and started kneading it in his fingers as if he wanted to do something with his hands. He said slowly, "Of all the dirty, damned, twisted…" He stopped, but I could see the muscles rippling in his big jaw.

"Yeah, Sam. Mass production. They were turning out their own addicts as if they were coming off an assembly line. Using that Inner World build-up to get the 'disciples' in, then feeding them little doses of an addiction drug till the body had to have the stuff. Then the unveiling. I talked to a couple of graduates of the Inner World Society earlier this evening. They fit in real pretty." I walked over to Press. "What were you slipping the sucker Sunday when I was there? Morphine? Maybe a little heroin?"

I swung around and stuck my face in front of Maggie's. "It was your idea, sweet-puss. Maybe you'll answer some questions. Was it your idea to make the conversion to your 'philosophy' take just four weeks?"

Sam came up and tapped me on the shoulder. "Four weeks? That how long the suckers were supposed to play?"

"Yeah. I got that first from the guy that ghosted Narda's speeches. Lamebrain, here, couldn't even write his own stuff."

Sam growled, "And all this time the suckers were supposed to be getting a little poison each session? Every day?"

"Yeah. Or almost every day. Adds, doesn't it?"

"It adds, all right. Four weeks—wouldn't have to be that long for some of the stuff. That's plenty time to build up an addiction. And when the suckers get that monkey on their backs, they go through hell without their shots. Isn't a crime in the book they won't pull off so they can get dough for the stuff." His lips curled as he stared past me to the sagging face of Maggie and Press.

"Another thing, Sam," I said. "When dream-girl here had Georgia shot, the cause of death was obvious. Death by gunshot. The PM exam would show what organs the bullet hit, trajectory of the slug, and so on. Wasn't any reason to look for anything else. But I'll bet an autopsy now would show she was full of hop. And that explains what was happening to her bank account. It wasn't blackmail, but paying for the hop she needed."

I turned back to Mrs. Remorse. "How do you like that? Sweet-puss, you're clone in just like Press. I'll bet a buck you've got the dope right in El Cuchillo. And I'll also bet that Miguel was doing business after hours there, pushing the stuff to the hypes. I ran into him there after the club closed, and I'll bet he was pushing then." I grinned at her. "Did you know he was loaded to the gills himself? Might have been behind your back, Maggie. I mentioned something like that to him and he up and tossed a knife at me.

"But that's the least of your worries. We've got you for murder. I wondered why Georgia Martin was important enough to kill when she started throwing her weight around and let you know about it Saturday night. I know now. It wasn't just a missing sister or a phony religious racket—she was on the stuff. She was one of the damn-fool disciples. That's why she was a little cagey about what she told me. She wanted to protect her own skin and the name of the Martin family, but she didn't want anything to happen to her sister—and she was burning a little, herself. Somewhere she got the idea El Cuchillo was mixed up in the mess. I'm not sure how, but you'll tell me, Maggie. Maybe she got some stuff from Miguel after hours. Maybe a lot of things. But when she flipped down there Saturday night, she had to be taken care of. Nobody connected with IW could afford to take a chance your dirty racket might pop out in the open, so she had to be killed. All you had to do was grab a phone and call the Seipels. Easy. You're the gal that told me about phones, remember?"

She was just a little panicky now. "Anybody coulda called 'em. Didn't have to be me."

I grinned at her. "You admit it was the Seipels, then?"

"I don't admit nothin'."

"You were their boss. It wasn't Press. Peter went to you, not to Press, after I'd killed his brother."

"Who says so?"

"You do, Maggie. You told me."

She blinked at me.

"Sure, Maggie." I lifted the revolver in my left hand. "This is what I meant by receiving stolen property. It wasn't just a joke. Not completely. This is my gun, my thirty-eight. You brought it to me tonight, only you were going to use it on Tracy. The last time I saw this was when Peter had Paul take it away from me. Press didn't even see the guy, so you had to get the gun from Peter. Do I have to write it out?"

"I don't know any Tracy. I don't know what you're talkin' about." She was more nervous now, her tongue licking almost constantly at her fat lips. "What for would I have anything against this Tracy?"

I grinned at her again. "I'll let her tell you, Maggie." I yelled out the door for Tracy to come in. I heard her heels clicking in the hall and she came in the door. I walked up to her, led her over in front of Maggie, and asked casually, "Well, Tracy?"

She looked at me, then back at Mrs. Remorse. She said calmly, "That's the one."

"You sure, Tracy? You sure it was her?"

She strung along as if we'd rehearsed half an hour instead of about two seconds downstairs. "Yes. I'm positive. It was her, all right."

"Thanks, honey. Well, Maggie? Should I write out, too?"

I didn't have to. Her face was twisted and plain scared. I went on: "That's right, Maggie. You weren't sure, but she did get a good look at you when the boys took her upstairs at the temple. You came out at the wrong time. She was crying a little, but she wouldn't forget you. She could tie you in positively with the temple and Inner World, so you had to get rid of her. When Peter gave you my gun, naturally you found out we'd flown the coop. You probably figured correctly that Tracy would be home, and you called her, pretending to be me. She'd never heard me over the phone—you were lucky there—so she fell for it. And then, while you're watching for Tracy, I show up. You couldn't have both of us in the office at the same time, so you got rid of me with a cock-and-bull story and it was safe for you to let yourself in here. Only I wasn't gone long enough. A neat touch, my gun. You weren't sure how much I knew, but you figured Tracy could tie you up with IW. Getting rid of her with my gun might mess me up, too. But Maggie, darlin', it seemed strange to me that the phone should ring as soon as I got inside the office. Just as if somebody was watching the place. You should have waited a little while—but maybe you didn't have time. And why clear out a hundred blocks on Main? Why not Tenth or Twelfth—or right here? Simple. You needed time, and you needed me out. Chew on that, Maggie. You're finished. Admit it."

She went on licking her lips, and I stepped over to the side of the room with Samson. We spoke softly so that nobody else in the room could hear us.

He whispered, "Nice going, Shell. I've got an idea. What say I take Press out in the hall? I'll find a room on this floor and keep after him. You work on the old bag. One of 'em ought to bust open."

"Good deal, Sam." I flipped out the cylinder of my.38 and made sure the chambers were full and it was ready to go. "There's something else. I, uh, held out on you, Sam. That time I picked up the glass with the prints, I also picked up a couple of registers. Lists of the people who attended the sunrise services."

He thought for a moment, forehead wrinkled. "Then that list should give us the names of a flock of hopheads. You know, the ones that went regular."

"It should and it does. I talked to some."

Sam pushed out his lips and frowned. "And you held that out on me? Why, you dirty bastard." But he grinned when he said it. "Where are those ledgers?"

"Here. In the office. In a couple of magazines on top of the desk—those copies of True over there."

"Give me one of 'em."

"Now?'

"Yeah. I'm not going to say anything about it for a while. Just let our pals sweat a little." He glanced over at Press and Maggie to make sure they were keeping apart. "Besides, I want to see what they do when you haul them out. I guess they know you got the things, huh?"

"Press is sure to—they were in his room. I'm not sure about Maggie. Press might have been scared to tell her they were gone. There's a chance."

"Good. O.K., Shell. Let's start it."

I walked back over to the desk. Tracy was still standing by it. "For Pete's sake, honey," I said. "I'm sorry. Here, sit down." I pulled out the swivel chair for her.

Her eyes were wide. "It's all right," she answered. "I hadn't even noticed." She looked a little pale. She was probably just realizing what had almost happened to her. She sat down and I opened the magazines where I'd stuck the ledgers. They were still there. I took them both out, said, "Here you are, Sam," and started to hand one to him.

He wasn't watching me; he was looking at Mrs. Remorse. I glanced at her. She'd just about forgotten where she was. She rose part way out of her chair, staring at the ledgers in my hand. She said something unintelligible, then opened her mouth wide, lumbered around toward Press, and with one tremendous sweep of her massive left arm smacked him across the face and sent him sprawling on his back, blood gushing from his nose in a red stream.

Chapter Twenty-two

MAGGIE BENT OVER Press, her fingers curled into hooks reaching for his throat. Sam, moving like a cat in spite of his bulk, was across the room and had her by both arms before she could do any more damage. She'd done enough. Press was a mess.

Samson wrestled Maggie back to her chair, where she sat with her huge breasts rising and falling like two beach balls as she breathed heavily through her open mouth. Sam took one of the books from my hand, winked at me, then lifted Press off the floor and out of the room.

I pulled a chair up in front of Maggie, out of reach of her hamlike fists, and balanced my .38 on my knee while I talked to her. "What's the matter, Maggie? Didn't you know Press took us into his confidence? How do you think I knew so damn much about the racket? Where do you think I got those ledgers? Get smart, sister. Why do you think we brought him up here? You don't think I pulled all this information out of the air, do you?"

She was going around in circles and her brain was dancing a sloppy schottische. She didn't know which way to go or how to get there.

She rumbled, "You…you got nothin' on me." She didn't sound as if she believed a word of it.

I laughed in her face. I opened the ledger I still held and flipped some of the pages, watching her out of the corner of my eye. She started licking her lips again.

"S'pose I knowed somethin'?" she said hoarsely. "What if I did?"

"You could tell me about it."

"An' what's that get me?"

"I don't know, Maggie. I can't promise you a thing. A private eye can't promise any immunity. You've heard of state's evidence, though, haven't you? You can bet your good pal—I mean ex-pal—Press has. Anyway, maybe it'd be for what's left of your soul."

She looked around the room, not knowing what she was looking for, took a deep breath, and said nothing.

"Think about it, Maggie. We've got it all, anyway, But you think about it."

She thought about it. She was still thinking about it when Samson came back in alone. "Got it, Shell," he said. "I caught the radio boys and sent Press down to Headquarters with 'em. They're taking his deposition down there."

Maggie's, immense bulk quivered uneasily. "Whatsa deposition?"

Sam walked over by her. "That's a formal statement, Mrs. Remorse. Signed, witnessed, taken under oath. All very legal. This particular deposition is what cooks your goose."

"Cooks…" she croaked.

Sam ignored her and turned to me. "The main thing Homicide was interested in was the Martin girl. Press gave it to me. Saturday night she"—he gestured toward Maggie—"calls the temple and says there's trouble—"

"He's a goddamn liar!" she yelled.

Sam continued to ignore her and went on calmly: "—at this night club, this El Cuchillo, and for the Seipel boys to get down there and fix up Miss Martin and you." He grinned at me. "Cute, huh? Well, it looks like Press is in the clear himself. Mrs. Remorse didn't get him. She talked direct to one of the Seipel boys—Paul, it was—so Press didn't know anything about it till it was all over. Naturally—"

"Hey!" said Maggie.

"—we can't hold him as an accessory on that murder rap if he—"

"Hey! Wait a minute." Maggie was part way out of her chair again.

Sam frowned down at her. "What's eating you?"

"He can't do that," she rumbled. She paused a moment, eyes flicking from Sam to me, teeth nibbling on her lower lip. Then she made up her mind, blew breath out of her nostrils, and went on through with it. "He's lyin'. You'll screw me up, but he's in it. I called from the club, all right. But I talked to Press. Get me? Press I talked to. I swear I did. So he had to tell the boys himself. That makes him accessory or whatever the hell you call it."

Sam pushed out his lips in a frown. "Hmm. That's funny. That's not the way, Press tells it."

"The bastard! He's lyin'!"

"If you'd care to sign a statement to that effect, Mrs. Remorse… "Sam looked at me. "Got pen and paper, Shell?"

I scooted for the desk while Mrs. Remorse hesitated. Sam said, "Of course, we can leave it the way it is. It's just as good—"

"I'll sign it."

From there on in it was easy. Once she got started, she was in so deep there was no point in stopping, and we got it all. She'd been in the narcotics traffic in a small way when she bumped into Press and his new Inner World racket. Her shrewd mind played with that a while and came up with the racket to end all rackets. Inner World was a made-to-order blind for her narcotics deal, but more than that, her twisted mind saw it as a way to create a demand for her product. The way she looked at it, it was a simple case of the law of supply and demand. She had a supply of narcotics, a big supply from poppy fields in the state of Sinaloa, Mexico; more than she could use. And her go-between, or contact man, incidentally, was the little "sensual Latin" I'd first seen at El Cuchillo—Juan Porfirio. All that was needed for a really rich take was the demand: addicts. And IW could create that. A little morphine or heroin in the Inner World "cosmic fluid" that the suckers gulped with religious fervor, half hypnotized by Narda's sirupy phrases, and in a matter of weeks, presto, bigger demand. It wasn't 100 per cent, but even 10 or 15 per cent of the suckers added up to a staggering profit. Particularly when Maggie and Press could get the pure stuff in from Mexico, cut it ten times or even more with milk sugar, then push the cut dope directly to the addicts with nobody in between to worry about. Only Maggie, Miguel, the Seipels, and Press had been in the know on the narcotics angle, and Miguel—the only one left unaccounted for—was hiding out at a house of Maggie's in the San Fernando Valley. We got the address and, later, Miguel.

Anyway, Maggie had sold Press the idea, playing up the fantastic profits possible, arranged for Jordan Brent to ghost Narda's speeches, and had Narda fire all the old crew, get new help, and start in fresh on a really businesslike basis. It was a messy deal all around. Oh, yeah—the uncut dope was in El Cuchillo in cans of "imported chili," imported from Mexico just like it said, bold as hell, on the club's menus.

Maggie signed the long, badly spelled statement and Tracy, Samson, and I witnessed it. We had Margaret Remorse where she squirmed the most.

Samson used my phone and called Headquarters for a couple of cars. When he got up from behind the desk he put the statements in his coat pocket and I noticed him hitch up his pants. He didn't have on any belt.

A glittering idea began growing in my mind.

"Sam," I asked, "Where's your belt?"

"Huh?"

"Your belt. Where is it?"

"Oh, that?"

"Uh-huh."

"I, uh, lost it."

"Sure, Sam. You lost it. Where was it you lost it?"

"Why, Shell, I don't exactly remember."

I grinned at him. "Samson, you dog! Just how did you get Press to spill? A psychological approach? Hit him on the head with a telephone book? Or did you beat him with your belt? Or did you maybe tie him up with it and leave him?"

Captain Phil Samson of Homicide grinned right back at me. He chuckled. "Shell," he asked me, "you got to be the only genius?"

I started to bust out laughing, but Maggie butted in with supercharged hate in both eyes. "Yaaaah!" she screamed hoarsely. "You crooked bastards! Go—"

The rest of Maggie's remarks will not be recorded here.

Chapter Twenty-three

AFTER SAM AND I untied Press from where Sam had left him—verifying my suspicion that Press hadn't told Sam a damn thing—and both he and Mrs. Remorse were on their way to Headquarters, we put Tracy in a cab and then went to Sam's office.

Sam leaned back in his chair and said, "Some crazy deal." He held up thick fingers and counted on them. "A murder, 'way back—by Press. Another murder when things started getting shaky—as they had to sooner or later with that setup; that was the Martin girl. Dope peddling and smuggling, some more killings, then the suicide of—"

I butted in "No suicide, Sam."

"I mean that Loren. Pess's sweetie."

"No suicide, Sam. She was murdered."

Sam rolled the cigar around between his lips, then clamped it between his teeth and shoved the words around it. "O.K. So she was murdered. So now we start all over again, huh? Or have you got it all sewed up?"

"Uh-huh. At least I know who killed her."

"Who?"

It was a brand-new cigar, but Sam took it out of his mouth, rolled it around inside the ashtray, then mashed it out.

He leaned back in his chair and said, "O.K. I know you're gonna tell it. How? And why?"

I felt as if I was carrying a ton around on my back. I was tired, and I felt as if I could sleep for twenty-four hours straight. I lit a cigarette, dragged smoke deep into my lungs, and said wearily, "It's funny, isn't it? Georgia Martin. It starts with her and now it ends with her. One hell of a vicious circle. Well, the 'how' is the toughest, Sam. We know she was mixed up with the IW bunch. She was one of the disciples, and she must have been in and out of the temple. I think she got messed up with them through one of the Seipel boys—you can check with Tracy Martin on that. Anyway, she was always a little wild, ready for anything, Tracy said.

"It wouldn't have been too tough for her to slip into Loren's room and mix a fat slug of cyanide with Loren's dream powder. You know what the stuff looks like, Sam; it'd work all right. Then when Loren took her usual speed ball, if she's on it steady—or maybe just a pop if she only took one for a lift now and then—bang, she's dead and it's murder. Georgia, being on the stuff herself, could recognize the symptoms in another one. Or maybe Loren talked to her." I took another drag on my cigarette. "She could have done it without too much trouble, if she had a reason. And that brings us to the 'why'."

"Yeah. Get around that."

"Take a look at Georgia, Sam—the way she was before she got messed up with Narda's outfit. A fairly sweet kid, a little wild, maybe, but good enough. Then she gets tangled up with Inner World and she listens to Narda's guff, which was pretty damn good. Too bad you can't hear him in action. Maybe Georgia even started falling for it. Maybe she started getting an unconscious itch for Narda—the way people sometimes do for their doctors and for their psychoanalysts. Ask any psychiatrist.

"So all of sudden she wakes up. Say it's morphine she's been getting. She's a morphiophague—what they call them when they get a mouth habit on morphine. She's been stabbed in the back; now she's got to have the stuff. And who's the guy responsible? Narda. He's a bastard, a sham, it's all been a laugh. Narda's the guy who's been spouting the pretty words and passing the refreshments.

"Take another look at her now. She's sick, and she's all loused up, and she's got to get back at Narda. O.K., kill him. But that's too fast; he doesn't suffer. And Georgia wants him to suffer. How? Then she gets the big idea. She must have noticed, just as that writer kid and I did, that Narda and Loren made goo-goo eyes at each other—and maybe that burns her still more. Remember, too, she's either hopped up all the time now or needing it bad, and she doesn't think right every minute. Beside, she's a woman, and who knows what the hell a woman's thinking? O.K., take away Narda's sweetie-pie, and Narda goes through his own private little hell. As soon as she thinks of it, it's as good as done. She fixes it up, but she gets killed before she can enjoy it." I ground out my cigarette. "But I'll bet you one thing, Sam: Wherever she is, she's laughing."

Sam nodded his head. "Maybe…maybe."

"Something else, Sam. Remember, 'way back when this all started? When Georgia died, she managed to gasp, 'I killed…Narda,' and the last word trailed off in a sibilant whisper. No wonder it was sibilant. I didn't know then what the hell or who the hell Narda was. But later I thought about it a lot. Here it is: It boiled down to three possible things Georgia could have been trying to say. One, she meant she'd killed Narda. Two, she meant she'd killed somebody she thought was Narda. Three, she hadn't meant Narda at all. That exhausts all the possibilities. Well, we know she and Narda knew each other—Narda, or Press, told you that himself when you or your boys first went out to see him. And it's obvious he was, and is, alive. The only answer is she didn't mean Narda at all. She wasn't saying 'Narda,' but 'Narda's.' Possessive. That's why the sibilant business at the end. And she started to say Narda's sweetie, or sweetheart, or babe, or anything. We'll never know just the right word. She didn't get to finish. But she wanted to get it off her chest, Sam. And she did, just barely."

Sam didn't say anything for a minute and I added, "Of course, just between you and me, it's only a wild theory. I couldn't prove it. And nobody would benefit from knowing that Georgia murdered Loren. Least of all her father. Or Tracy."

Sam worked his thick lips in and out. "No proof," he said slowly. "Sounds like a pipe dream to me. You're off your trolley this time, Shell. Suicide. Open and shut."

We both sat and thought about it for a few minutes, neither of us saying anything. Then I got up, told Sam it was bedtime for me, and gravely shook his big hard hand.

Like always, I was pleased to shake hands with a good cop, and a good man.

Chapter Twenty-four

THE BOURBON FILTERED down my throat, cool and pleasant and heady. I swallowed from a highball glass, let liquor roll around on my tongue, and slide down, down, down into my stomach. I was as relaxed as a doped amoeba. My eyelids slid down easily over my eyes, but it was an effort to get them back up again. I sank deeper into the cushions of the divan in the front room of my apartment, and looked down at Lina through half-lidded eyes. Even out of half an eye she looked terrific.

She was curled up on the carpet at my feet, arms resting on my knees, cheek pressed against her arm, looking up at me. The thick black hair was loose and hung down over her shoulders and halfway to the floor. She was still wearing my shirt and rolled-up trousers.

She looked up at me and long black lashes fell sleepily down over her eyes, then swept up slowly. "Querido," she said softly, "how terrible, that story. That Maggie. That Miguel." She shuddered.

"Terrible's the word, Lina. They were worse than their hired killers, actually. Their kind of people kill, too, but they murder slowly, over years, draining the suckers of their money and their respect, and finally their reason and life. Lord! When I think of how I almost got you killed messing around with Maggie…"

"But I am all right, Shell."

"Honey," I said, "it's too late tonight, but tomorrow—I mean later today—you've got to get out of here. There's no more danger for you. The gang's in jail. Case closed. So out you go."

The long lashes dropped down over her eyes again. The smooth, golden forehead furrowed in concentration. She opened her eyes and a faint smile curved her red lips.

"Ah, but Shell," she said, "you have just told me—how was it—that the case, it is not yet closed. That it will not be closed until the people who grow this drug and the bad ones who bring it over the border are caught and finished with. That one must catch the ones who grow, and the ones who smuggle, and the ones who sell it before it is over." The smile got wider.

I grinned at her. "Uh-huh. Right on all counts. But that's Sam's department now. He'll turn it over to the narcotics division. The government men will come in. It's just a matter of time. Besides, the stuff's grown in Mexico. There's nobody going to bother you now, Lina."

A full-grown smile was on her face. She ran the pointed tip of her tongue over her moist lower lip. "I do not know, Shell." She pressed her cheek against my knee and slanted a narrow-eyed look up at me. "I am afraid. I am afraid someone will hurt me. It is safer here for me. No?"

I grinned and mussed her thick hair with my hand.

She lifted her head and looked at me. Then she got up. "One moment," she whispered.

She went into the bedroom. I let more bourbon roll around on my tongue and down, down, down. I'd have to go out and see Mr. Martin tomorrow. Say hello to Tracy. Check in with Sam. See that writer guy, too, that Jordan Brent. Maybe there'd be something cooking at the office. The hell with it. I felt like sleeping all tomorrow. I stifled a yawn with my hand.

"Querido." Soft, whispery, deep in her throat.

I looked around, patting the yawn with my fist. I almost bit my thumb off.

It was Lina, still. But it was the Lina I'd seen for the first time at El Cuchillo. Remember? Snug black shorts that looked as if they'd been melted on; a scarlet bolero that didn't quite conceal the high, full breasts she was careless about but nobody else ever would be; dark hose over the long, golden, curving legs, and high-heeled black shoes. She'd even brushed her hair high up on top of her head the way it had been then.

She walked up beside me. "Querido, may I sit with you?"

I cleared my throat. "Uh-huh. Sure."

"And tomorrow then, I must go, I must leave?"

"Uh-huh."

"Pig."

"Uh-huh."

She sat down beside me and leaned her head against my shoulder. "Let us talk, Shell. Just talk for a while."

"Sure, Lina. Fine."

She whispered into my ear, her breath brushing gently against my cheek, and she stroked my temple with soft fingers. She said a lot of things to me, some in English, some in liquid Spanish, but all of it sounded good. Once in a while I answered her with a word, or in monosyllables, relaxed, drowsy, feeling contented and good. Even with the lovely, lovely Lina beside me, I was being almost lulled into sleep.

Tomorrow…hell with tomorrow. Need rest. See Sam next day, skip the office. See Cornell Martin and Tracy any time. She'd had a sort of tough time, too, that Tracy…

"You do like me, Shell? I am nice?"

"Sure. Sure, Tracy."

Silence. Awful, deadly silence.

"Tracy! Tracy! Marrano cochino!"

My ear was busted. It was all in shreds. I sat up straight, wide awake. "Huh? Hey, wait a minute, pepper pot. I—"

"You pig! Pig, pig, pig!" She was on her feet now, hands down at her sides, palms out, the fingers curling and uncurling. Her lips writhed in a kind of savage, beauty as she spat the words out at me.

"Degenarado! Mentiroso! Engañador! I will kill you! I will scratch out your eyes like big grapes! Perro mentiroso! Te rasguñaré la cara! La rasgarè! Perro engañoso! TRACYTRACYTRACY!"

"Wait a minute. Lina. Honey. All a mistake. Sleepy. Nothing. Didn't mean a thing. Didn't—"

"Tu eres el diablo mismo! Lo mato como—"

What the hell. There was only one thing to do. I did it.

Hell, no, I didn't slug her. How would you have stopped her, friend?

THE END

of an Original Gold Medal Novel by

RICHARD S. PRATHER

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 © 1978 by Richard Prather

Cover design by Open Road Integrated Media

ISBN 978-1-4804-9917-1

This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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Table of Contents

The Case of the Vanishing Beauty