<code> CHAPTER ONE

They dug up Johnny Troy that day.

Buried him — then dug him up.

They rioted in the graveyard, a thousand of them or more. They tore at the still-soft earth with shovels and hands and clawing fingers. They lifted his coffin from the earth and rolled it over the grass.

Then they took his body out of the casket and tried to tear it limb from limb. They pounded him and hacked him, ripped his flesh, broke his bones and gouged out both his eyes. There was very little left to bury — or rebury — when they were through with Johnny Troy.

Then they went to the polls and voted.

Because they did all that to Johnny Troy on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November, in the year of our Supreme Court, 1968. That’s right, 1968, the year and the day of the Presidential elections which were to zoom us out of the muddle ages into the Secure Seventies. Johnny had been dead for three days then, and thus was dead as hell, but that wasn’t enough for the people. Because he had been their idol.

They had loved him “with a love that was more than love.”

So, naturally, now they hated him with a hate that was more than hate.

Hell hath no fury like a nation screwed, and the nation had been screwed by Johnny Troy; at least, he was the symbol of the screwing. The people didn’t know it, though, until that day when they hacked him into little pieces. They probably wouldn’t know it yet if somebody hadn’t told them.

Who told them?

Me.

I told them.

</code>

<code> CHAPTER TWO

I’m Shell Scott.

I’m a private investigator. My office and home are, respectively, in Los Angeles and Hollywood — the very auricle and ventricle of the heart of Cuckooland — but, even so, it must have been an unhinged Fate that chose me as the instrument for rampant cuckooism in the City of the Angels. And the shocking treatment of Johnny Troy. But Fate did it.

I guess Dementia stalked the land in those three days. During them I ran into, or against, or away from: a Mafia boss and numerous of his hoodlums; the head of the most powerful talent agency in the country; several of the queerest ducks who ever quacked — artists, writers, sculptors, poets, and such; a pretty girl or two; the nation’s foremost head-shrinker, a guy who had met Sigmund Freud in semantic battle for the public noodle and slugged Sigmund through the ropes. I even met both candidates for election to the Presidency of the United States of America. One of them shook my hand; the other called me a bastard. Yes he did.

There were others. Not least, the late Johnny Troy.

He wasn’t, of course, late when I met him. He was almost too much alive, and perhaps the handsomest hunk of man I ever laid eyes on in my life. A big hunk. I’m six feet, two inches tall and two hundred and six pounds, solid enough, and I have mixed it up with some good ones. But I wouldn’t have wanted to mix it up with Troy. He was about my weight, maybe five pounds more, and two inches taller. He was built like young Atlas. He was twenty-eight years old but he appealed to every female between the ages of thirteen and three figures. The old ones wanted to mother him, the younger ones wanted to smother him, and the youngest wanted him for a brother, at least.

I do not exaggerate. He was the greatest thing to soar over the hero-worshiper’s horizon since, say, Rudolph Valentino. Or maybe a combination of Douglas Fairbanks, Enrico Caruso, Mahatma Gandhi, and Johnny Appleseed.

He was a singer.

That doesn’t explain it, of course. But — well, for a start, take his voice. It was a voice you wouldn’t believe. The superlatives applied. The critics were not critical. Teen-agers swooned and those over the hill twitched their middle-aged spreads, and grannies smiled gently, as peace spread over their chops.

Men, too. It wasn’t just that he hit some nerve in women that males do not possess. He did that, yes, but he was liked and even admired by men as well. I own half a dozen Johnny Troy albums, myself. Including one that few other people possess. And I could listen for hours to the golden notes, the sweet sad sound, the richly magnificent tone and phrasing of the voice of Johnny Troy.

He was unquestionably America’s most popular singer of songs, mostly pop songs, ballads, love and June and moon. But he did a few Negro-born spirituals, too, and they seemed to touch something deep and good in the people — in all the people, in case you wondered. He did one album of religious songs which sold 2,300,000 copies, and if you don’t think that’s just about impossible, check on the sale of religious vocal music in the U.S. of A. today.

Well, there’s more about Johnny Troy; and there’ll be more. But for me those three incredible days began with a visit from a little girl. Sylvia White. Sister of Charley White. Charley was a business associate of Johnny Troy, but more — he was the best friend, the closest buddy, the “psychic Siamese twin” as he’d been called, the inseparable companion of Johnny Troy. And Charley White was dead.

He had died Thursday.

His sister came to see me on Saturday.

That must have been the first diddle of diabolical Fate. That’s when it began for me.

Saturday mornings I either go downtown to the office, or I don’t. Depending on if I feel like it. This Saturday a.m. I didn’t, so I didn’t. I woke up wide awake — which for me was not merely unusual but almost unprecedented — and bounced out of bed. Man, I felt good. I felt like bouncing on the bed some more. Ah, Lydia! I thought. Lydia was the tomato I’d taken to dinner last night. My head bonged horribly; sure, we had boozed; I had several aches, in fact. I felt great.

Shower, shave, coffee, puttering about — I fed the tropical fish, winked at wicked Amelia on the wall — always avoiding the thought of breakfast. Then, bong! That was the chimes at the front door of my apartment, 212, in Hollywood’s Spartan Apartment Hotel.

I went to the door and opened it.

“Mr. Scott?”

She looked like a little porcelain doll. At first I thought she was a kid — you know, nine or ten years old — but then I got a better look at the sweet face, the small but gorgeously curved figure. She was maybe twenty, twenty-one, I guessed, but she couldn’t have been more than five feet tall. Maybe an inch or two less.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “Shell Scott. Come on in.”

She came inside, almost hesitantly. “I called your office. I hope you don’t — “

“All’s well. Apparently you know I’m a detective?”

“Yes. That’s why … why I’m here.”

We sat down on the big chocolate-brown divan and looked at each other. She seemed a bit startled by me. In the first place, I was about eight times her size. Then there’s my white hair, cropped about an inch long and sticking straight up in the air — it’s very springy; if I let it grow I’d probably look like a terrified symphony conductor in an electrical storm — and the equally white but fortunately not so springy white eyebrows over gray eyes in what I like to think isn’t really a frightening face. True, my nose has been broken a couple of times, but it was put back in exactly the right place once; and a dying hoodlum shot off a small piece of my left ear just before he started dying; and things have happened to my face that shouldn’t happen to automobile bumpers. But I’ve still got good strong teeth, and a strong unbroken jaw, and I’m very tanned … Well, at least I look healthy. But enough about me.

She had oddly blue, almost violet eyes with ridiculously long lashes and smooth black hair pulled back from her forehead. Her skin was pale, almost luminous; somebody wrote of Shelley, I think it was, that he had skin like alabaster illumined from within; if true, he must have had a complexion like this little gal’s. She had neat, delicate features, small red lips, and a voice like Chinese bells tinkling — those thin glass strips that dangle and make ting-ting sounds when stirred by the wind.

She smoothed the front of her brightly colored dress, lots of reds and blues and yellows in it, ran a hand over her black hair, and talked. She was Sylvia White. Her brother was Charley White, Johnny Troy’s friend; until a few months ago she hadn’t seen Charley for several years. They’d been born in Illinois, in Springfield, and lived there until she was eleven years old; Charley was six years older. Then there was a family breakup; she went with her mother after the divorce, Charley stayed in Illinois with the father. Her mother had remarried and they’d moved to South America, then returned to the States, California, about six months ago.

“Charley and I had written each other from time to time and I knew he was in California. So last July I looked him up. It seemed silly to be so near and not get together. Brother and sister.” She smiled for the first time, relaxing a little more.

“Uh-huh. You met in July, then? First time in — I’d guess about ten years?”

She smiled again. “Yes. I’m twenty-one. We were almost like strangers at first, but after a while it was like it used to be. He was doing wonderfully well, living in that suite in the Royalcrest…”

She let it trail off. Charley White had fallen from the balcony of his suite this past Thursday. At least I guessed he’d fallen. Anyway, he’d gone down eight floors to the sidewalk.

Sylvia went on, “He liked to come over to the house and have dinner with Mom and me two or three times a month. But the last month or so he was awfully nervous. On edge. Something was bothering him, worrying him.”

“He tell you what it was?”

“No. I asked him, but he just said it was something he had to work out for himself. A big decision of some kind, but I don’t know what it was. I knew he was under a lot of strain, so it didn’t surprise me when he told me he was undergoing analysis.”

“Analysis? You mean, uh, lying on a couch and — “

“Yes. He started seeing Dr. Mordecai Withers two or three weeks ago.”

That was interesting. I said, “If he was, well, mentally upset, do you think maybe his death wasn’t an accident?”

“If you mean suicide, no. I thought of that. Just before — before it happened, he’d been much more relaxed. I talked to him on the phone an hour or so before he died and he was in a wonderful mood, happy, laughing. I even mentioned it and Charley told me he’d made up his mind — come to that big decision. He was going to be — be free, he said. And he felt wonderful, it was something he should have done a long time ago. It was as if a big weight had been lifted from him. So if he was feeling that wonderful, he couldn’t have killed himself right after talking to me.”

I didn’t tell her so, but that didn’t prove a thing. Often depressed people, contemplating suicide, get relaxed and almost euphoric as soon as they make up their minds — to kill themselves. And “free” can mean “dead.”

“The police list the death as an accident. I assume you don’t, or you wouldn’t be here. Right?”

“Well, it’s — I don’t know whether he was serious or not. He was laughing so much.”

“Laughing?”

“Yes. He was coming over to our house that night, for dinner, and he said he’d tell me all about it.” She stopped. “And then’s when he said the funny thing. He said he’d tell me all about it if somebody hadn’t killed him first.”

I blinked. “He actually told you he thought somebody might kill him?”

“Yes. But — well, that’s what he said, and then he started laughing again.”

I didn’t like all that laughing. Guys who talk about getting knocked off, then become wildly tickled at the thought, are usually in little rooms. With lots of bars. And padding. And —

“Then he said it was just a joke,” she went on. “The biggest joke in the world. And nobody could really kill him — he had immunity. I don’t know what he meant, but that’s what he said. Immunity.”

I had Charley figured now. The thought of getting knocked off was hilarious. Bullets went right through him. He could float off balconies. He could eat glass. He —

“I know this all sounds crazy,” Sylvia said. “But Charley wasn’t crazy, Mr. Scott. He was just as sane and well-balanced and normal as you are.”

“Well, some people wouldn’t — “

“And he’d never talked like that before, not ever. Besides, just before we hung up Charley calmed down and told me I’d understand when he explained everything that night. The whole world would understand. We’d all have a big laugh. So it must have been something important.”

Yeah. If the whole world was going to laugh, it must have. It’s wonderful, the faith of a sister in a brother. Like mother love: Lookit, everybody’s out of step in the parade; except my boy.

I said, “Miss White, I’m not sure I agree completely with you — ” I cut it off. No point in telling her this struck me as a splendid case history of lunacy. Instead I said, “Just what is it you want me to do?”

“Find out who killed him. I’ll pay you fifty dollars.”

It came out in a rush. At first I thought she was as big a kook as her brother, but slowly I understood and it kind of got to me.

Her hands were in tight little fists, and a pink flush — of embarrassment, I finally realized — colored her cheeks. She was going on, still rapidly, as if making sure she got it said. “I mean, try to find out. And I know it’s probably not enough, but I’ll have to owe you the rest. The money, I mean. If you’ll do it — try, I mean. I’ll have some more, but not right away, and I thought this could be the first part. Or retainer, I guess it is. And I know this all sounds just awful, and maybe silly. But Charley wasn’t crazy, and … I really did love him. I knew I wouldn’t be able to say it right. But I had to try — “

Suddenly she was crying. Trying to smile and crying. The tinkling words stopped with a choked sound and the tears gushed out of her eyes. She sobbed as if she were going to die, her tiny face stretched with pain, lips pressed together and tears running down over them.

“Hey,” I said. “Hey, now. Look, it’s OK.” I pulled out a handkerchief and shoved it at her, then got up and walked — toward the wall. Then I came back. “Hey,” I said. Actually, I’m not very good with crying women.

She ducked behind my handkerchief for a few seconds, then uncovered her face. And just sat there.

“Well,” I said, “I don’t know what I’ll find out, but I’ll give it a whirl. Don’t be surprised, though, if there’s nothing, uh, diabolical to uncover. I mean, frankly, it doesn’t seem likely there’ll be evidence of homicide.”

“You’ll try to find out?”

“Yes. But as I just said, it’s not likely — Hey. Oh. Don’t do it again. Woman, dammit!”

“I’m all right.”

“Look, tell me all you can about Charley. Did he get along all right with Johnny Troy?” Anything, I thought; just anything to get her talking again.

“I’m sure he did. They were together almost all the time, you know.”

“Uh-huh. Do you know how they met? What brought them together in the first place?”

“Charley told me he practically discovered Johnny, that he was the first one to recognize his real talent. Charley wanted to be a singer himself, you know. When he was younger. Sang in a few clubs when he was twenty or twenty-one; he wrote me about it. But he, well, he flopped.”

“I didn’t know.” I was glad she’d told me, though; it helped me understand why he might have attached himself to Troy. I can be wrong, too.

“He couldn’t make it, but he really does know a lot about music. He wrote three of Johnny’s biggest hits, did you know that?”

“Nope, I didn’t know that, either.”

“Anyway, he heard Johnny singing in a San Francisco nightclub six years ago and signed some kind of contract with him — I’m not sure just what it was. Then he took him to see Mr. Sebastian and I guess everybody knows the rest.”

Just about everybody did. The Sebastian she referred to was Ulysses Sebastian, founder and president of the talent agency bearing his name, a man who represented several million — or maybe even billion — dollars’ worth of talent. The Sebastian Agency was the biggest, with the most fabulous list of clients, and number one on his list was Johnny Troy.

Four years ago Ulysses Sebastian had announced that he was introducing a new star, Johnny Troy — called him a star even before anybody had heard him — and Sebastian was, as usual, right. Then came “The Magic of Love,” followed by “Sing of Love,” and “Let’s Love” and dozens of others, and Johnny Troy was twelve corporations, and big business. Not only albums, but endorsements, personal appearances, two starring movies, Johnny Troy shirts and suits and shaving soap and golf clothes.

Inevitably the usual hangers-on had gathered around Troy. They came and went — most of them other Sebastian clients, although a very few were “outsiders” — but the one constant face was that of Charley White. He’d been with Johnny from the beginning, and had stuck with him to the end. He was “Old Faithful,” the constant friend — and constant is the word. He was part of all twelve of the Johnny Troy corporations, was almost constantly with Troy, and they even lived in adjoining suites in the Royalcrest.

Which made me wonder a little. On the surface all had been sweetness and light; but I wondered. Sylvia had told me her brother tried to make it as a singer and failed. And for four years and more he’d been buddy-buddy with the hottest property in the land, the admired, lusted for, and loved Johnny Troy. Since reflected glory isn’t really glory at all, some people might let that dig into them, eat them up inside with envy, jealousy, bitterness…. But maybe I was reaching.

Sylvia and I talked a few more minutes but nothing very grand developed. At least she didn’t cry any more. Finally she got up to leave and I told her I’d do some checking today and call her tonight or in the morning. She was living with her mother and stepfather in Santa Ana, but staying in Hollywood temporarily at the Haller Hotel.

“I’m very grateful, Mr. Scott,” she said, “really…”

“For what?” I grinned down at her. “This is my job, you know.”

She smiled. “If it gets very expensive — “

“Look, quit worrying about it. For now, anyway. Let’s see what I find out today.”

I was half convinced I’d find out that Charley White had floated off his eighth-floor balcony, flapping his arms. But at the door, just as she left, she gave me her wadded fifty bucks. I took it. Which meant, no matter what I thought, I was going to find out about Charley White.

I figured I’d spend the day on the case and wrap it up. A big nothing. One of those routine, unexciting jobs that crop up every month or two.

At least one guy I can think of was almost as wrong as I was. He’s the guy who said, “They’ll never get it off the ground.”

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<code> CHAPTER THREE

Well, maybe it wouldn’t be much of a case, I was thinking, but I was glad to have a job. Any kind of a job. Nothing very exciting had been happening for a couple of weeks, and because I was interested — like everybody else — in the upcoming elections, only three days away now, I’d kind of supersaturated myself with the campaign verbiage, the charges and countercharges and counter-countercharges. It would do me good to get my mind off it for a while.

If possible. Advertisers and publicity men had learned a lot in these last few years, selling toothpaste, contraceptives, anti-sweat pills, and such; they’d achieved near perfection in the use of automated analysis, mass psychology, the conditioned reflex, and hypnosis. Consequently the candidates’ names were hammered at the people day and night — Humble … Emerson … Emerson … Humble — until you wanted to go out and buy one of each just to satisfy the compelling post-hypnotic urge. But, worse luck, you could only have one; so everybody was bound to wind up with an unfilled and gnawing need.

Worse than that, there was electricity in the air, tension and a restless discontent that was contagious. It had been a very hard-fought campaign, and it seemed that this time more than ever before the voters had been stirred almost to a frenzy, were more than normally emotional about their opinions — which conflicted more than just a little. One reason was that, with the two top candidates for the top ‘68 spot, there was a clear and definite choice between opposing philosophies.

Horatio M. Humble was the glib, handsome, sincere advocate of federal solutions to virtually all problems, and his opponent was the equally sincere, though not quite as handsome, not quite as glib, David Emerson, who didn’t seem to agree with anything Humble had said since puberty.

It had been a real battle, right down to the wire, and — while the consensus of informed opinion was that Humble should take all the marbles without too much trouble — it was possible that California’s electoral votes could swing the election if it was close. Consequently, both of the Presidential candidates were ending their campaigns with intensive last-minute swings through California, winding up in Los Angeles Sunday night and scheduled for speeches on Monday, the last day before the voters went to the polls.

The two candidates had a large area about which to disagree. Namely, everything. But the issue which had come to symbolize their differences had turned out to be, oddly enough — at first thought, anyway — the question of fluoridation of the nation’s water supply. Humble was solidly for compulsory fluoridation; Emerson opposed the whole concept.

The basic controversy was simple. Scientists had testified that a small amount of fluorine in drinking water could be beneficial in helping prevent tooth decay in the very young. That was all.

But those supporting compulsory fluoridation said: If we add fluorine to all water supplies, infants will be forced to ingest fluorine with their drinking water and thus become less subject to tooth decay, and that will be good for them.

Those opposing compulsory fluoridation said: Fluorine is only one factor, and a minor one, in the problem of tooth decay; total nutrition, for example, is vastly more important. Most water already has sufficient fluorine in it, often more than is desirable. If chemical fluorine is added for infants, the adult and aged and ill will be forced to ingest it, too, often in greater quantities than desirable. More fluorine, possibly excessive amounts, will be used in irrigation of crops. There are other valid objections, but the basic evil is government compulsion. Compulsory fluoridation of the nation’s water, even if it’s “good for people,” is forced medication, forced on those who need it and those who don’t. If fluorine to prevent tooth decay, why not Alphabetagammacillin to prevent hardening of the arteries and adenoids? If fluorine may be forced upon us, why not tranquilizers? Besides, the cavities in the teeth of my children or my neighbors’ children are not a concern of the federal bureaucracies — at least they shouldn’t be. Water is essential to the health and life of every man, woman, and child. Leave it alone.

There were honest, sincere people on both sides of the question. But surely the extreme view was that of the pro-fluoridation group. Oddly, however, those who opposed forcible fluoridation of their drinking water were called the extremists. They were called crackpots. They were called suspicious, paranoid, heartless, unfeeling. They hated babies. They hated baby teeth. They were reactionaries, still living in the eighteenth century when water was — water.

I could come to only one conclusion. The world was losing its grip on reality. Earth might have to be locked up in a padded nebula.

Or maybe I was wrong. Maybe it wasn’t Earth. Maybe it was just a few people who made an awful lot of noise.

Ah, but there I went, getting paranoid about noise. Getting suspicious. There was something in the air….

Anyhow, such was the twitchy atmosphere in which I sallied forth to ask a few simple questions about Charley White. It was time I got my mind off the campaign. I’d forget about the elections entirely. Might even save my sanity.

Yeah. “They’ll never get it off the ground.”

After I’d supplemented my memory with background info from the police and a newspaper morgue, I came back to my apartment and got on the phone.

As far as the police were concerned, the death had been accidental; Charley White was presumed to have fallen over his balcony rail and squashed. They didn’t think he’d flipped over — at least, nothing was said about any laughing. Homicide wasn’t officially interested.

So … I managed to make a 3 p.m. appointment with Dr. Mordecai Withers, the celebrated noodle specialist who, according to Sylvia, had been fixing Charley’s noodle. I got that appointment by insisting that this was of vital importance, literally a matter of life and death — which, after all, it was. I gave my name merely as “Mr. Scott,” and did not indicate that I was a detective.

Then I called the Ulysses Sebastian Agency and got a gal who was, as I came in slow and dull fashion to comprehend, apparently Mr. Sebastian’s secretary’s secretary. Looked like this might be a tough case, after all. Finally, though, I was granted an interview for 1:30 p.m., after I’d given my full name, occupation, highlights of my career, a description — which she didn’t believe — and explained that my call would be in connection with the death of Charley White. I couldn’t get near Johnny Troy, by phone or otherwise.

So shortly after 1 p.m. I headed for the Sebastian Agency.

It was a high-powered place to begin. You’d have to say that Sebastian was one of the best known and most influential men in the United States, not only because some of the biggest names in virtually every area of the arts and entertainment world were his clients, but also because he was himself an unusual bird. He had friends in show biz, politics, among publishers, educators, society, in Wall Street — all over the place.

The Sebastian Agency was unique in that it wasn’t merely a literary agency, actors’ agency, or artists’ agency, but all of that and more combined: it represented anybody with “outstanding talent.” He’d started in 1955 with only about a dozen clients, but half of those were even then well known in their respective fields: two novelists and a playwright, a political pundit and columnist who’d written several best-selling nonfiction books, an Academy Award-winning actress, and a painter who was the top name in the field of nonobjective art. Today, thirteen years later, the agency represented scores of writers, actors, poets, painters, speakers, sculptors, ballet dancers — you name it.

One result of Ulysses Sebastian’s wide acquaintance with and influence among celebrities and others much in the news, as well as a very broad spectrum of the high-powered opinion-fashioning community, was that becoming a Sebastian client was the next best thing to a solid-gold guarantee of success. Once a client signed with Sebastian, the drums began to beat, the name was noised about, dropped into interview programs, seen in print, and the guy would be flacked, press-agented, publicized, advertized, and eulogized, until the name was known from Zamboanga to Zululand. The classic example of “Sebastianizing” was Johnny Troy — who would have made it even without all the Madison Avenue massage. Some of the others, though, I wasn’t so sure about.

The Sebastian Agency was in a six-story building on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, about half a mile east of the Strip. The entire fourth floor was occupied half by the agency, half by Trojan Enterprises, which handled Troy’s photos, fan mail, endorsements for sweat shirts and such. I pulled right off Sunset onto Ogden Drive, parked my Cad convertible and walked back to Sunset.

On my right, across Ogden, was the not-very-new plaster-over-brick Sebastian Building. Sebastian had started there when it was called the Whist Building, now owned it, and was still in it though he could probably have bought a good chunk of Sunset Boulevard by now. And on my left was shambles.

The old ten-story State Bank Building had stood here until recently, but it was being torn down now. The whole block was being torn down. As I watched, a man in the crane cab of a big truck-crane waggled some levers and turned his cab around, lowered the long latticed steel boom out and down a few feet. From the end of the boom descended a woven-wire rope attached to a big pear-shaped ball — the demolition ball, it’s called in the construction business, sometimes the “headache ball” or “skull cracker.” The crane operator waggled some more levers, the ball swung back then forward and slammed into what remained of a brick wall, whereupon immediately much less remained. The guy had a nice touch with that three-ton hunk of steel, and though I couldn’t see him clearly, I thought I knew him.

If it was Jack Jackson, he was now — though he sure hadn’t been at one time — a good friend of mine. But the hour was 1:28, and those secretaries had been no more icy than the insides of meat-market refrigerators. So I turned and walked along Sunset to the Sebastian Building.

Much of the ground floor was occupied by the local “Humble for President” headquarters. I skirted that, went in the main entrance and took the elevator up to the fourth floor. As I stepped out I could look down a long carpeted corridor lined with frosted-glass doors which kept popping open and closing. A man opened a door, leaped out, snapped his fingers, leaped back in. A young five-star admiral came toward me carrying a silver coffeepot. In the distance I could hear phones ringing.

I closed my mouth, stepped to the nearby frosted-glass door marked ulysses sebastian agency and beneath that office of the president. I didn’t even knock. They weren’t going to buffalo me. I rattled the doorknob a bit, then went in.

This was just a wee office. Just big enough for the gorgeous black-haired number sitting behind a pink desk low enough to show just enough: narrow waist, spectacular bosom, beautiful, haughty, high-fashion-model face. If a man had to wait, he wouldn’t mind waiting in the wee office. But she admitted me to the real outer office. In it were the secretaries — there were two of them, all right — and a girl at a little switchboard. One of the secretaries looked very efficient, but the other was a dish.

I started toward the dish — and the other one said, “Mr. Scott?”

“Yes.”

“Mr. Sebastian is expecting you.” She looked at her watch and seemed pleased. “You may go in.”

It was 1:30 on the nose. I went to the door she’d indicated with a cool glance, and inside. I was in the presence.

It was a big room. The carpet and walls were the pretty green of new money, the ceiling a lighter pastel green. On the left wall were bright spots of color, paintings and collages and such by Sebastian clients, plus a large group of photographs of clients. In splendor on the right wall was a large color photo of Johnny Troy, looking sexy as a satyr, his fourteen gold records extending in a line left and right from the sides of his picture. There was room for another six or seven records, and I figured it wouldn’t take long till he got those, too.

A huge black leather couch was against the wall beneath Troy’s photo, two matching chairs were against the opposite wall and a third was near a big black desk behind which was — Ulysses Sebastian.

Despite all the color in this joint, he seemed about the brightest thing in the room. It wasn’t his clothing, either; it was just Sebastian.

I’d seen him on television or in newspaper photos a hundred times, but we hadn’t met. I was impressed. There was an air of warmth, life, vitality around him that didn’t come through on film or tape. As I came in, he stood up and stepped around the desk toward me, saying pleasantly, “Mr. Scott. I’d have known you anywhere.”

How about that? Here he was the guy whose chops had been displayed everywhere from the cover of Fortune to the Okefenokee Swamp Bulletin.

“Hello, Mr. Sebastian,” I said. “Good of you to see me.”

We shook hands.

Sebastian was about fifty years old, as tall as I but quite thin, wearing a rough but perfectly fitted salt-and-pepper coat with gray slacks, a pale-blue shirt and neatly knotted tie. His hair was long, with a soft steely grayness at the temples brushed back over his ears. His eyes were black as sin, and he was almost devilishly handsome, except for what struck me as a slightly sardonic expression, as if he looked out upon the world — and me — with mild disdain. There was no evidence of that in his voice or manner, though.

“Come, sit down, Mr. Scott,” he said. I noticed he had a slight, very slight, lisp. Not much; more a lack of sibilance when he pronounced an s and not at all unpleasant. He went back behind his desk and I settled into the black chair.

“My secretary told me you wanted to see me about Charley,” he went on. “Are you representing his heirs?”

“Heirs?” I hadn’t even thought of that. “Was he — did he leave a sizable estate?”

“A million or two, I imagine.”

I liked the way he said that. He thought big. “A million or two.” Man, the difference between one million and two million is a whole million. At least. I said, “Actually, I’m not concerned with the estate — not yet, anyway. My only interest is the fact of Mr. White’s death. You knew him well, naturally, and if there’s any reason to assume his death wasn’t an accident — “

“Not an accident? What else could it have been?” He waved a long, thin hand gracefully, as if wafting the question away. I noticed that the skin of his hands and face was smooth and unblemished, well cared for, unwrinkled, neat, as if it had been expensively tailored for him.

“In any unattended death there are four possibilities,” I said. “Natural causes, accident, suicide, and murder. I have to consider all of the last three.”

“I see. I presume you’re representing a relative?”

It was starting to dawn on me that I hadn’t exactly been able to bore into the heart of this matter. Sebastian had a way of telling me lots of nothing. At least so far. “I’m representing a client,” I said, “named…” And I left it there. For some reason, in that moment I decided not to tell him. I grinned at him. “Well, a client.”

“I did not intend to probe, Mr. Scott. Your client’s identity is naturally of no interest to me.” He said it pleasantly, with a flashing smile, but there seemed a soft glitter in his eyes, and he spoke even more quietly than before.

“I’ve talked to the police,” I said. “They assume Mr. White’s death was an accident — in the absence of any evidence to the contrary. I understand, however, that he had been undergoing analysis by Dr. Mordecai Withers — “

“What? You — ” He stopped. His calm wasn’t imperturbable after all. That had stuck him. In fact, it appeared to have run clear through him. “How did you discover that?”

“I picked it up.”

“Are you sure? Analysis? That’s fantastic. Why would he have been in analysis?”

“You’ve got me. I was hoping you’d be able to tell me.”

He shook his head. “Not I. I had no idea…” He stopped, slowly brushed his silvery hair back over one ear with the heel of his hand. “Ah. You feel that perhaps he committed suicide? Is that it?”

“I don’t feel anything yet, Mr. Sebastian. You saw him frequently, didn’t you?”

“Nearly every day. I think I anticipate your question, Mr. Scott. No, he did not seem to be in an unusually nervous, distraught, or mentally unbalanced state. I’m sure his death was an accident.”

“How about murder?”

“Mur — ” He winced, closed his eyes and opened them.

People often react like that, or in even more dramatic fashion, like throwing their hands way up in the air and crying, “Murder? Murder! Hah — hoo!” and such, as if they’ve never heard of such a thing. I guess I’m more used to the word, and the fact, than most people. Probably I should sneak up on the idea.

Finally, Sebastian said, “But that’s fantastic. Who — ” His phone rang. He said, “Pardon me,” lifted the phone and began talking into it, listening mostly. While he was concluding a deal for a million or two, or whatever he was doing, I looked around the office some more.

Behind Sebastian were a pair of tall windows, floor to ceiling, separated by a two-foot hunk of wall — at least, it had been wall. Now the space was occupied by the famous “Life and Death” oblong designed by Robert Dalton. It was a wooden oblong, two feet square and twelve feet high, on the face of which Dalton had painted the “work of genius” for which Ulysses Sebastian had paid $52,000 — shortly before Dalton became a Sebastian client

The painting, or whatever it was, had been set into the wall so the face of the oblong was flush with the wall, and thus there was no way to tell it had ever been a oblong. That’s what had distinguished it in the first place; now it looked just like an ordinary lousy picture. Why set it into the wall? Don’t ask me. The people associated with Sebastian seemed to do things like that. Not only had it probably been necessary to weaken the whole damned wall to get the oblong monstrosity in there, but “Life and Death” didn’t even look like $52,000 worth any more.

If you want the truth, I never thought it had, but for years junk sculpture, drippy paintings, nonobjective objects and other forms of non-art had been bringing increasingly fantastic prices, and in the last few years the mania had become well nigh incomprehensible. At least to me; as the man said, I may not know much about art, but I know what I hate. There was, for example, one artist currently much in the news and lauded by top critics whose “thrilling … witty … transcendental” technique was to swallow the paint and then throw up on the canvas. He had sold half a dozen of his masterpieces of “upchuck art” — take my word for it, that’s what they were called — for $4,000 per puke.

Actually, some of them were right pretty. And, I suppose, there’s nothing wrong with calling something like that a masterpiece, and transcendental, and so on — except that sometimes the critical glorification of such items becomes an excuse to downgrade all normal art, natural beauty.

Anyhow, “Life and Death” wasn’t anything like that. On the visible twenty-four square feet there was a black line at the left side, from top to bottom, and a red splotch in the upper right corner. That was all. I’m so dumb I could never figure out which was Life and which was Death, but I’m smart enough to figure $52,000 is living.

Sebastian was still on the phone, so I got up and looked at the photographs on the wall. There were about two dozen portraits, and most of the faces would be known to the man on the street. These people were “celebrities,” award winners, names-in-the-news types, among the best known individuals in the theater, movies and TV, literature, the art world. There was Robert Dalton, the guy who’d painted “Life and Death.” He had fat eyes, a wide face, and a little thin mustache. That was the tip-off. You’ve got to watch out for those guys with little black mustaches. In the photo he was wearing a white shirt open at the throat, and around his neck a white ascot — not to cover up the hair on his chest, I’ll bet.

There was Gary Baron — dashing, with a dashing white streak in his black hair — announcer and “interpreter of news” on a local TV station. He’d become a Sebastian client before publication of his best-selling book, The Myth of Soviet Intransigence, which had been very favorably reviewed. I read it — between bouts with Prince Valiant and Li’l Abner — and became convinced it added nothing to our knowledge of the Soviet Union. In fact, it produced a gap.

There was bug-eyed Professor Cartwright, with hair like Little Orphan Annie’s, who was currently lecturing on “The New Economics” at a California university. He’d written several books, one of which hit the best-seller lists. It was all about his theory that to ensure prosperity we should burn money — I think. I never read that one.

Sebastian hung up the phone and I walked back to my seat. As I started to sit down, I could see through the window opposite me and down to the wreckage across the street. The big old ball was swinging, carrash, down goes a hunk of bank. It looked like fun. Seemed to make sense, too. Knock down buildings, burn money, throw up — something in the atmosphere here was beginning to get me. Maybe it was the pictures of all those brains.

“Sorry to have taken so long, Mr. Scott. I couldn’t postpone the decision.”

“It’s all right. Incidentally, no matter what caused Mr. White’s death, I have to at least consider the possibility of homicide. That’s my job.”

“Of course.” He nodded briskly. “I understand that. However, it simply seems fantastic to me. Charley didn’t have any real enemies, at least not so far as I know. He’s — was, I mean — an extremely nice, pleasant man. Almost a sweet man, I would say.”

He went on, saying he couldn’t imagine anybody with a motive to kill Charley, and so forth. We chewed on that for a while, then I said, “Wasn’t Mr. White in a lot of corporations with Johnny Troy?”

“He and Johnny owned the major part of the stock of Trojan Enterprises, which is essentially all the Troy corporations combined. My agency itself owns the remainder. He also had several investments of his own — real estate, an apartment building, others I may not know about.”

“I see. One other thing. I’d like to see Mr. Troy but haven’t been able to as yet. I wonder if you could tell me how to get in touch with him.”

“I’m afraid that would be impossible, Mr. Scott. You must know that Mr. Troy is a very, ah, sensitive man. And Charley’s death has been a terrible blow to him. Devastating.”

I could believe it. When Sebastian described Troy as “ah, sensitive,” that was the understatement of the week, at least. The entire country knew that Johnny Troy was neurotic as hell. Like many other of Sebastian’s clients, he was — in his own way — a weirdo. He was the healthiest-looking “sick singer” in the land. He was afflicted with a literally paralyzing shyness, and hardly ever went anywhere unless Charley White was with him. He couldn’t even sing unless Charley White was with him. He never went to the recording studio without him. Maybe he didn’t even go to the john without him. He lived in the adjacent suite at the Royalcrest. They went out on dates together. Some said they probably took baths together, and traded socks.

Don’t jump to conclusions. There was a reason. A very good reason. If you’ve been around racetracks, you’ve heard the stories about high-strung thoroughbreds who get so accustomed to having a dog, or cat, or some kind of animal around that they can’t race unless their friend is in the stall — or if they do race, can’t win. Well, that’s what it was like with Troy and Charley White — that and something more.

But let me put it in the framework, the background.

Johnny Troy was merely the biggest and best of a whole host of singers. This was a time, remember, when there were “singers” at every point of the compass. Everybody sang. A guy made a hit in a TV series — and he made a record. A kid did a bit part in a movie, got forty-four fan letters — and he sang. Tap dancers, character actors, everybody was getting into the act. Any day now a doctor was going to discover a new fungus and put it to music.

Well, naturally most of these singers sounded as if they’d come up out of the audience. In nine cases out of ten the procedure was to have them tape a song — aided by modern mikes, echo chambers, electronic amplification or diminishing of frequencies to keep the kid on key, and such — maybe ten or twenty times and then splice the best bits of tape together and cut a master disk from the composite tape. From the master, the records were pressed.

Obviously, if one of these manufactured singers sang in his ungimmicked and unimproved voice on a TV show, he’d bomb; if he sang live, he’d be dead. So one of his records was played off stage or off camera while the performer synchronized his lip movements with the words of his recording. We’ve all seen it — “lip syncing” — and it’s interesting to watch for goofs, like when the guy sings “tomorrow” and it comes out “yesterday.”

Well, with a couple dozen of those characters around, you can imagine the blessed impact on tortured eardrums when Johnny Troy began to sing. No amount of gimmicking and electronic fiddling could transform one of those “singers” into a Johnny Troy. Forget how beautiful, warm, rich the sound and phrasing were; more important, it was a genuine, a natural voice. The people knew, somehow, that the voice was real. How, I’m not sure; maybe it was a kind of subconscious recognition or certainty, but it was true and everybody knew it. Sure, he undoubtedly employed the electronic and mechanical aids — just as everybody used the same kind of microphones; it was standard procedure — but with Johnny Troy it was like the gold frame around the painting; the art itself was genuine, and recognizable. It was like a tall man wearing cowboy boots; you knew he was tall even without those high heels.

But even Achilles had his heel, and even the great Johnny Troy, when in public or live on TV, lip-synced his songs. It wasn’t that there was anything wrong with his voice; on the contrary, it was what was wrong with Johnny — and the public only loved him more because of it.

Years ago, so the story went, before Sebastian introduced him to a national audience. Troy started to sing before a big crowd in a nightclub, and had quietly gone to pieces. He opened his mouth to sing, and froze; nothing came out but a squawk. It was hysterical tension, the doctors called it, a muscular spasm, and it was nearly a month before he could sing again. And why had it happened?

Well, that night Charley wasn’t sitting out front, as usual. It was the very first time Charley hadn’t been with Johnny, sitting in view, nodding, making an “O” of encouragement with his fingers, and little twitches of approval or moues of vice versa.

Don’t get me wrong. There was nothing homosexual, or “queer” in the unkind vernacular, about either of them. Johnny Troy cut a swath through female Hollywood like that demolition ball through paper bricks; and Charley White had not been far behind. That wasn’t only publicity, either. I had talked to some of the ruined women, who simply couldn’t wait to get ruined again. It was merely that the relationship between Johnny and Charley had been almost unique, and maybe more than a little bit sick.

There’d never been any secret about Troy’s neurosis or psychosis or whatisit; if anything, it had been purposely publicized, either out of simple honesty or by somebody with a very clear insight into the contemporary American character. Whichever the reason, the apparent frankness had paid off.

Instead of making the public like him less, Johnny’s “sickness” seemed merely to endear him to the fans even more. His weakness apparently made the public feel a little superior to him, at least in that one area, and I guess it’s always easier to worship an idol with at least one foot of clay. Besides, a lot of people can’t stand up after a dinner and say ten words without stumbling over every word but “Uh,” so it wasn’t as if Troy had tuberculosis or constipation or something really unpleasant.

Anyhow, Troy simply couldn’t sing unless his buddy was around…. A thought struck me then. Finally. A little late. What if Johnny Troy — now that his buddy, his closest friend and constant companion was dead — couldn’t sing at all? What if his voice was gone? What if he went quietly to pieces again, this time permanently?

The thought couldn’t have pleased Sebastian very much. That golden voice meant golden albums, profits for Johnny himself, for the agency, for Trojan Enterprises — millions of bucks caught in a closed throat.

Judging by the expression on Sebastian’s face, he was thinking the same thing. Not much time had passed since he’d said Charley’s death had been a “terrible blow” to Troy. Now he sighed and went on, “Johnny’s been very withdrawn these last two days. Since it happened. I don’t know if you fully understand….”

“I think I do. I’ve heard that he, well, isn’t at ease unless Mr. White is with him.”

“Yes.” Sebastian rubbed the heel of his palm along the side of his hair again. “There’s no secret about it. We discovered it when we were introducing Johnny to live audiences, a few months before release of his first album. We were trying him out in small towns. He’d always been a victim of perfectly ghastly stage fright but it wasn’t until that night when Charley wasn’t in the audience — ” His phone rang again.

He frowned, shrugged, and grabbed the phone. It made me feel a little guilty. Probably his time was worth plenty per hour. Say a thousand or two. I must have used up a few hundred dollars’ worth already. But by the time I’d lighted a cigarette and inhaled a few puffs, Sebastian was through and had hung up the phone again.

I said, “Well, if you can’t help me contact Mr. Troy, I guess that’s about it. I’ve taken up enough of your time already.”

He pulled at one hand with the long, slender fingers of the other, thinking. “After all, it’s up to Johnny himself, Mr. Scott. Not me. Oh, I could arrange for you to see him. I’m sure he wouldn’t refuse me.” He paused again. “It might even do him good to talk about it. He’s got to face it.” He wound his fingers together, then said, “Actually, Mr. Scott, it might even be of benefit to me if you did see him. That is, if you would try to force — not force — I mean, draw him out a bit, coax him out of his shell, so to speak.”

“Well, I’m not exactly a coaxer.”

“It would be enough if you would merely insist that he answer your questions. Make him think about the possibility of suicide, even of murder — which, I must admit, I feel will be of no real help to you, Mr. Scott. I’m positive Charley’s death was an accident; therefore your questions will merely corroborate the fact. But it should be of help to Johnny. And, indirectly, to me. Do you understand?”

“I guess — “

A buzzer sounded on a small box atop Sebastian’s desk and an expression of vast irritation swept across his face. He depressed a plunger and a girl’s voice said, “Mr. Sebastian — “

“Thelma,” he snapped, “I — ” He cut it off, released the plunger and got up, walked to the door. As he went through it I heard him say, “I told you not to disturb me while — ” Then the door closed.

Apparently, however, Thelma had something important to tell him, because he didn’t come back right away. I got up, glanced at the photos again, then moseyed over to the two-by-twelve-foot thingumajig. It fascinated me. Yep, just a black line and a red splotch on a big hunk of wood. Probably took the artist a good three minutes to paint it. Of course, he might have spent months thinking about it, getting it just right.

As I turned I saw, under the top of Sebastian’s desk at about knee height, a little white button. I’ve seen similar gadgets before, and this one interested me. One guy I knew used the button to call help into his office when and if he needed it — armed help; he was a hood. Another guy pushed the button to unlock his steel door; he was a hood, too. I wondered what a respectable gentleman like Sebastian would use the thing for, so I went over and gave it a little bit of a nudge. I was hoping the desk wouldn’t blow up, or that three wild-eyed secretaries wouldn’t come in all panicky, but I couldn’t resist that one little bit of a nudge.

What happened was that at that precise moment the phone rang and I damn near sprang out the window.

Well, I didn’t want Sebastian to catch me here fiddling around with his desk, and buttons, and all, so I hopped back to my seat and was settled there — very casual — when he came rapidly inside. He hurried back behind his desk, reached for the phone, starting to look a little puzzled. I was getting a little puzzled myself. The phone hadn’t rung again.

He picked up the phone, listened, frowned, hung up the phone. Then he looked at me.

Oh-oh, I thought. Undoubtedly Sebastian often had to make important decisions, right on the spot, no hemming and hawing, while somebody sat across from him waiting. But important decisions should be considered at least for a little while, without distraction, with concentration. What better way to get a breathing — or thinking — spell, yet still come up with an instant decision, than for Sebastian to press his button and answer the convenient ring? Pretty good, I thought; pretty neat.

“That’s odd,” Sebastian said. “There’s nobody on the phone.”

“Yeah? Maybe it was the same guy who called last time.”

It just popped out — I didn’t have any damn button to push. But suddenly there was that kind of silvery glitter in Sebastian’s black eyes.

He said, “Perhaps. Well, Mr. Scott, did you wish me to arrange an interview with Mr. Troy?”

“Yes, I’d appreciate it.”

“All right. Just go on over and call from the lobby before you go up. You know where it is, don’t you?”

I nodded.

“In about an hour, say?”

I had that 3 p.m. appointment with Dr. Withers. Probably take a good half hour, then there’d be the drive back to town. I said, “I’ve something else I should do for an hour or so. Would about four o’clock be OK?”

“That will be satisfactory, Mr. Scott,” he said, with that tiny trace of a lisp.

Then he just sat there and looked at me. So I got up, thanked him, and left.

It wasn’t until I was going out of the building that I started wondering about a couple of things. If Sebastian had been so anxious not to be disturbed that he’d chewed out Thelma because he had been, why hadn’t he also requested that no calls be put through the switchboard? And I wondered if, just maybe, one or both of those phone calls he’d received while I was there with him had been in response to his knee on that little white button.

If so, what big decision could he have been making about me?

</code>

<code> CHAPTER FOUR

Across the street from where the State Bank had recently stood was a big billboard with its left half filled by a huge blowup of Horatio M. Humble’s smiling face. The right half was solid black except for big eyecatching yellow words: “president humble can do more for you!”

He wasn’t President yet, but I guess the experts figured this might start even more people thinking of Horatio as elected. Enough, apparently, already were. It looked as if Humble would in fact be the next President of the United States.

All the polls had him ahead. Of course, some of them were fixed; they would have had Mickey Mouse ahead if he’d been running in Humble’s place. But even the honest polls gave it to Horatio in a run, if not a walk. Besides, I’d talked to a lot of people who thought he was handsome, amusing, sexy, charming, and a marvelous orator, so obviously he had the qualities essential for election to high office.

Seriously, he did have more real honest-to-goodness charm than seemed fair to the rest of mankind; it oozed from his pores, virtually dripped from him. He practically sweated charm. He was six feet tall, ruggedly handsome, and a truly superb speaker. More, he had a voice that could charm angels out of heaven and at least halfway into hell. In that, he reminded me of Johnny Troy, and it could hardly be denied that he was to politics what Johnny Troy was to the musical world. In fact, I considered them the two most glamorous creatures in show business.

Maybe you’ve guessed by now. Emerson was my man.

David Emerson was pleasant-looking rather than handsome. There was nothing wrong with his voice, except that it was a little flat, with perhaps a slight Western twang woven into it. He sounded a bit blunt when he spoke. That, however, was more what he said than how it was said. He was blunt. That was his trouble. That and the fact that he was more given to quoting the Founding Fathers and the U.S. Constitution than advanced thinkers like Professor “Burn Money” Cartwright.

Emerson was too easily understood. You always knew what he meant, and that can be fatal to a politician. Besides, he advocated a number of — apparently — unpopular ideas. Such as giving every citizen the same generous exemption and taxing all income above that level at the same flat rate for all taxpayers. According to Emerson, a progressive, graduated income tax not only discriminated against the most productive, energetic, and successful members of society — and he was opposed to discrimination against any minority — but it lessened the revenue which a lower and less confiscatory rate would actually produce; besides, the steeply progressive income tax was straight out of the Communist Manifesto. You couldn’t say Emerson didn’t have some pretty radical ideas, no matter what names they called him.

Horatio M. Humble, on the other hand, was more progressive and up-to-date. He was firmly fixed in the twentieth century. Or maybe it was the twenty-first. It was hard, sometimes, to tell just where he was firmly fixed. But he’d made his position clear in some areas. For example, he was for easing tensions. That was good. And he was for dissolving suspicions. Nobody could argue with that. And he was for trusting the Soviet Union. Well … Anyway, he was also for removing the threat of the atomic unthinkable, for unilateral disarmament, and for trusting the Soviet Union. He was for a UN troika as Tri-President of the World, and for trusting the Soviet Union.

I figured he didn’t advocate suicide or surrender except every time he opened his mouth. But he was so clever that he made it all sound like Statesmanship. Maybe because he used a lot of words like Peace, and Brotherhood, and Compassion, and Understanding, and Intellectual — and Statesmanship. Besides, there was that voice of his. He could have recited “Little Bo-Peep” and it would have sounded like Statesmanship.

Well, I thought, the catastrophe might as well be faced. It was eight to five he’d be elected in three more days. It was possible he’d make a fair President. Anything is possible. It’s possible that there’s green cheese on the far side of the moon.

I stood looking at Humble’s face on the billboard, and he seemed to be looking past me, smiling at the wreckage across the street from him. Suddenly it was all too much. I turned and saw the operator of that truck-crane climbing down from his cab, and when he took off his cap the sun hit his red hair. It was Jackson, all right. After the photos of those characters in Sebastian’s office, and now Humble’s smiling face, I couldn’t think of anything I’d enjoy more than a few words with profane, boozing, hard-boiled, hard-working Jack Jackson, who sweated sweat.

I walked toward him and yelled, “Hey, Jackson!”

He spotted me, waved and grinned, then ambled my way, a heavy-set, red-faced, red-haired guy with hands like hams. We shook hands and he said, “Shell, what brings you down here, you big white-haired bastard?” I told you he was profane.

“Not to see you, Jackson.”

“That’s good. Say, my boy’s doing six houses in Boyle Heights now. Six, how about that? Making more’n the old man.”

I grinned. I was glad to hear it. I’d helped send his boy to the county slammer for six months a few years back — for stealing a few automobiles — and Jack had not loved me at the time. But since doing his bit the kid had buckled down and gone into the construction business himself. He was doing very well now — and not by stealing cars.

“He makes more than you because he works harder,” I said. “He doesn’t knock off every ten minutes.”

“Hell, first time I’ve knocked off in an hour, Scott. Coffee break. Besides, if I work too fast I get in trouble with the union.” He unhooked a tin canteen from his belt and took a glug. Then he squeezed his eyes shut and ran his tongue in and out.

“Still snorting that hundred-proof coffee, I see.”

“Man’s got to keep up his strength,” he said. “Makes you feel kind of weak, though, right at first.”

“Aren’t you afraid one of these days you’ll get over-coffeed and swing that skull-cracker back into your lap?”

“Not a chance. Why, after a couple canteens full I could knock a fly off a wall and not touch more than ten, twelve thousand bricks.” He paused. “Now that you mention it,” he said, and took another pull.

After the grimace, he looked at me and said, “This juice is merely to keep me from going nuts on the job. Wham, down goes a wall, down goes a column, down goes — Same thing, over and over. This may look exciting and glamorous to you — “

“I wouldn’t exactly — “

“But it’s not. No, it’s not. It’s boring. Always the same thing. Wham, down she goes.”

“You can hardly expect the junk to stay up after you whack — “

“No, but sometimes in the midst of all the havoc I’ve wrought I get feeling kind of wild. It builds up in me. It’s a strain. I feel like tearing off down the street.”

For a moment I had an appalling vision of Jack at the wheel of his truck, chugging down Sunset, waving his canteen, swinging his ball from side to side — wham, bang, crunch, down she goes!

“So then I take me a little nip,” Jack said. “Does the job.”

“Man, I hope so.” I changed the subject. Waving a hand around us, I said, “What’s going on here? Some millionaires building new banks and hotels?”

“Urban renewal.”

“Ah. Billionaires.”

So that’s what this was. Another urban-renewal project. One of the free “improvements” to be paid for out of federal funds. Federal funds. To me that’s a sneaky euphemism for “my money.”

I looked around again. “Boy,” I said. “Just what I wanted.”

“What are you talking about?” Jack asked me. I shrugged. It takes a long time to explain. He went on, “Three whole blocks here going to go. This one, and” — he pointed — “them two.”

He was pointing in the direction of Sebastian’s office. “You mean the Sebastian Building, too?”

“Yeah. It goes next week. That whole block goes. Then the one past it. Got my work cut out for me. Some of them buildings won’t go down easy.”

“I’ll bet not.”

“The old ones aren’t so tough. It’s the new ones that give me trouble.”

“Must make it rough on you guys who have to tear them down.”

“It’s a living.”

“Jack, don’t you ever have any doubts…” I didn’t finish it. Maybe he did; maybe that’s why he drank. I glanced across the street at Horatio Humble’s smiling face. His warm smile oozed right at us, here in the urban-renewal project.

He didn’t have any doubts. He knew. He was all for urban renewal. And rural renewal. And for urban-rural-renewal renewal. And for Medicare, denticare, and menticare; for mommacare, poppacare, and kiddiecare. He was for the Peace Corps, the war corps, the coexistence corps, and the corps corps; for foreign aid, domestic aid, and for north, south, east and west aid; for moon shots, space shots, Salk shots, and flu shots … The hell with it.

“Well, Jack,” I said. “I’ve an appointment coming up. Keep swinging.”

“You bet. Time I got back at it.” He hauled the canteen out for the last time. “Soon as I have a little snort. How about you?”

He held out the canteen. I took it, looked around at the bricks, chunks of cement, part of a bank counter. “Thanks, Jackson,” I said. “Don’t mind if I do.”

To get to Mordecai Withers’ establishment you head up into the Santa Monica Mountains on Benedict Canyon Drive, then turn off on a narrow two-laner called Hill Road. Half a mile up Hill there’s a private drive that rises to a five-acre site from which there’s a lovely view of nearby Beverly Hills, and Hollywood, and on a clear day even the Pacific Ocean. We get a clear day about every two, three months.

But it was a lovely location. I’d been by the place two or three times, but never inside. Nor had I previously met Dr. Withers. As I drove up Benedict Canyon I ran over in my mind what I knew about him. Just about what most of the public knew, I guess.

He was the man who, single-headed, had developed the theory of mental treatment which in the last few years had replaced Freudian psychoanalysis. For more than two years now he had reigned supreme in the field of head-shrinking, or as it was sometimes half-facetiously called, “Brain Withering.” Instead of saying, “I’m undergoing analysis,” the phrase was, “I’m being Withered.” It was almost as “in” now as psychoanalysis once had been.

Even in the forties and fifties the inevitable reaction against Freud’s sex-snarled theories had been in the making. Hardly anybody except those who had undergone the long, intensive, repetitive, hypnotic conditioning of the analytic process — which, of course, included all the analysts themselves — really believed the ludicrous tenets of psychoanalysis. That, to choose mild but typical examples, a man’s neurosis could often be traced back to the “fact” that he was poisoned by repressed hatred for his father because as an infant he had desired sex with his mother and thus hated and even wanted to kill the man, his father, who was having sex with his mother — the soberly discussed “Oedipus complex.” That little girls, even only children, so admired and desired their brothers’ male organs that they became filled with warps and wild frustration because they didn’t have one — the soberly discussed “penis envy.” That males suffered from a hidden and unconscious fear that somebody would chop off their you-know — the soberly discussed “castration complex.” And other cerebral excursions into even more pronounced lunacy.

Unquestionably, such aspects of the theory — and theory is all it ever was, even though its baseless ugliness was embraced by tens of thousands of otherwise rational individuals — were hardly suitable subjects for convivial discussion in private, much less in public. But as the theory began to be questioned and even condemned in the medical schools, the public at large became ever more enamored of Oedipus, transference, resistance, id, ego, censor, superego. The reason was that the whole package — Freud, Freudianism, psychoanalysis, and all of its private parts — was being increasingly sold to the people by means of the spoken and written word. The cuckooism was glorified on Broadway and off Broadway, in depressing television dramas, in books and magazines and newspapers, in Hollywood films.

But finally the evidence against the Freudian theory became great enough to overcome even illogic. Medical men began questioning, then denouncing. The evidence became overwhelming that psychoanalysis was totally without efficacy in the treatment of neuroses, psychoses, and even hot flashes, and in fact was often of negative value in that it produced the aberrations it was alleged to cure. As a famous psychologist bluntly summed it up: “The more treatment, the less cure.”

It was learned that microscopic traces of certain chemicals — LSD, mescaline, psilocybin, and others — when introduced into the human system, in many cases gave rise to reactions apparently identical with schizophrenia, paranoia, and the lesser neuroses; if the body itself when afflicted by illness or stress could produce those or similar chemicals, what then of penis envy and sick old Oedipus? So, slowly, people twitchy because of brain tumors, too much booze or salt, guilt feelings produced by undeniable guilt, and so forth, reluctantly began to abandon the Freudian crutch which had supported the widely trumpeted teaching that the individual was never to blame for his own ills.

Freudianism and psychoanalysis fell into disrepute, disarray, and near disintegration. There was a head-shrinking vacuum. Near-panic ensued, particularly among psychoanalysts, their patients, and couch-makers. Fees dropped from fifty dollars an hour to twenty, ten, five, in some cases less than a nickel.

Then Dr. Mordecai Withers filled the vacuum. Freud had been all wrong; Withers was all right. He introduced Brain Withering. Joy reigned. Fees for Withering went up to fifty dollars an hour. No longer was Freudianism celebrated and glorified on stage and screen, in magazines and books. No, indeed; now it was Withering. Some thoughtful observers of the human scene concluded that mankind at large perhaps should not be at large, since apparently it was but a half step ahead of the ape and losing ground rapidly. But those few fingers in the dike holding back dementia could not possibly fill all the holes in all the heads.

The upshot was that Mr. Mordecai Withers was today the new hero of all who had called Sigmund Freud master. Just as wild African dogs will turn on their wounded brother and start eating him while he’s still alive, the brotherhood itself turned on Freud, whom they had so lately beatified, and began chewing hell out of him.

Once the dismembering of his corpse was total, and little Witherers had sprung up over the countryside. Mordecai loomed even more awesomely on the mental horizon as an almost cosmic genius: The Father of Withering. His every pronouncement was listened to with bated intelligence; he wrote books, forewords to books, reviews of books, and critiques of reviews of his forewords to books. He charged a hundred dollars an hour.

This was the man I was soon going to see. I might even get to touch him. I turned off Hill Road and drove up the narrow blacktop drive to the high plateau — sometimes called Withering Heights — on which sprawled, in antiseptic white splendor, the Mordecai Withers Establishment.

It was 3 p.m. on the nose. I sensibly parked near a sign which said “park here,” went up two white cement steps before the office building, and inside.

In the outer office was a couch — make that a divan — a few curved-back chairs, a table with unappetizing magazines on it, and a desk. Behind the desk sat a bony-faced woman typing on little white cards. She was not likely to take patients’ minds off their minds.

She was a tall gal who looked like a spinster in the prim of life — in her middling thirties, say — with a joyless face and a body like a bas relief. I walked up to her and said, “I’m Mr. Scott.”

She nodded, said, “You may sit down.” And kept typing. I sat in one of the chairs, which seemed to demand a posture of surrender, but fought it. On a table next to me was a box of little white cards and a sign, “free — take one.” I reached into the box and took out one of the printed cards. It said, “Free — Take One.”

Hmm, I thought. I looked at the secretary, typing on little white cards…. But, no, not even here. Could be, though. Maybe. Maybe somewhere around here they had bumper suckers saying “Bumper Sticker” and a dog named “Here-Kitty-Kitty” and —

A buzzer buzzed on the secretary’s desk.

She stopped typing. Something big was up.

She looked at me and said, “You may go inside, Mr. Scott…” adding a few words I didn’t quite catch. I was on my way. No matter what was in the next room there ahead of me, it had to be one of two things: either an improvement on this, or death.

I had my hand on the doorknob when she cried with sudden animation, “Not yet! I said, in a minute — “

Too late.

I was on my way in.

Boy, you wouldn’t believe it. I stopped suddenly and stood so still you’d have thought I was an oak, and I said, “Zah!” Or “Zoo!” Or — it doesn’t matter. It was just an exclamation, not a real attempt at communication. But, well, there was this shapely young nude babe trotting across the floor. No kidding. Completely nude, with no clothes on, absolutely naked.

It was just about perfect. The only flaw in the situation was that she was trotting on an angle leading away from me.

Automatically I let out a whoop. It must have sounded to her about like a wild-Indian charge sounded to the old settlers. The gal came to a screeching stop as suddenly as I had, then spun around and gawked at me. After barely a second or two, her startled expression relaxed a bit and she said, “Ooeeoo.” At least that’s what it sounded like, though it might have been “Oh, you” or “Holy cats” or even “Eeooee.”

“Holy cats,” I said.

“Ooeeoo.” Yeah. that’s what it was. I got it that time. Wonder what I got? I thought. Wonder what she’s trying to say? Is she trying to tell me something? Is it good? I couldn’t decide, but I didn’t have much to go on.

She had hair the color of sherry wine — a kind of amber brown with fire in it — and it curled down over one side of her face like heat waves, almost covering one big, beautiful, green eye, I remembered later. She was tall, with superbly jaunty and abundant breasts, flat abdomen slanting in under her rib cage the way it does on some of those models who pose for big pictures which get folded in two places, hips a guy could get very fond of, and the long, lovely, and well-curved legs of a dancer. That’s what I’d do. I’d ask her for a dance.

“Oo,” she said. Just part of a sentence, I guess. Then she turned, walked without haste to the door toward which she’d apparently been trotting, and opened it. Beyond her I could see — blurrily, and out of focus — part of a desk, some kind of screen, and an easy chair.

She went into the room, turned again, and shut the door. But she didn’t slam it with a bang. In fact, she held it open for a good long second — maybe if wasn’t any longer than the usual ones, but it was sure good — then closed it gently. I thought maybe she’d started to smile, but probably I imagined it. I was imagining a lot of other things, and it would have been easy to imagine a big smile.

And that was my introduction to Dr. Mordecai Withers.

No, she wasn’t Dr. Withers. He had been sitting in a big overstuffed chair all the time. But at a time like that, what kind of nut would look at Dr. Withers?

He was maybe five-eight or nine, with a pleasant pink face and thinning brown hair, rather pale wide-set eyes behind large hornrimmed glasses. I estimated his age at near sixty. He had a purple silk scarf around his neck and tucked beneath a pink slipover sweater, and was wearing yellow trousers with their legs stuffed into highly polished black riding boots. I’d put him at about thirty pounds overweight, and he looked just a bit like Santa Claus, shaved and ready for a Hollywood funeral.

A pad of paper was in his lap and he held a wooden pencil in his hand. He picked up the pad, tapped it with the pencil, and said, “Take off your clothes.”

“I will not.”

“Oh, come now. Didn’t my secretary explain the procedure?”

“She did not.”

“Well, it’s required, it’s essential.”

“For … what?”

“For analysis.”

“What are you going to analyze?”

“Oh, shtop this silly-sallying,” he said sharply. “I mean, stop this shilly-shallying.”

“I am not shilly — skip it. Who was that lovely creature?”

“Miss Plonk? What is your interest in Miss Plonk?”

“Ah…”

He shot air out his nostrils. “Take off your clothes and lie down on the couch, and we’ll start.”

“No. You see — “

“Obviously you do not understand,” he said. “My secretary should have explained. This is part of my technique. All my patients must disrobe and lie on the couch. It’s a vast improvement.”

“How?”

“It helps you cast off your repressions along with your clothes.”

“Not me, it doesn’t”

“It completely releases the odibil.”

“That figures. But what good would it do? She’s gone, gone….”

“I shall have to cancel your appointment, Mr. Chang, if you do not wish to be helped. Don’t you want to be well?”

“I’m not sick. Hell, I’m not even Mr. Chang.”

“You’re not sick?”

“Not sick.”

“Impossible. Everybody’s sick. Impo — ” He paused. “What do you mean, you’re not Mr. Chang?”

“Who’s he?”

“You. You?”

“Nope. Not me. Hey, where are we going? There’s something in the air — “

“Where is Mr. Chang?”

“Beats me.”

“Hmm.” That was him, this time.

I said, “I’m not even here for an alysis. I mean, a nalysis — the hell with it. I’m Shell Scott, a private detective, and I’m here to talk to you about the death of Charley White.”

I hadn’t meant to squirt it all out at once like that, but we’d been getting nowhere, and I was afraid that if I didn’t squeeze all my powers of concentration into a dwindling point and make a lunge at it, it might never get said.

“You’re Shell Scott!” he said.

I looked at my watch. Yeah, it was the right time for my appointment. So I said, “Who else?”

He looked at my white hair, eyebrows, ears, even my feet — nothing about them, really, to identify me. Except that they’re pretty big.

“Who else?” he said. Then he stood up. “Well, if you’re not here for a nalysis … um. Excuse me.”

He walked across the carpet and into the room where that gorgeous naked babe was and closed the door behind him. What a life! But in about a minute he came back, sat in his chair again, indicated the couch for me. I sat on it.

Then he said, “I’m sorry. I expected you at three.”

I let it go. What the hell. You can’t just go on and on quibbling. So I merely said, “Well, I figured if I couldn’t be late, I’d make sure I wasn’t early.” That satisfied him.

“You wanted to speak to me about Mr. White?”

“Yes. He was one of your patients, wasn’t he?”

“Only for a brief time. We didn’t even get started, really. Analysis usually requires years, you know.”

“That sounds like the old Freudian — “

“No! Not at all!” I’d incensed him. “My procedure is entirely different. In fact, it is completely opposite to the procedure of that freud, Sigmund Fraud … um. That fraud, Sig — It is exactly opposite. That’s the secret.”

“About Charley…”

“You see,” he went on, warming to his subject, “I was for many years an orthodox Freudian analyst. Did you know that?”

“I had a hunch, but — “

“Treated sick people for years. Found they kept getting sicker. The rule: when a procedure produces a certain effect, reversing the procedure will reverse the effect. Child’s play, right?”

“About Charley…”

“Attend this closely. If the Freudian procedure was making people sick, the way to make people well was to reverse the procedure. Right? Do the exact opposite. Right?”

Just for fun, I said, “Right!” I like the word, anyway.

“So,” he went on, “I had my flush of inspiration.”

“Flash? Never mind. I take it back.”

“The secret, obviously, was to reverse every rule, law, term, and technique of Freudian analysis. I did it, I did it.” In his excitement he stood up and gave a little kick, his polished boot gleaming. Then he sat down, saying, “Thus my technique was born.”

“The birth of Brain Withering, hey?”

He scowled. “Young man, I’ll have you know I do not like that term. I did not devise it. That is the creation of the Fourth Estate … Fifth? Third. The newspapers invented that. The proper name for my scientific discovery is Duerfism.” He paused, expectantly. “You see? Freud — Duerf.”

“Ugh,” I said. “Like sdrawkcab.”

“Which?”

“That’s backwards spelled backwards.”

“Um. In Duerfism, then, there are of necessity no such ridiculous concepts as the Oedipus complex, the id, ego, superego, penis envy, and such rot. Instead we have the di, oge, ogerepus, vagina envy, and Supideo, among other things.”

“What other — Vagina envy? Pardon my language, of course, but — “

“Of course. We’re modern, aren’t we? Enlightened? Adult?”

“While I admit that makes a lot more sense, it still, somehow, doesn’t quite exactly make enough sense. That’s not really what I mean, but — “

“Of course it makes sense. Attend this closely. Freud and his millions of followers all stressed penis envy as one of the basic causes of feminine neuroses. Everybody knew about it. Everybody thought about it. Everybody talked about it. Everybody accepted it. We know that was wrong. We know the opposite is right. The opposite of penis envy is vagina envy, right? Therefore, it is the answer to male neurosis. And to think the answer was there all the time, staring us in the face — “

“Doctor, please.”

“And we didn’t know. Not until I put my finger on it. Not until I, Mordecai Withers, had my flush of inspiration did the world learn the true, final answer to the cure of neurosis. Don’t you see what it means? The truth at last! There is no Oedipus complex. Supideo proves it is not the boy desiring his mother and hating his father. The truth, of course, is that he desires his father and hates his mother. Could anything be simpler?”

“No,” I said slowly. “Nothing.” I paused. “Doctor, until today I thought the Freudian philosophy, besides making people weaker instead of stronger, more dependent instead of independent, was the silliest thing I’d ever heard of. But now that you’ve explained Wither — Duerfism to me” — I let my voice rise, smiled warmly — “I am absolutely convinced that Duerfism makes just as much sense!”

“Yes, yes,” he cried. “It is the answer. We have the world in our grasp … um, the cure for the world’s ills in our clutches. And I did it, I did it!” All excited, filled with love and compassion for himself, he got up again and gave a little kick. Almost a little dance, like one-two-three-kick.

But then the door of that adjacent room opened and the lovely gal — Miss Plonk, he’d called her — came out. She was fully dressed, resplendent in a beautifully made white knit suit, with piping the color of sherry wine running along the lapels and around the bottom of the jacket, and white high-heeled shoes that made her legs look even better. What I could see of them. She really looked good.

To me, that is.

But Dr. Withers eyeballed her as if in shock. His eyes bugged out and his mouth dropped open and he literally fell back in his chair. His chest even heaved a bit.

Suddenly I got it. This cat didn’t get all shook up by a luscious tomato unless she had all her clothes on.

No wonder he had them strip. It was the only way he could get down to business.

Who would have thought it? Dr. Mordecai Withers was sick.

</code>

<code> CHAPTER FIVE

The lovely Miss Plonk stood for a moment inside the room — must have been driving Withers mad, judging merely from the effect on me — then she walked toward us.

She gave me a smile — yes, it was a big, juicy smile — and said to Dr. Withers, “Thank you, doctor. I’ll call if — when I want my next appointment. All rightie?”

“All rightie,” he said, still in a highly nervous condition.

Then she turned, glanced slant-eyed at me, and very softly said, “Ooeeoo.”

Boy, now I knew it meant something. But what? I’d never rest till I knew. Night after night the question would be drumming in my brain. But what?

She went out. I turned to Dr. Withers and said for the umpteenth time, “Doctor … about Charley?”

“Eh? Ah. Um, yes. What did you wish to know?”

“What was wrong with him?”

“A severe case of Supideo complicated by traumatic — “

“Pardon me, doctor. I’m a simple lad. In simple words, OK? And I’m not so much interested in the technical diagnosis as in what he thought was wrong with him. What did Charley tell you his complaint was?”

“Merely that he was depressed, had bad dreams, sometimes felt his head was going to fall off. The usual.”

“That’s usual?”

“Oh, that’s nothing. You should hear — “

“Did he give any indication that he might be on the verge of suicide?”

It didn’t shock him. He pursed his lips, lowered his head, and looked at me through the tops of his big hornrimmed glasses. “Not exactly. But I presume it must be considered as a possibility. In fact, I’m certain it was a possibility. I can’t, of course, go into real details of what he told me. Professional ethics, you know.”

“I know.”

“But stating it simply, I would say there were indications of a deep-seated Supideo complex which, aggravated by inverted cannibalismus, was approaching irremediable psychosis. Possibly suicidal. If I could only have treated him for a few years, even a few months, just long enough to turn him into a real duerf — cured him, that is — I’m sure he would have been all right. I barely had time to explain to him that his symptoms were due to his deeply repressed unconscious lust for his father — “

“Yes, thank you, doctor. I’m sure you were a big help.” I stood up. “That’s enough for me. Thanks again. I’ll see your secretary and pay the bill on my way out.”

And out I went.

The secretary stopped typing long enough to take my money and give me a receipt. The bill was a hundred dollars. And I thought it was worth it.

I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. It wasn’t fast enough. Miss Plonk was gone.

Back down the blacktop drive I went, and turned into Hill Road. My head was swimming. As if in deep water, and going down for the third time. A very creepy feeling crept over me. What if Mordecai was right? If so, I was in trouble. In times of general insanity, they lock up the sane people, naturally. Only a few had been put away, so I guessed it hadn’t really started yet; but in times like these anything could happen.

It was a little chilly now, and I rolled up the Cad’s windows, swung into Benedict Canyon Drive, and headed down toward Beverly Hills. A tan cloth raincoat was on the seat beside me; earlier it had looked as if it might rain, but the sky was fairly clear now, though there was a good nip in the air. Up ahead was a black sedan, parked on my right where a side road intersected Benedict Canyon. I could see one man behind the wheel and another standing near the raised hood. Having engine trouble, I guessed.

Both sides of Benedict Canyon at this point were lined with scrubby trees and low brown shrubs. As I approached the intersection I thought, for just a moment, that I saw something move or glitter on my left, there in the trees. But I looked that way and didn’t see anything unusual.

But it was enough to alert my senses just a bit more. Enough so that I straightened a little, involuntarily gripped the steering wheel tighter. Maybe it was that movement I’d seen, or imagined; maybe the car close ahead now, on my right, or the posture of the man standing near it. He slammed down the hood, then walked to the driver’s side of the car. The driver’s side, the side nearest me — not toward the opposite seat where he’d naturally go if he were about to climb in. Maybe nothing. But I slapped my coat over the .38 Colt, just to be sure it was there where I always carry it, and eased my foot off the gas pedal.

There was no alarm. I was simply reacting in the way that was now normal for me after years of dealing with men whose answer to frustration is violence, the sap or the gun or the muscle. When you know there are at least a few dozen hoods in a big city who would dance on your grave if you were dead, you kind of make a special effort not to be dead.

So right then everything was routine, like checking the rear-view mirror to make sure you’re not being tailed.

But in one sudden second everything changed.

Alarm rammed itself into my throat and I hit the brakes, grabbing under my coat for the .38. That black sedan had leaped forward into the intersection, blocking my path, and in the same moment the big man who’d been standing alongside it ran toward me. I couldn’t get around the car; but I was already slowing. Then, on my left, I saw movement again.

A third man had either stood up or moved forward from the scrubby trees there. He wasn’t moving now; he was standing still. But light gleamed on something metallic in his hands. Something big. I didn’t take a good look at him; there wasn’t time. I hit the emergency brake with my left foot, locking it, and used the brake pedal as leverage to shove myself toward the Cad’s right-hand door. I flopped on the seat, fingers slapping the door handle while the car was still in motion and swerving as the tires bit into asphalt.

Moments before the forward motion stopped completely, the door sprang open and I started trying to scramble from the car — but as I flopped out I heard the cha-cha-cha of automatic fire. That’s what the bastard on my left had been holding — a machine gun. I heard heavy slugs hit the Cad’s body, felt the bite of flying glass as a window splintered.

Then my shoulder thudded against the street and I flipped over, getting my knees under me, the snub-nosed .38 in my right fist. The black car was still blocking the intersection and I could see the driver jumping out of it; the big man was ten yards away, running at me. The sound of the submachine gun was momentarily silent.

Near my knees was wadded tan cloth. When I’d come out of the car my raincoat had been pulled out with me. I hadn’t planned it that way; but as long as it was here maybe I could use it. The Cad had stopped squarely between me and the guy across the street. I grabbed the raincoat in my left hand and hurled it toward the back of the Cad, trying to throw it high and hard enough so it would fly out past the car’s rear before falling to the ground; at the same time I flipped my Colt up and snapped a shot at the man near me. And missed.

The big man — he wasn’t merely big, he was huge — was nearest me, and he had a gun in his band. But he couldn’t aim very accurately while running, and it wasn’t a machine gun. So I came up onto my feet, facing the Cadillac, snapped one more shot at the big man and thought I saw his right arm jerk, thought I saw his gun spinning in air. I wasn’t sure; but it didn’t make any difference. I let him keep coming at me from my right, pulled my eyes and gun arm left, straight ahead of me, as another burst of slugs ripped from the machine gun across the street. My tan coat jerked in the air, jerked and fell.

I bent my knees so I could see past the Cad’s open right door and through the car’s interior to the shattered window by the driver’s seat. That first burst of heavy slugs had shattered the glass, left gaping holes in it. But through the holes I could see the third man, his automatic chopper still aimed away from me. My eye, gun, and the man’s chest were in line when I squeezed the trigger, squeezed it again. He was hit; I knew damn well he was hit.

I heard the slap of shoe leather as the man near me loomed on my right. I turned toward him fast, swinging my left foot up ahead of me and planting it, slapping the gun from right hand to left. He was almost on me. I didn’t fire. Beyond him was the driver of that black sedan, also coming this way now, a little guy, not in much of a hurry. But there were at least two men on their feet — three if I hadn’t dropped the one across the street — and there was only one bullet left in my gun.

I had time to cock my right fist and start slamming it forward. The big man was a yard away, arms up, hands reaching. Reaching, but empty; so his gun had fallen back there. My fist moved between his hands without touching them, and I got his chin with a hell of a blow, an enormous blow. It felt as if my whole fist exploded, as if the knuckles shattered.

It didn’t stop him. His momentum carried him into me and we both went down. I landed on my back, tried to hold my head up, but it banged into the asphalt hard enough to send silvery dots of light arcing before my eyes. He rolled over me, scrambled on the street. I got up, staggered, saw the little man, his image blurred, between me and the black sedan. He’d stopped running, was standing in the street. A dot of fire bloomed as he shot at me, and the sound seemed strangely loud. Something nipped at my coat, a barely felt tug, as the bullet hissed past.

I felt my lungs filling with air. The man was turning. I raised my arm, pointed the Colt at him as he kept turning away from me then started to run toward the car. I aimed at his narrow back, fired, and missed.

The man behind me was trying to get up off the street. His hand clutched at my coat. I turned, cupped the empty gun in my palm, and slammed it down and into his forehead as hard as I could. He let out a little sigh and went back down.

A car door slammed. There was the deep flutter of the sedan’s engine starting. A squeal of rubber tires on asphalt, then he was on his way. I saw the big man’s heavy automatic lying a few yards from me, started toward it, then stopped.

Except for the flutter of the sedan, it was quiet. Then, not a sound. It was like the silence a man would hear when he was in his grave — which, I began slowly to realize, I wasn’t.

Across the street the machine gunner lay on his stomach, feet in dirt alongside the road, side of his face pressed against the asphalt. He wasn’t moving. But the huge ape near me was. Not much. Too much. I got his gun off the street and pounded him once with it.

Then I went over and took a look at the other guy. When I rolled him onto his back, the coat of his dark suit fell open. Two red spots had bloomed on his white shirt, merging into a single wet stain shaped like an irregular figure eight. One of my slugs had hit his breastbone, squarely in the middle; the other was less than an inch to the right. I hadn’t ever done any better — or luckier — shooting. Either one of the bullets would have torn up his heart.

I knew him. I knew the big ape, too, for that matter. But before even trying to figure out what all of this might mean, I used the phone under the Cad’s dash to call the police.

Then I sat down on the ground, and shook a little.

Before the police arrived from the Valley Division, I had checked both the temporarily and the permanently unconscious men, finding no more guns or anything else of importance. But I knew them. The machine gunner was a hood called Snag, presumably because he had one eyetooth that stuck straight out as if he were eating a small unicorn. It had given him a permanently sneering expression in life. And now in death.

The other guy was also a hoodlum gun-and-muscle man — which I could most likely have figured out, even if I hadn’t known him. His name was Booby. At least, that’s what his buddies on the turf called him. One story was that his real name was Robert and he was called Bobby, and because he wasn’t so bright you could see him glowing on a moonless midnight, Bobby had become Booby.

The other story, which I liked better, was that when the woman who was later to give him birth discovered she was pregnant, she had said to her hubby, either with a verbal stumble or unconscious precognition, “Darling, we’re going to have a booby.” Whereupon hubby — acting not quite like those movie and TV hubbies who, on learning of the imminent blessed event, start rolling their eyes as if to say “How clever of you, darling!” — had said, “I oughta bust you right inna mouth!” And proceeded to bust her right inna mouth.

Whatever was true, however Booby got his start, he grew up to be a lip-thinker, which is a guy who moves his lips when he thinks. And he didn’t wiggle them much at that. Which meant this party hadn’t been Booby’s idea; he hadn’t any ideas. And Snag wasn’t exactly the mastermind type.

I happened to know, incidentally, that Booby was still on probation, and Snag had just waltzed out of San Quentin after serving nine whole months of a one-to-ten felony rap. That’s one to ten years. Just think; he could have been kept up there in Q for a little longer. I’ll go along with some of the do-gooders’ moist-eyed compassion for guys who have “gone wrong,” but when those snuffle-noses start saying the boys are merely sick and should be given a large dose of loving-kindness instead of a long — repeat, long — jolt behind bars, they and I part company with absolutely amazing rapidity. If these bastards had been in the slammer, where they’d both been before and should have been right now, they wouldn’t have been trying to kill me. And on that point there was no doubt. They had sure as hell been trying to kill me.

Well, somebody had planned this operation with reasonable care. And if not Snag or Booby, maybe the third man? The one who’d taken a fast powder? Not likely. The planners usually let other people do their dirty work, and stay out of the line of fire themselves. Besides, I thought I might know that third man as well. Might. When I’d spotted him I’d been too busy to study his expression intently. But he’d been small, thin, with a sharp-featured face, and I had got a look at him from fifteen yards or so away.

I wasn’t sure, but I thought he was a man named Antonio Anguinacio, known as Tony Anguish. If so, we’d locked horns before. More important, I knew the man he worked for. He didn’t just work for him, either; he was the hood’s specialist in murder — murder plain and murder fancy, the artful suicide, the fatal accident, everything from a shotgun blast to poison to an icepick six inches deep in an eardrum.

The citizen he worked for was a man named Joe Rice — not the name he was born with but, like Tony’s, the Anglicized version of something less pronounceable. And Joe Rice was the local boss of the Cosa Nostra, the L.A. capo. In other words, the big cheese hereabouts of the Mafia.

Mafia. What the hell? I thought.

Not that Rice and I were strangers. We sure weren’t friends, but we weren’t strangers, either. We had tangled, obliquely. During my years in L.A., I had twice become involved in cases which eventuated in the sending of minor mobsters to the clink, said mobsters having been, allegedly, employed by Joe Rice. Rice was never tied in legally, not in court, since knowing a thing to be true and having legal proof of its truth are two different things — especially in courtrooms presided over by certain tenderhearted judges. But I knew Rice had been the boss man in both cases. So did the police.

It wasn’t enough. Not nearly. To get a man like Rice, you have to have an airtight, leakproof, foolproof case. If not, the bleeding hearts often set up such a wail that the case is dismissed and a few witnesses surprisingly develop holes in their skulls; or the defendant winds up out on probation, shooting at you — like Snag and Booby. That’s another thing: I wouldn’t object to the bleeding hearts so much if they used their own blood.

Anyhow, one of those cases had been an extortion job. Half a dozen high-salaried Hollywood people were being shaken down; some underlings wound up in San Quentin but the overling wasn’t touched. The other case was narcotics smuggling. I knew damned well Rice had been the prime mover in the operation; everybody knew that fourteen kilos of nearly pure heroin, all of it H from Red China — easily identified because we’d seen so much of it — had appeared in Los Angeles and that half of it had been cut and pushed. Again, underlings went in but Rice stayed out.

All of that, however, had been in the past. What might I have done to stir Rice up lately?

The only thing I was working on now was the simple — at least simple on the surface — death of Charley White. I couldn’t figure out where a Mafia boss fit into that. And my last couple of cases hadn’t got me wandering in Rice’s territory. At least not so far as I knew.

Well, maybe when I talked to Johnny Troy he could shed some light in the darkness. I figured I’d just keep going through the motions and see what happened. And try to stay alive while doing it.

Then I heard the sirens.

</code>

<code> CHAPTER SIX

It was nearly 4 p.m. before I finished with the police. There was the gathering up of the bodies and ejected cartridges and guns and such, and bringing Booby back from unconsciousness. Once he got back, it wasn’t much different from when he’d been gone. Naturally he didn’t have anything helpful to say.

All he knew was, “I only done what Snag told me.” Tony? He didn’t know any Tony. Tony Anguish? Nobody’s got a name like that. Nah, he wasn’t going to shoot Scott, he just wanted to hit him. He liked to hit white-haired guys.

That’s the way it went. After which Snag went to the morgue, Booby to a private cell, and I, after stopping in at the Valley Division, drove on into downtown L.A. and trotted up to the third floor of the Police Building.

Central Homicide is on the third floor, room 314, and in the squad room I had a cup of coffee while I talked to Sam for a few minutes. Sam is the familiar name for one of the best cops who ever pounded a beat in L.A., an officer who worked out of Robbery, Narcotics, Bunco-Fugitive, Homicide, and rose to be what he is now: Phil Samson, Captain of the L.A. Central Homicide Division, and my best friend in town.

Sam is big, solid, hard-boiled, efficient, and quietly dedicated to his job. An honest man, and a fair man. He never slugged a whining hoodlum around, but he never gave one what is called a “break,” either. Instead he gave them justice, exactly what they’d earned; he figured they should pay the price for what they’d bought. But about all he would ever say was, “If a guy’s a crook he ought to be in the can. If he doesn’t want to be in the can, he shouldn’t be a crook.” I’ve heard the opposite viewpoint, in ten thousand words of Harvardese, but I’ll still buy Sam’s.

He was chewing one of his big black unlighted cigars. He is always chewing a big black unlighted cigar. I seldom see them lit because when he lights one and the stink begins, I leave. Now he rubbed a big hand over his iron-gray hair, shifted the cigar from one side of his wide mouth to the other, and said, “We’ll get nothing out of Maxim, Shell. His kind can go for days without even asking where the john is.”

Maxim — Robert Maxim. Booby. “Even when he does talk it’s no help,” I said. “That guy can’t even understand the conversation when he’s talking to himself. Anyway, the guy I want is Tony.”

“Yeah.” Sam bit into his cigar, his big jaw wiggling. “If he’s the one you saw, he won’t likely be out in the open. And you’re not sure, anyway, Shell.”

“That’s the hell of it. All I really remember is that the guy was very unfriendly. But I’d give eight to five it was Tony. He’s very unfriendly.”

“Well, we’ve got a local and an APB out on Anguinacio. Maybe he’ll turn up.”

So far there wasn’t anything to tie Booby or Snag in with Joe Rice. Nothing new had developed in connection with Charley White’s death. But I’d told my tale; so I finished my coffee and left to see Johnny Troy.

I was going to be more than an hour late. Maybe he wouldn’t let me in.

He didn’t. But somebody else did. I almost wished it hadn’t happened.

The Royalcrest was on Hollywood Boulevard, west of La Brea, a luxurious eight-story apartment hotel in a quiet residential district with lots of trees and big green lawns, but still near the heart of Hollywood.

The lobby was spacious and cool, comfortably furnished with soft, modern-looking divans and chairs. I used a house phone to call the Troy suite and somebody told me to come on up. I went up to the top in the elevator, found the door, and knocked.

Whoever let me in, it sure wasn’t Johnny Troy. At first I thought it was a girl, but not my kind of girl. I hope to shout it wasn’t my kind of girl; it was a boy. He opened the door, gave me a casual wave, and without a word went back into the dimly lighted room. He wore a flowing white shirt with extremely long collars and a V front, tight black stretch pants — you got it: stretch pants — and dark cloth slippers.

As I followed him inside, little question marks tumbling about among my little gray cells, he threw himself dramatically down on a poufy red-satin-covered pillow near a guy in T-shirt, blue jeans, and the kind of big brown high-topped shoes I call clodhoppers. The rugged guy badly needed a shave. They looked like Beauty and the Beast, and I guess you know who was Beauty, don’t you?

A Johnny Troy record was playing softly. It was one I didn’t have — or recognize. Something about “loved with a love that was more than love….” It was a little scratchy.

I was in a big room like the lobby of a small hotel in the high-rent district. A lot of pillows were on the floor, and half a dozen people were on the pillows. A beautiful low divan covered in metallic gold fabric of some kind was across the room on my right; three fellows sat on it, and near the divan, leaning against the rough black lava-rock face of a huge wood-burning fireplace in which a log now glowed and crackled, was Johnny Troy.

There were perhaps a dozen other people in the room, some of them pretty good-sized, and a few clad in jazzy garb, but Troy made the rest of them look like colorless midgets. It wasn’t that he wore outlandish clothing, either; he had on a blue coat, shirt and tie, cream-colored trousers. It was simply that the guy really did have something, a special presence, a tangible warmth, as if he generated an electricity peculiarly his own. There are some people who apparently have little if anything to distinguish them, but when they walk into a crowded room all eyes turn to them as if drawn by a magnet.

Johnny Troy had that kind of magnetism, but he had the outstanding physical attributes as well. First of all, he was six feet, four inches tall, and handsome as a Greek devil. His golden-blond hair stood out like a spot of light against the black rock of the fireplace, and as he spoke to the group on the couch he emphasized a point with a stabbing motion of a pipe in his hand, a movement as graceful as the lunge of a fencer.

He turned, saw me, and immediately strode over the thick carpet toward me. He held out his hand, smiling, and said, “Mr. Scott?” I nodded as we shook hands, and he went on, “Ulysses called and said you’d be by. I expected you sooner or I’d have met you at the door myself.”

“Sorry, I’m late, Mr. Troy. I had a … little trouble on the road.”

“Oh, it’s quite all right. Hope you don’t mind the gang.” He waved a hand, indicating the people present. He started to go on, then paused briefly. “By the way,” he said, “some of them are rather … unconventional. Don’t let it throw you off stride.”

He grinned at me and I grinned back. “It won’t.”

“Good. We’re all friends. Most of them are Sebastian clients. I imagine you know some of them, at least by reputation.”

I had recognized several familiar faces or reputations. On the gold divan was Gary Baron, the local TV announcer and part-time writer. He was easiest to recognize because of the white streak in his black hair. His eyes were cold, but apparently out of them he saw all sorts of hot stuff nobody else could see, which he duly reported nightly on his ten-minute “Top of the News” segment of the hour-long ten-o’clock news. The white streak made him look very dashing, which he was; he was always dashing about the world, reporting “from the thick of things,” which often got pretty thick, I thought.

Next to him was thin, pale, poetic-looking Ronald Langor, who had written the season’s most highly acclaimed novel, now in its eighteenth week on The New York Times’ best-seller list, which meant it was selling in twenty-seven bookstores, or something like that. I’m not especially literary.

Langor was the kind of writer you always call an author, and there had been so much bubbly sound and fury about his book. Lie Down and Die, that I’d read the thing myself — all the way through, too, despite the fact that its first line was: “Pursued in the cacophony of silent twilight by my incestuous desire for Roric, I knew the shock of unreality when first I saw Libida.” It turned out that Libida was a seventy-six-year-old ex-prostitute from whom the teen-age hero learned about sex. He didn’t like it. And — as a perceptive critic wrote about another writer — by the time he got through with it, nobody else liked it, either.

The guy who’d let me in was some kind of poet, though I couldn’t remember his name, and the clodhopper type was a famous sculptor. I’d seen a photo of his last bit of sculpting, which consisted of half an automobile axle, a rag doll, and a broken toilet bowl. It got some kind of prize, but I can’t recall what it was. Or what for.

Johnny Troy said, “I need another drink, Mr. Scott. Then I shall place myself entirely at your disposal. Join me? Vodka? Scotch? Bourbon? There’s — “

“Bourbon’s fine, with water. Thanks.”

Troy steered me across the room and picked up an empty glass from the flat stone hearth before the crackling fire. Then we walked to a bar in one corner. The mumble of conversation stopped for a few seconds, and all eyes followed me. It wasn’t my irresistible magnetism, either; the looks were cool, almost hostile. Well, maybe it figured. I didn’t belong. Of course, I didn’t want to join, either.

With our glasses full, Troy said, almost apologetically, “Usually there aren’t so many people here, Mr. Scott. But since…” He paused, then went ahead with it. “Since Charley died, I haven’t wanted to be alone. It’s been … empty. I’m sure you understand.”

He didn’t wait for my comment, went on, “You want to ask me about Charley, is that right?”

“Right. Hope you don’t mind.”

He smiled a bit tightly and answered, “Frankly, I do. I don’t want to talk about it or even think about it. But as Ulysses said to me, it’s done. I can’t pretend it didn’t happen.” He swallowed two or three fingers of his drink, a tall vodka-and-orange-juice. It struck me he’d had quite a bit already. “Well, what’s first?”

“I’d like to take a quick look at Charley’s suite, if you don’t mind. And the balcony he fell from.”

“Follow me,” he said, and led the way out of the living room, through a bedroom, down a hallway to a door which he unlocked. We went through into the extension of the hallway. Charley’s suite was the same as Troy’s except that the plan was reversed. Where Troy’s living room looked up Hollywood Boulevard with the city’s lights on the left, Charley’s was on the opposite end of the building, facing the same direction, but with the Hollywood Hills looming close on the right.

In the bedroom were several framed photographs, about a dozen of girls, very pretty and shapely girls, one of Charley himself, several of him with Johnny Troy. In one of the latter he was standing with Troy in front of a nightclub, Troy’s arm resting over his shoulders. Charley had been only five feet, six inches tall and in the photo he was literally dwarfed by big Johnny Troy; more, Charley wasn’t at all handsome — in fact, he had the round, fleshy face and sorrowful eyes of a clown — but Judging by the pictures of the gals in here it was a good way to look.

But I wondered how he’d felt inside, being constantly with tall, handsome, dynamic, supremely popular Troy. Wondered, as I had when talking earlier today with Sylvia White, if a little boil of resentment might have come to a head in him.

We walked through the apartment, into the empty, quiet living room, through sliding doors onto a balcony at its side, which faced west. The sun was dropping behind the horizon, and purple shadows were sliding over the low hills; it was colder now, and the sky looked like grease.

“Here’s where it happened,” Troy said quietly. “They found him down there.”

We stood leaning against the black wrought-iron rail, and I looked down. Down eight floors to the sidewalk.

The rail hit me just above my belt. And I’m six-two. I suppose a man eight inches shorter might manage to fall over the rail; but it seemed to me it would take some doing.

“Anything else you want to see here, Mr. Scott?”

“No, but I’ve some questions.”

“Let’s go back to my place.” He turned, walked abruptly into the living room.

“Be better if we stayed here, Mr. Troy. I’d much rather talk to you in private.”

He stopped, glanced over his shoulder. “No. It gives me the creeps. We’ll go back.” He started walking again.

“Look,” I said. “Some of the things I have to ask should be asked without those other guys bending an ear. If you don’t mind — “

“I do mind.” He kept walking.

Well, what the hell. I followed him. He seemed kind of wound up, a bit tense. As we went into Troy’s living room, the people there gazed at us with undisguised interest. One weedy chap I didn’t recognize pointed at me and said something to a man near him, and both laughed.

One thing about all these people, they looked clean. Except for the sculptor, they were all neatly dressed, bandboxy. There was the scent of several lotions, after-shave, and maybe heady perfumes mingling in the air. I didn’t even smell of pine needles.

Moreover, I was becoming acutely aware of the fact that in my desire not to be even later getting here, I hadn’t stopped to change clothes at my apartment. The slug which zipped by me had sliced two neat holes in my coat; there was a small rip in one knee of my trousers; and both coat and trousers were a bit soiled from flopping about on earth and asphalt.

Troy mixed himself another drink, looked at me. I shook my head. Then he led me to the divan and, addressing the author of Lie Down and Die, said, “Flop on the floor, Ronnie. Give Mr. Scott room to sit down.”

Ronnie obediently flopped on the floor.

Troy and I sat side by side on the divan, Gary Baron on my right. I didn’t like conducting a serious interview in this kind of gathering, but it was either this or no conversation at all. So I went ahead.

I asked him essentially what I’d asked Ulysses Sebastian earlier: if Charley had seemed depressed, if he’d given any indication that he might have been disturbed enough that, perhaps, his death hadn’t been an accident. It was sticky — particularly with about a dozen other people hanging on every word. Most of them had by now moved nearer us, and we formed a jolly little group.

Troy simply threw back his head and laughed. “Charley didn’t jump over, if that’s what you’re wondering,” he said. “No, he didn’t kill himself. Hell, he wasn’t sick — you should be so healthy.”

“I understand he had a session or two with Dr. Withers. Something must have been bothering him.”

Troy nodded, not surprised. “Yes, he did start analysis. I knew about it, but there wasn’t anything in his manner to indicate he was seriously troubled about anything. Most of us” — he waved his hand around the room — “have undergone at least a few months of treatment, simply to release the inner potential, the concealed dynamic.”

He sounded as if he were quoting someone else. Or the literature of Withering. I said, “You’ve gone through — “

“No, no,” he interrupted. “Not me. Most of the others here, though. Ronnie, Paul, Dayne — “

Ronald Langor interrupted, “It was the greatest experience of my life, if you want to know.” I didn’t, but he went on, anyway. “Without the dynamic release of my libidinal consciousness and the semantic detraumatization evolving from my personal Duerfianalysis, it would have been impossible for me to write Lie Down and Die.”

Ah-ha, I thought, thinking of Libida and Roric. I was also thinking, “And wouldn’t that have been a catastrophe?” but I didn’t say it. Typical author; first thing he’d said and he’d got the title of his book into it.

I ignored Ronald, not purposely, but simply because I wanted to get the job with Troy done and climb out of here. But apparently it piqued Ronnie. He was even trying to say something else — I think it was Lie Down and Die — as I turned to Troy and said, “I’ve talked to the police. Their information is that Mr. White was alone in his suite when he fell to his death. Is there any possibility somebody might have been in the suite with him at the time?”

“I don’t know,” Troy said quietly. “I doubt it, but I guess it’s possible. I was here, alone, when it happened. I was called on the phone almost immediately, of course.”

“That’s a bit much, isn’t it?”

It was Gary Baron, speaking from my right.

I swiveled my head around and looked at him. He was half smiling, but the eyes looked cold and hard. Like painted ball bearings.

“Much?” I said.

“A bit brutal, what? You’ve as much as said little Charley was murdered.” His tone was thick as molasses.

“One of your famous false conclusions, Mr. Baron,” I said. “I’m investigating Mr. White’s death. Apparently his death was indeed an accident, but there is at least the possibility of suicide, even homicide — “

“Homicide is murder, isn’t it?”

“Murder is a possibility whenever — “

He interrupted. “Murder,” he said melodramatically, throwing an arm stagily over his head. “Mr. Scott is on the trail of fiends most foul.”

“Knock it off, Mr. Baron,” I said. All I needed was a bit more of this to light my fuse, anyway. During the few minutes I’d been sitting here, there had been half a dozen remarks which I couldn’t fail to catch, and which perhaps I wasn’t supposed to miss. The weedy chap who’d pointed at me earlier had said something, of which I caught the louder part, “…absolutely animal, isn’t he?” followed by gentle laughter from two or three other comics. Somebody else had said, “A real detective. I’ll bet he’s even got a gun.” I did, and what he didn’t know was that I’d reloaded it. Not that I go around shooting poets. Never shot a poet in my life. Not so far.

At any rate, I had ignored the little digs — at least I’d tried to — but they had lowered my boiling point by perhaps a hundred and fifty degrees. So when Baron continued as if I hadn’t spoken at all, “Fiends and bloody murderers, but we have here a dedicated Javert — ” I leaned close to him. Very close. Not quite touching his nose with my nose. And I said, with feeling, “Knock … it … off.”

He knocked it off.

But little Ronnie Langor chose that moment to chime in. Maybe he knew I couldn’t, or at least wouldn’t, lay a hand on him — which is sometimes the defense of smart-mouthed little guys. And sometimes it doesn’t work. Anyway, he reached out and touched the torn spot on the knee of my trousers and said sweetly, “What’s that, Scott? A hole in your pants?”

It was the kind of hilarious line his book was filled with. But it got a laugh from the assembled audience. Encouraged, he said, “And a moth has eaten a bitty hole in your jacket,” speaking with exaggerated emphasis as if translating a po-em from a foreign language.

“Keep your dimpled paw off my knee, friend,” I said as sweetly as I could. It sounded sour.

He yanked back his paw, but said, “What in the world happened to your raiment?” and had a difficult time to keep from being overcome with joy at his wit.

I kept my voice level, even pleasant, and tried to smooth things over. Tried, unsuccessfully. “I had a little scuffle,” I said, “and tore the raiment. And it was a copper-jacketed moth which chewed the bitty holes in the jacket. Now can we forget it?”

I wondered why in hell I was trying to explain to these creeps, and that didn’t soothe me. Sometimes you can lean over too far backward trying to be nice, and get nicey-nice.

Langor was frowning. “Copper…” he said. “You don’t mean a bullet.” He was looking at the holes. “A bullet?”

“A bullet.” I left it there and turned back toward Troy.

I guess the flat statement jarred Langor a bit, but he wasn’t through. “A bullet,” he said. “He was shot at with a bul-let. Friends of mine, we are in the presence of a hero.” There was a scattering of applause. I felt my ears getting warm. If Ronald had known me better and if he had been looking at my ears, he would have shut up. But he was looking at his admiring friends.

“Speech, speech,” he said gaily. “A speech from Hero — or, no, it must be Leander!”

Well, that was the kind of joke that really appealed to these people. Ponderously literary, and with a not-quite-nasty sexual allusion which broke them up. You wouldn’t think we’d just been talking about the death of Charley White. They laughed with real amusement this time.

And that did it.

I leaned forward and got Langor’s shoulder between my fingers and squeezed just a little. At least I thought it was just a little, but he let out a yelp. “Friend,” I said, “can the wise chatter. You may not know it, but you’re out of your league.”

“Well, you don’t have to get brutal,” he said. “I dare say I am … out of my league, if you’re going to get brutal.”

Oddly, I just happened to glance at Gary Baron then. He was all ears, intent on the words and the scene, smiling. His eyes even seemed to have warmed up a little. I didn’t like the smile, but I was too hot — and cold at the same time — to wonder about it.

Ronald Langor, encouraged by mumbles, had gone on to develop the theme that he wasn’t physical; he was mental, and he really had no use for physical people. Nothing was ever solved by violence, he said; that was the trouble with the world today, and what we needed was nonviolence.

Then he said, “Words are my forte, my life. My friends are books, and those who love books. So, Mr. Hero, we cannot do battle. I don’t suppose you read books.”

He should at least have called me Leander. I said quietly, “I read a book.”

“Indeed? A comic book?”

“Yes, a comic book.”

“Oh, my. Tell us about it.”

“It was called Lie Down and Die.”

He actually paled. His lips thinned and for a moment he wavered. But then he snorted and said, “I know very well you did not read it.”

“Oh, but I did.”

He smiled. He’d seen the way out. “Fine,” he said. “Then tell us what you thought of it.” He looked around at his grinning friends. “Tell us your opinion of its subtleties, its nuances, its symbolism.”

“You really want my opinion?”

“Yes.”

“My honest opinion?”

“Of course!”

“All right,” I said. “It was one of those books you hate to see start. I could hardly pick it up. I was bored by the first line and lost interest steadily thereafter. As for your plot, it built to a climactic nadir and then petered out. Your characters had all the warmth of Nome, Alaska, and the charm of death by strangulation. I found it totally barren of subtleties, nuances, and recognizable symbolism, but pregnant with dullness. As for — “

“Why, you utter beast,” he cried, wounded to the quick.

“Hell, you asked me to utter it,” I said. “I wanted to know what all the critical conniptions were about. Now that I know, I may not read another book as long as I live.”

“Which we can hope won’t be too long,” he said limply.

Just like an author. They don’t want honest opinions; they want fun opinions. He went on fuming, trying to tell the assemblage that obviously I hadn’t read a line of his book. But I think they all knew — especially Ronald Langor.

It got very quiet. So quiet I could hear the soft sound of the record I’d heard when I came in, still playing over and over, needle catching a crack on every revolution, “…no other thought than to love and be loved by me….”

I turned to Johnny Troy, remembering what I’d told Sebastian I’d do, and said, “Well, that’s about it. There seems to be a wet blanket on the party. Incidentally, that’s one of your records I hadn’t heard before, Mr. Troy. What are your plans now? I mean, TV shots, albums — “

I hadn’t been watching him while the byplay with Langor was going on. Maybe something had been building up in him. Maybe I’d stabbed his little friend too deeply. But he was holding his highball glass by its top and suddenly it shattered. The fragments cut into his palm, the bottom of the glass fell with a soft thump to the carpet. His face was set, grim. Then, as if surprised, he opened his hand and let the curved bits of glass fall to the floor. One of them hit the broken base there with a little ting.

Johnny Troy looked at the blood welling from two deep cuts in his palm. A drop of red fell to stain his cream-colored trousers.

“I’ll be damned,” he said. “Guess I don’t know my own st — ” He cut it off, then grinned at me, relaxing. “Guess I know my own weakness.”

He got up, wrapped a handkerchief around his hand, then mixed another drink. When he returned I stood up and said, “That does it. Thanks very much for giving me this time, Mr. Troy.”

“Forget it.”

He walked with me toward the door. The people were conversing softly again but it was still fairly quiet, and as I walked past the poet in stretch pants and the clodhoppered sculptor, I was forced to conclude that they were talking about somebody they didn’t like at all. At least, the poet was saying, “…oh, pooh to him, anyway. He’s a ninny….” It was all I heard, fortunately.

At the door I said to Troy, “Thanks again. I can’t honestly say I’m sorry I popped off to Langor, but I don’t like to come into a man’s home and chew up his guests.”

He grinned. “You chewed Ronnie pretty good.” Then he surprised me by saying, “Maybe it’ll do the little bastard some good. Everybody’s been telling him he wrote a masterpiece for so long he believes it.”

“You don’t think it’s a masterpiece?”

He chuckled. “It stinks, as someone once said of someone, like a mackerel decaying in the moonlight.” He paused. “We’re a pretty sad bunch, aren’t we?”

“I do not include you, Mr. Troy. I mean that. But I’m not exactly overcome by admiration for your friends.”

“Hell, they’re not my friends.” He chewed on his lip. “And I’m just as screwed up as they are. Without Charley, I … can’t go on. It’s a fact.”

It made me a little uncomfortable. But I said, “Look, I know about the trouble you’ve had singing, when Charley wasn’t around. Who doesn’t? But, hell, there’s all kinds of therapy, maybe even hypnosis — “

“It’s not that simple. I may tell you about it. But not now. Charley was a friend. A real friend — not like these.” He jerked his head. “Up until the last few months, anyway.”

It dug me a little. “What does that mean?” I asked him. “Until the last few months?”

“Skip it. Interview’s over, Scott. For today, anyway.” He chewed on his lip again. “You know, I think we could get along pretty well. If…” He didn’t finish it.

“I think we could,” I said, and meant it. He was so unlike these creeps he’d surrounded himself with that I couldn’t begin to understand why he put up with them. He stuck out his hand, but his right was cut and bandaged, so we shook lefts.

“Back to the fun,” he said, grinning. “They’re really going to cut you into slices.”

“No doubt. And nobody to say a word in my defense.”

“I will,” he said. “I’ll say a word.”

I figured he would, at that.

I went out and down the hall to the elevator. The last thing I heard, faintly, was the scratchy record: “…but we loved with a love that was more than love — I and my Annabel Lee….”

</code>

<code> CHAPTER SEVEN

After cleaning up and changing clothes, I sat in my apartment and thought about a lot of things, including the bunch I’d just left, then pushed them out of my mind and concentrated on three other creeps. The three who’d tried to kill me.

If the murder attempt was not connected with this, the Charley White case, I could sit here and think like a fiend all night and probably not pin down the who and why of it. But if it was … Well, that led to a flock of other questions. Who, why, motive, and opportunity, the rest of it. But also, how had those creeps known I was going to come rolling down Benedict Canyon Drive?

It was possible, I suppose, that they’d tailed me all the way from Hollywood, or up from Beverly Hills — Joe Rice lived in Beverly Hills. I hadn’t been expecting trouble — not while engaged in an almost casual check of an apparently accidental death. But that I doubted, even so. There was that maybe-funny business about the phones while I’d been with Sebastian. Yeah, he’d known I was going to see Dr. Withers…. No, I hadn’t actually told him where I was going. Merely that I had “something else to do.”

But Mordecai Withers himself … I started remembering things. His reaction when he’d finally realized I was Shell Scott. His further reaction when that lively tomato had come out of the next room, fully clothed.

Suddenly I wanted to see — what was her name? Ah, yes, Plonk. Miss Plonk. I’d look her up in the phone book, that’s what. Shouldn’t be difficult. Probably there weren’t more than thirty or forty Plonks in all of Los Angeles.

Believe it or not, there was only one. Polly Plonk. I jotted down the address, but didn’t phone. I wanted to surprise her. The way she wandered around, sort of abandoned, perhaps — but never mind.

The address was the Baghdad on Beverly Boulevard, one of those spread-out hybrid hotel-motel affairs with separate little cottages scattered around a swimming pool and elsewhere in grounds landscaped with palm and banana trees. It looked as much like Baghdad as vegetable soup resembles the Pacific Ocean. But the cottages were nice, quite large and freshly painted in pale blue and white.

Miss Plonk’s apartment was number six. I found it between five and seven. Everything was working out fine so far. Thus encouraged, I knocked.

Footsteps. Not bare; high-heeled, my keen ear told me. The door opened. And standing there was — yes! — Miss Plonk.

“Hello, Miss Plonk,” I said.

“Well, hello! I remember you. From the doctor’s office.”

“Well, I wasn’t there because…” I didn’t finish it. Maybe she liked sick people. Come to think of it, I did. I wondered what she was suffering from. Last time I’d seen her she hadn’t seemed to be suffering very hard. I think I’d suffered more than she.

But I couldn’t just stand here suffering like this. I said, “I’d like to ask you a question.”

“Yes. I mean, what’s the question?”

I rolled that one around for a moment. “All right if I come in? This may take more than one question.”

“Oh, sure. I don’t mind how many. Come on in.”

She was kind of hard to figure out. She sure looked great, though. She was clothed, wearing the high-heeled shoes I’d heard, plus a blue sweater much like a large fuzzy living bra, and tight blue stretch pants. I could have kissed her. After that poet, I’d thought maybe I would never like stretch pants again. But I was cured. Miss Plonk had cured me. On her they looked so — so at home.

She had turned around by this time and was stepping back into her cottage. I followed her and she closed the door, then said. “Sit down. Would you like a drink? Who are you? My, I’m glad you dropped by. Aren’t you?”

“Well…” I said, and gave up.

She didn’t care. She was walking through the living room to another room — kitchen. I could see the stove and all. “Come on in,” she called. “The drinks are in here. So am I.”

She made a lot of sense. I went in. “Isn’t it funny? I was just making myself a martini. I made two. Or you can have some of this stuff.” She indicated two bottles, one a fair scotch and the other a perfectly foul bourbon.

“Martini’s fine,” I said. “If you’re sure there’s enough.”

“Oh, there’s gallons. Here, you pour it — them — in here — these — and we’ll go in and drink them, and then you can ask me.”

“Huh? I mean, ask you? What?”

“I don’t know. What was it?”

“I don’t remember.”

She was leaning back against the sink, and if you don’t think kitchens can be exciting as hell, you were never in Miss Plonk’s kitchen. That living bra was really alive, moving, breathing, beckoning, doing more than you would guess. And in Dr. Withers’ office I’d had only a couple of heady glances at her face, and now realized I’d been unable to appreciate her finer points.

That sherry-colored hair did fall like heat past her left eye, and it was an eye green, hot, deep, wide, long-lashed, gorgeous, cool. And hot. Both of them were. She had a truly lovely face, straight nose, smoothly arched brows over those big green eyes. And the lips — they should run a big foldout picture of them in a girlie mag. Plump, parted, gleaming moistly, smoothly, recklessly. Moving a little. Like wild antennae.

Suddenly I wondered: What am I doing here by the sink in Miss Plonk’s kitchen, pouring martinis and thinking of her antennae? I’m supposed to be working. I’m dedicated to my job. I work hard. I’m dependable. I like my work. Why am I playing about? What did I come here for?

Yeah. I remembered. But first, there was work to do.

“Miss Plonk,” I said, “what about Mordecai Withers?”

“I don’t know. What about him?”

“Listen, we’d better … have a moment of silence.”

We went back into the front room. It was very nice. Nice furniture, nice drapes, nice chairs and couch. We sat on the couch. I sipped at my martini, then I said, “Miss Plonk — “

“Call me Polly. Say, I’m curious about something.”

“Yeah, what?”

“Who are you?”

“My name’s Shell Scott,” I said. “Here.” I showed her my identification, license, Diner’s card. Don’t know what I was trying to prove, but she was impressed.

“I knew you were somebody,” she said.

“Ah, fine. Now, remember when we met? I mean, when I walked into Dr. Withers’ office and you … ah…”

“Yes, I was going into the next room to get dressed. I didn’t have any clothes on. But I guess you noticed that.”

“I guess.”

We sat there for a while, wrapped in our separate thoughts. I had got a hunch, even in this short time, that if I hoped to get to the bottom of this case I would have to phrase my questions with care. Because I would have bet that Miss Polly Plonk didn’t have an IQ of more than 160. I would have bet a million dollars on it. So if I hoped to crack this caper, with her help, I couldn’t ask anything that might send her off on a mental tangent.

So I thought about it, sipping my empty martini, then said, “Miss — I mean, Polly — “

“Yes, and I’ll call you Shell. All rightie?”

“Fine. When — “

“You’re empty. I’ll mix us another. No, you mix them.”

“In a minute. Listen. When you were in that next room putting your clothes on, Dr. Mordecai Withers went in there for a minute. Only about a minute. Now…” It was a little delicate, by golly. But I took a deep breath and went on, “What did he do?”

“He made a phone call.”

“Ah-ha.” It figured. But something else puzzled me. “Right in front of you?” I asked.

“I was behind the screen. Sometimes you go into that office instead, and there’s a screen so you can go behind it. And take your clothes off.”

“Don’t keep saying that.” I remembered the screen, though. I’d seen it and a chair, part of a desk, through the open door. “You mean maybe he didn’t know you were there? Or had forgotten?”

“He could have. He acted like it. Didn’t even look to see if I was behind the screen. I’ll bet you would have.”

“I’ll bet — Polly, this phone call. What was it about?”

“I don’t know, Shell. He just called somebody and said somebody — What was the name? He said somebody was there asking about Charley White. The name’s on the tip of my — Shell Scott. That was it.”

“That’s me.”

“You’re right. That’s right. It was you he was talking about.” She paused. “But that makes sense, doesn’t it? Since you were the one talking to him.”

“It makes a lot of sense. Did you hear him mention anybody’s name? Anybody else’s, I mean. The name of the guy on the phone?”

“No. Only Shell — you were the only one he said. That was all he did. Just said you were there asking about this Charley White, then hung up and went out.”

Uh-huh. And that was what I’d thought might have happened. It was the only way I’d been able to explain those hoods picking me up on Benedict. So whom had he phoned? If the hoods were Joe Rice’s boys, he might have called Rice. Which puzzled me more than a little.

“Mind if I use your phone?” I asked.

“Go ahead.” She pointed it out and I looked up Withers’ number and dialed it. The phone rang several times, unanswered, and I hung up.

“He’s not there,” I said.

“Who?”

“Dr. Withers.”

“Of course not. He told me he won’t be at the office until after the elections.”

That was right. This was Saturday. The elections were Tuesday. He must have decided to leave the office closed on Monday as well. “He say where he’d be?”

She shook her head, the light putting glints of red in her hair. I spent a while trying to run down another address or phone number for Dr. Withers, even checking with a newspaper friend and the L.A.P.D., but without any luck; no telling where he might be. But I was going to find him.

I was still sitting by the phone when I heard the stirring. Polly came out of the kitchen with a pitcher of martinis.

“You pour,” she said.

“I really shouldn’t. I’ve got to try to find a guy. Though I don’t know where the devil he’d be.”

“You can’t find him tonight, can you? At least, not this minute.”

“No, not this minute. In fact, probably not till tomorrow. If then. I’ve a hunch he knows by now I’m looking for him, so it’s eight to five he’ll be pretty well hidden.”

“Who do you want to find?”

“Dr. Mordecai Withers.”

“Are you sick?”

“Sick? I’m healthy as a bull — as a … a doctor.”

“I don’t know whether I’m sick or not. But I don’t think I’ll go to Withers any more. He’s no good. All he does is tell me to take off my clothes — “

“Don’t keep — “

“And then talks crazy.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard him. But that’s the big thing these days.”

“Maybe nothing’s wrong with me at all. I don’t know. It’s just that I’m so passionate.”

“Well, old Mordecai isn’t much good for any — You’re so what?”

“Passionate.”

“I thought that was — “

“I’m always, well, I mean I go around all the time thinking … I mean … Shell, pour just one martini, will you?”

“OK. Just one. Go on.”

Zoop, zop, I had both of them poured. We clinked glasses and she said, “Well, I’m very passionate. Sexy, you know.”

“I know. I mean, I had a hunch — “

“That’s why I went to Withers. But he wasn’t any help at all. Maybe I don’t need to be helped. Maybe it’s all right.”

“I don’t see anything wrong with it. In fact, if that’s sickness, I’ve probably had a touch of it myself. But that kind of sickness is … well, it’s healthy. That’s what I always say.”

“I think about it a lot. And I just love kissing.”

“You sound sane as hell to me.”

“I’m glad you think so, Shell. But I think I’m … oh, abnormal. Like when I saw you today. When I was standing there in the room with no clothes on.”

“Say it again.”

“No clothes on. And the way you were looking at me, I could feel that old feeling again. I don’t know how to describe it, but I just thought, I don’t know, kind of ooeeoo.”

There it was! I’d tracked the clue to its lair! I’d solved the case. “Ooeeoo” was — Woweewow!

“Baby,” I said.

“Ooeeoo!”

“Woweewow!”

“Shell, kiss me. Kiss me. Kiss me!”

Well, you don’t have to tell me four times.

I did it.

She must have thought about it a lot. All the time. She’d thought of some new inventions. Man, talk about intoxicating kisses! Those were hundred-proof lips doing that same old proving in a new improved way. It was like getting stung gently on the mouth by a hive of friendly bees. Oh, better than that. It was as if she had four lips — and it sure seemed the right number. Even so, you’d have thought she had help of some kind, like two or three other lively tomatoes spelling out “wowee-ooeewow” in labial braille.

Whatever she was doing, it sent a new kind of current through my sympathetic nervous system — which was sympathetic as hell, if you want the truth — a sort of A.C.D.C. mashed together by osculatory lightning. Well, with all those lips of hers going like crazy, and with me doing my best to hold up my end, in that cubic inch or so of frenzied puckering there was a whole roomful of oral orgy; it was a smacking macrocosm in microcosm which if carefully studied might have given scientists clues to new formulas for undiscovered forces — like gravity, or vodka, or space travel. My mind went into orbit; all became clear.

This shouldn’t be allowed to escape. Scientists should capture this and slow it down and examine it with microscopes, telescopes, gyroscopes, yanking their beards. I could hear a new Einstein saying, “Hey, boy, men, we’ve got it! We can use this thing to power lunar capsules. We’ll just put one of these things under the rocket, and — pow! Chop-chop to the moon! Puckering through space! All aboard, contact, light the kissers!”

Right in the middle of my scientific deductions something happened. My lips suddenly felt loose, they had been abandoned on the launching pad. My fellow scientist had gone away somewhere. There she was, three or four inches off in the distance.

“Shell?” she said.

“Polly!”

“What’s the matter? Why are you staring so?”

“I was just on the verge — “

“What?”

“Of a real breakthrough. I was defying gravity. I was discovering a whole new science. I was — Polly, let’s do that again.”

“Oh, let’s do something else.”

“Else? There’s something else?”

“Let’s play a game.”

“Game? Are you nuts?”

“Let’s play roly-poly.”

“Yeah, you’re nuts.”

“I’m serious, Shell. It’ll be fun. Let’s play roly-poly.”

“OK. You be roly, and I’ll be poly.”

“Oh, silly, it’s a game.”

“Who said anything different?”

“It’s a party game, a game you play at parties.”

“Who said anything — “

“You start with one couple, a man and a woman — “

“Now you’re talking. That’s my kind of couple.”

“And you do it with a beach ball — “

“You what?”

“A big beach ball. You and the girl face each other and put the ball between your tummies — “

“I don’t get this at all.”

“And then you hop across the room.”

“Oh, my God.”

“The object is to see which couple can go all the way the fastest. Across the room — without dropping the ball, of course.”

“Of course. That’d ruin everything.”

“And the couple that does it fastest wins.”

“Wins what?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing. Well, isn’t that something. Huh. You don’t win anything?”

“No, it’s just a game.”

“Like checkers?”

“Yes.”

“Hell, then why don’t we play checkers?”

“You want to try it?”

“No. No, I don’t. I’m damned if I will.”

“Somehow I didn’t think you would. I don’t know why I mentioned it.”

“Neither do I.”

“I guess I was just … nervous. You make me nervous, Shell.”

“Me? Why?”

“Well, you’re so big, and strong, and virile — “

“You noticed, huh?”

“And sort of wild. And kind of nice, too. And, well, exciting.”

“Exciting?”

“And there’s that crazy white hair, and those steely blue eyes — “

“Gray. They’re gray.”

“Gray? I thought they were blue. Maybe I’m color blind. I know when I was a little girl — “

“OK. Blue. Go on.”

“And you’re sort of rough-looking. But nice, too. And, well, exciting.”

“Exciting?”

“Uh-huh.”

Silence. I looked at her. She looked at me. This went on for a while.

“Hey,” I said. “I know a game.”

“Tell me. Oh, tell me.”

I told her. Hell, you don’t need beach balls.

By the time I’d driven back downtown, the extras were on the streets.

Big black headlines told the story. johnny troy dead.

</code>

<code> CHAPTER EIGHT

I read the story sitting in my car.

The subhead was: “Golden Voiced Singer Kills Self.”

Before reading on, I lit a cigarette and dragged on it, wondering what the hell. Killed himself? He had acted a little strangely. A kind of tension in his manner, a bit too much to drink, that broken glass, the rather odd way he’d spoken to me as I’d left. But he hadn’t struck me as a man on the verge of suicide.

It was goofy. Here I’d been investigating an apparently accidental death, wondering if it had been suicide — or murder — and now the dead man’s closest friend had, at least apparently, committed suicide.

I read the rest of the front-page story. Troy had been found in his suite by Ulysses Sebastian. He had phoned Troy — to find out how the interview with me had gone — but couldn’t reach him; knowing the singer should be in his apartment, and thus mildly worried, he’d gone to call on him. The door was locked and he couldn’t get an answer to his knock. The manager let him in. Troy was in his bedroom; on a table near him was a picture of him and Charley White together; and a bullet was in his heart.

His body was lying back on the bed, one leg dangling to the carpet. Another, superficial gunshot wound was high on his left side. The gun, a .32-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver — registered not in his name but in Charley White’s — was a few feet from him on the floor. The coroner said he’d been dead perhaps half an hour to an hour when found; call it less than an hour. There was no note.

That was it, except for odds and ends. Sebastian had made a statement, and was in a state of near shock. There were reports that Troy had been brooding ever since the death of his closest friend only two days ago. The story mentioned some of the people who’d been with Troy shortly before he’d killed himself — including me, of course.

Well, in any suicide — particularly in a case like this and considering what had happened to me today — you wonder about murder. There wasn’t any motive, as far as I could tell; on the contrary, everybody I could think of who was associated with Troy would have wanted that multimillion-dollar “property” very much alive. Perhaps even more important, it sure looked like suicide.

The “odd” details — the other, superficial wound, gun several feet from him — instead of making it look like murder, made me fairly certain he actually had killed himself. A man shot in the heart doesn’t necessarily die right away; some have been known to run for blocks before dying — and a few haven’t died at all. And either in pain or in convulsive reaction a man could throw a gun clear out of the room, a lot farther than half a dozen feet or so.

More, suicide naturally isn’t something you practice, and when a suicide stabs himself to death, for example, there are often at least one and sometimes several marks of “false tries,” cuts and slashes that aren’t fatal. They’ve got to work up to the fatal moment. No matter how distressed, how tortured a man may be, there’s always that something inside that tries to keep him alive. It looked as if Troy must have pulled the trigger but jerked the gun away at the last moment — the first time. The second time, he’d held it steady.

Another thing suicides often do, for some reason, is bare the spot where they shoot or stab themselves. The story didn’t mention that angle, but they could fill me in on that at the Police Building. So there’s where I was going.

I started the car, drove to the Hollywood Freeway and down it toward the Civic Center. And only then did it really sink in. Johnny Troy. The greatest, most popular singer in the country. Dead. He’d sing no more. Almost as tragic as the thought of that handsome, vital, powerful man lying dead was the thought that his magnificent voice was gone from the people, too.

I’d been very impressed by the guy: even more, I suppose, than I’d realized at the time. Well, it was done. I headed for the Police Building.

It was after midnight when I walked into room 314 again. Captain Samson was still there. He usually is when there’s a special case on the fire. And this one was really special. All hell was breaking loose. Phones ringing, newspaper reporters, TV men, photographers in the hall. I’d seen more down below in the lobby.

Lieutenant Rawlins was sitting behind a wooden table, writing something. He looked up and waved at me when I came in. “Hi, Shell. You looking for Sam?”

I nodded and he pointed to the closed door of Samson’s office. I knocked on it and went in. Sam was alone, talking on the phone, his teeth halfway through his black cigar.

He jerked his head toward a wooden chair and I straddled it while he finished his conversation. He looked a little tired, but that pink face of his was clean-shaven — it always is, somehow. That’s another thing about Sam. Sometimes I think he carries one of those little battery-operated electrics around in his pocket and sneaks it out when nobody’s looking. Zip-zip, back into the pocket.

He hung up the phone and glared at me, “Well?”

“I just read the story.”

“Yeah. Your name in it. Again. What the hell did you do to him?”

“What did I do? Nothing.”

“I’ve had three calls so far saying you badgered him, gave him a hard time. You’re not the most delicate bastard in town, you know. Can’t you take it — “

“Hold it, Sam. I didn’t give him any trouble. These calls. Tell me more.”

“Guests up at Troy’s place while you were there. They all left right after you — Troy said he wanted to be alone. But they claim — “

“Don’t tell me. Was one of these aggrieved citizens a squeak named Ronald Langor?”

“Matter of fact, one call was from him.”

“Why, that little — ” I said a bad word. A very bad one.

Sam leveled his sharp brown eyes at me and said slowly, “Maybe you don’t love the little man, Shell, but he’s a goddamned important writer.”

“Author. And if they used him for fertilizer, he’d kill a whole acre of flowers.”

“Whatever the hell he is, a lot of clucks listen to him. You got me?”

“I already knew that. It’s been making me sad for — “

“Don’t crack wise. He was one who called. The other two also said you were — one said insufferable, the other said brutal. Those were Gary Baron and a poet or something, name of Winston Warfield.”

“He’s a ninny.” But I did not any longer feel like cracking wise. Sam’s phone rang again and he swore, grabbed it, while I thought some more. And they were increasingly unpleasant thoughts.

This idea of complaints about my badgering Troy, being insufferable and brutal, did not delight me. That was a new one from the squeaks — private-eye brutality. I didn’t like it a bit, however. And the more I thought about it, the less I liked it. Some guys like Ronald Langor, they write a book and hey-presto they’re experts on everything from ancient Gaul to politics to — well, private-eye brutality. To a lesser degree the same was true of that weirdo Warfield. But people would pay serious attention to the mouthings of Baron. He was a real cutey. He was an honest-injun expert. His business was experting. He was good at it. He was a liar, yes; but he was good at it. And Gary Baron bent the ears of millions of citizens every damned night in the week except his night off, Monday. Hell, this week including Monday, because of the elections the next day. If he wanted to chew on me a little, he might eat me up.

For the moment I let myself imagine what might happen if some of that gang assembled earlier in Troy’s living room really wanted to do a job on me, with the pack led by Gary Baron. Nearly all of them, including Baron, were Sebastian people, Sebastian clients — and as I’ve hinted before, nothing except AP, UP, INS, and the White House had a better or more smoothly functioning publicity and press-agentry gang at beck and call than did Ulysses Sebastian of the Ulysses Sebastian Talent Agency, representing — Yeah. Representing several experts more powerful and even cuter than Gary Baron.

When the possibilities got just a little scary, I stopped thinking about it.

Sam banged the phone down and growled at me, “Well, what do you want? I may get busy later.”

“Anything funny about the Troy suicide?”

He shook his head. “No. Not to this moment, anyhow. Powder in the fingers of his right hand, contact wound — you know.”

“Shoot himself through his clothes?”

“No. Bared his chest. Missed with the first one … You read the story, I thought.”

“Yeah, but the bare-chest bit wasn’t in it. I guess that about does it. Incidentally, you said powder in his right hand. I know he was right-handed, but I was there when he cut his hand — “

“Oh, drop it, Shell. A guy’s going to kill himself, does he worry about a cut hand? Besides, he was drunk, loaded with enough booze to last two men a week.”

“Enough to pass out?”

“I guess if he’d kept drinking he might have — “

“I mean, Sam, might he have been passed out when he was shot?”

Sam’s big jaw wiggled and he burned the steady brown eyes into me. Then he said, “I guess it’s possible. But it didn’t happen that way. I told you to drop it. It’s bad enough as a suicide — and you’d just walked out of there after practically knocking him down and jumping on him. For the love of Mike, don’t make a murder out of it.”

I knew one of the things that was bothering Sam. He would deny it from here to the Fourth of July if anybody hinted at it. But I was sure the “brutality” bits he’d been getting about me upset him. He’d had some of that himself, but the real reason was simply that he was my friend, in the truest and best sense of that word. What hurt me hurt him. And, of course, vice versa. So he was growling at me even more than usual.

I stood up, but I had one more thing to say. Or, rather, ask. And I wasn’t sure how he’d take it. I said casually, “Sam, you remember when I was in here earlier, on the shoot-em-up party for me. We talked about Joe Rice.”

“Yeah, we talked about Joe Rice.”

“Has there ever been anything to tie either Charley White or Johnny Troy in with him — or anybody like him?” His face was clouding up and the big hunk of his jaw crept forward a little, so I went on rapidly. “Especially Rice, but any other Mafia boy, Syndicate, hoodlums, crooks. I was thinking — “

“All right. I’ll check. And there’ll be nothing. But I’ll do it so you can sleep. Now get out of here.” He pulled a big wooden kitchen match out of his pocket — damned if I know where he gets them — and lit his cigar. The meeting was adjourned.

But I stood my ground. “And would you do me a favor? Just a little favor — so I can sleep nights. Check the prints of both Charley White and Johnny Troy. If there’s nothing here, try Sacramento and the FBI files. OK?”

He didn’t explode. He blew smoke at me, though. Finally he said slowly, “Have you got anything to go on, Shell? I mean, anything I’d want?”

I shook my head. “Not anything solid. But it’s funny. White’s sister hires me to check his death — I told you about that. This Mordecai Withers tells me Charley thought his head was maybe going to fall off, and such. But this you don’t know.” I told him of Dr. Withers’ call to somebody, about me, and went on, “Right after that those hoods jumped me on Benedict Canyon. Laying for me — car there, man next to the car on the side from which I would come, third wiper out on the left. And I still think the mug who got away was Joe Rice’s little boy Tony. One more thing: I’m hired this morning, Troy kills himself tonight, the same day.” I shrugged. “Hell, I don’t know, Sam. But — well, you know me. I’ve got a feeling. An itch. It doesn’t smell right.”

He sighed. “Well,” he said half to himself, “could be. You’ve been right before.” He glanced at me. “A time or two. Well … OK, I’ll do it. But keep this under your hat. I don’t want you starting a riot. That’s all I need.”

“Thanks, Captain.” I went to the door, and just before going out I said, “Your disposition’s getting worse, Sam. Go home and get some sleep, will you?”

He grinned. “Sure. Next Wednesday.”

I went out, had a cup of coffee with Rawlins and jawed a few minutes, then headed for home.

Home is the Spartan Apartment Hotel, second floor, room 212. From a window in my living room I can look right across the street at the green grounds of the Wilshire Country Club. It’s almost like being a member. I can even see the people. But they can’t see me. Thank goodness. Besides the living room, there’s a kitchenette, bath, and bedroom.

In the living room is a yellow-gold carpet, wall to wall, on top of which sits the massive chocolate-brown sofa, my own leather chair, a couple of leather hassocks.

To the left of the front door are the fish. Big community tank sporting Panchax, swords, a couple of black mollies, some odds and ends including a couple of prize lyretail guppies and my pet, a cornflower-blue Betta splendens with the magnificent look an eagle would have if it were a fish. Next to the community tank is a ten-gallon aquarium just for guppies.

I got ready for bed, fed the fish and watched them for a few minutes, thinking, unwinding slowly. Then I turned and headed for the bedroom, waving good night to Amelia. She’s on the wall above the fake fireplace, a gorgeously voluptuous nude tomato, gaudy and bawdy and done in fleshy oils, who not only warms the whole room when the fireplace isn’t on but is a kind of contortionist. At least, she contorts around enough to smile at you over her superb fanny. Now, I don’t care what anybody else has told you, that’s art.

I joke a little. But only a little. As I climbed into bed I was thinking that Amelia looked even better to me tonight than usual, after what had happened to me today.

It had been a day, all right. Sebastian, Mordecai Withers, hoodlums and banging guns, Johnny Troy. His unfriendly friends. Artists and poets and sculptors and such. I don’t know. I couldn’t understand those people. We didn’t live in the same world. I couldn’t figure them, couldn’t figure what they got out of it. The world seemed, as a pretty fair old writer once said, out of joint. The old things were being thrown away just because they were old. The tried and true were laughed at, ridiculed.

It’s undoubtedly true, I was thinking, that there are men who see things not as other men, see with a higher vision, look — as they say — upon things as they really are. OK. I’ll believe it. But I can’t believe what they see is a black line and a red splotch; or an automobile axle and half of a toilet bowl.

So you can sing the praises of Picasso, applaud the Robert Daltons, get giddy over the Ronald Langors. Me, I’ll take Amelia.

</code>

<code> CHAPTER NINE

The phone ringing woke me up.

My two alarms hadn’t even gone off yet. Who in hell would be calling me this early — on Sunday morning?

I don’t usually wake up all sweetness and light. Sometimes it takes two cups of black coffee before I get sour and dark. So I wasn’t feeling comical to begin with when I answered the phone.

It was a reporter for the L.A. Herald-Standard. I liked the paper; its editorial pages carried columns from both the left and right, but the basic policy of the paper was somewhat on the conservative side — and it was supporting David Emerson for President. Even so, I wasn’t as charming as I could have been, because the reporter wanted to know about my visit to see Johnny Troy yesterday. I told him what had actually happened — and was sure I’d get fair treatment from that particular reporter, whom I knew to be honest and capable — but it didn’t start the day off right.

The four similar calls that followed that one later during the morning didn’t help, either. Actually, it wasn’t at all surprising. The suicide of Johnny Troy was, for the moment, even bigger nationwide news than the imminent elections. I was the only “outsider” who’d talked to Troy on Saturday, so whatever I might have said to him was legitimate news. Consequently my name was being mentioned coast-to-coast in full-coverage reports of his death. Mainly, though, they were devoted to prepared obits on the life of Johnny Troy, starting with his introduction to the public by Ulysses Sebastian. Not much seemed to be known about Troy’s life prior to that time.

I called Homicide downtown but Samson was temporarily out of the office. So I said I’d call back, and proceeded to prepare breakfast.

Breakfast. Some people are positive geniuses at, say, putting watches together, or cross-pollinating seed plants, or building nuclear reactors. I am a positive genius at not preparing breakfast. I think it has something to do with the way I don’t wake up. It shouldn’t really be very complicated. You just put the mush in water and let it flop around in the pan for a while. But, well, where some peope have mental or physical blocks I guess I have a mush block.

Damned if it didn’t happen again. I even stood there watching it while it went flop, flop, flop — when lo and behold, there wasn’t a flop left in it. The thing just lay there, looking at me kind of darkly. It was dead. I’d killed it. And who wants to eat dead oatmeal? It occurred to me that I’d somehow managed to eat a grand total of nothing all day yesterday, but I’m never hungry in the morning anyway. So I put the pan in the sink and squirted water in it — pssheee, breakfast was over.

Then I called Samson again. And got him.

After the hellos, I said, “What about that little favor I asked you for? Anything in the files?”

“Not locally, Shell. But we got the FBI kickback.”

“Anything?”

“Charley White checked out clean. But this Francis Boyle spent the first six months of sixty-one, February through July, on a 487, auto, in the county can up in San Francisco.”

Section 487 of the California Penal Code covers grand theft, and Sam’s reference to “auto” meant somebody had stolen a car. I said, “You talking in code? Who’s Francis Boyle?”

“Johnny Troy. That’s his real name.”

It jolted me for a moment — but only a moment. In Hollywood, you’re nobody if you use your real name. Everybody knows about Mamie Amour, who just couldn’t make it till she changed her name to Mamie Glotz. That’s not so bad, but some of the gals not only use false names, but false hair, eyelashes, teeth, bosoms, and bottoms, and they’re working on a couple other things. The day may come when we men will have more fun in a hardware store.

I said, “Six months, huh? Well, I can understand why he — and his associates, like Sebastian — wouldn’t want that noised around. For that matter, ‘Francis Boyle Sings’ doesn’t have that old zingo.” A thought struck me. “Anything else? I mean, he hasn’t shot any old ladies, or — “

“No, the one jolt straightened him out, looks like. No sense releasing this to the press. He’s dead now — and he’s been clean since then.”

Like Jack Jackson’s boy, I was thinking. Sometimes one good smack does the job. It’s when a kid steals a heap or robs an apartment, then gets slapped on the wrist, does it again and gets slapped on the wrist again, that often after four or five painless slaps he winds up robbing a bank or killing somebody.

“Well, many thanks, Sam,” I said. “Anything else? Or anything new?”

There wasn’t. No results from the local and APB out on Tony Anguish; Booby hadn’t even said boo; and Sam, fortunately, hadn’t received any further complaints about Shell Scott’s horrible treatment of the late Johnny Troy.

I hung up, cleaned up, fed the fish, and got ready to go, had a last cup of coffee in the kitchenette and looked my last on the mush. It’s surprising that so many of my days turn out so well when so many start out so darkly.

Sylvia White smiled sweetly at me and said, “Oh, I’m all right now. It’s been an awful strain, but I — well, I won’t cry at you anymore.”

I’d phoned, filled her in on most of what had happened yesterday, and told her I’d drop by her hotel, the Haller, on Wilshire Boulevard. We’d been sitting here in her room for ten minutes, talking about her brother, the case, Johnny Troy’s death. She seemed to be less tense than she’d been yesterday morning, maybe because we weren’t meeting for the first time.

“It’s so strange, isn’t it?” she went on. “Charley … and now Johnny.”

“Did you know Troy?”

“I only met him once. About a month ago, when I went to the Royalcrest to see Charley. He was such a handsome man, he gave me goose bumps.”

She was about the size of a goose bump, I thought. I couldn’t get over how fragile and tiny she looked. She was four feet, eleven inches tall, she’d told me. But she was a perfectly beautiful little — well, doll was the word I’d first thought of when we’d met. As we talked, those violet-blue eyes sparkled, and her delicate voice went ting-ting in my ear. She was wearing her black hair on top of her head, in a bun, or muffin, or cupcake, or whatever gals call those things. It made her a whole two inches taller.

I said, “Can you think of anything else Charley said about Mordecai Withers?”

“Only what I told you, Shell. That was last Sunday when I was up at his place again. A week ago. The last time I saw him alive.” She paused. “I told you he’d been awfully tense and nervous for a month or so, but that day he seemed more relaxed. I mentioned it and he laughed and said maybe the doctor — ‘Old Mordecai,’ he said — had helped him. That’s when he mentioned going to see him, but he didn’t tell me any more about it.”

I figured Old Mordecai must have helped laughing Charley a lot. Like helping a guy with a cavity to get false gums. Sylvia was going on, “He was in an odd mood that Sunday. And he kept playing that same record over and over. I can still hear it.”

“Record? What record?”

“The first one Johnny made, before anyone ever heard of him. That ‘Annabel Lee’ thing.”

It was just casual, pleasant conversation, and sunlight warmed the room, but it was as if the sun had slipped behind a cloud. I could feel my spine prickling. “Annabel Lee.” “…we loved with a love that was more than love…” The same record Johnny Troy had been playing yesterday afternoon, over and over.

“Charley kept playing it?”

“Uh-huh. It was his favorite record of Johnny’s, he said. Even though it was old, scratchy, and not as good as the new ones, of course. Charley thought Johnny had a better sound then, more natural and real, without all the electronic things they’ve got now to make your voice sound better.”

I knew what Charley must have meant; a singer would be especially aware of it, I supposed, and he’d been a singer. I’d thought before that with all the “electronic things” in use today, the sound is technically better than the unaided voice, but not so natural, not real. But “everybody’s doing it, and if you can’t lick ‘em, join ‘em,” seemed to be the philosophy of the day. So even the rich, natural beauty of Johnny Troy’s voice had to be electronically improved, taped and spliced and retaped until it was as near unhuman perfection as possible.

But the big thought in my mind was that, finally, I was becoming convinced Johnny Troy really had killed himself. Suppose Charley had jumped off that balcony. After playing “Annabel Lee” over and over. His favorite among all Johnny’s records. And then Troy himself, brooding about it for two days, played “Annabel Lee” over and over again, thinking about Charley, their years together … Then a bullet into his heart. It could be.

For a moment I had a creepy thought about an old record, “Gloomy Sunday,” which was finally banned, allegedly because so many people had killed themselves after listening to it. It had certainly been a weird, morbid thing about deciding to “end it all” and other such elevating suggestions.

“I’d like to hear that record,” I said. “What happened to it after Charley…”

“I packed all his things and have them stored temporarily. That’s what I’ve been doing. His records are in … one of the boxes. I remember packing that one in with some other forty-fives, and several albums. Do you want me to get it?”

“Well, I’d like to hear it, but I know where another copy is. I’ve things to do, Sylvia, so I’ll give you a ring later.”

She went with me to the door and as I walked down the hall she said, “Bye, Shell.” Ting-ting.

I waved to her. “See you later, Sylvia.”

A call from me to Captain Samson, then another one from Samson to the Royalcrest, cleared me to look around Johnny Troy’s suite. In his living room I went to the record changer on which the 45-rpm “Annabel Lee” had been yesterday afternoon. It wasn’t there now. Well, it had to be around somewhere.

Only it wasn’t.

I spent a lot of time looking, talking to police, hotel people, hunting around the suite. No “Annabel Lee.” The police officer who had come to the suite in response to the call told me there had been no record on the changer when they arrived. It was, I thought, peculiar.

And disturbing … Suppose it had still been on the changer, even if not actually being played, when Troy had died. Given that assumption, the next one naturally was that somebody must have removed it from the suite after his death and before the arrival of the police. Which meant somebody might have been in the suite at very nearly the time — maybe exactly the time — of Troy’s death.

I called Sylvia White again, told her I’d changed my mind and would appreciate it if she’d find Charley’s copy of that record. She said it would take a little time, but she’d get it for me, and I said I’d check with her later.

Then I headed for the Diplomat Hotel. Joe Rice was usually at the Diplomat on Sundays.

</code>

<code> CHAPTER TEN

Rice owned a two-hundred-thousand-dollar estate in Beverly Hills, but he also rented a poolside cabana at the Diplomat Hotel for use every weekend. The hotel and his church were within four blocks of each other on Wilshire Boulevard, so after going to church with his wife on Sundays, and dropping a C-note with just a little ostentation — he didn’t quite wave it over his head in the air while a band played — into the collection box, he hied himself to his cabana, and cavorted like a hairless walrus in the pool. Immediately upon leaving church, he sent his wife home, thus leaving himself free to cavort.

The two-hundred G’s for his estate, and the C-notes which he gave in abundance to the “poor and needy,” were part of his profits from extortion, gambling, Red-Chinese narcotics, murder, and assorted other felonies. He had once been convicted of a misdemeanor, but had never done a day of big time.

I found him by the pool.

He was sprawled in a metal-and-canvas chair under a beach umbrella. A blond gal was on the grass at his feet, playing with some loose skin on his leg. He looked like a sad, sour, sick Buddha of the Fleshpots, a fat, gross, evil man with a look that would have stamped him as evil if he’d been singing “Oh, Promise Me” in a church choir.

But the blonde … Maybe she was evil, too, but her sins — and there must have been some, since she was with Rice — didn’t show, and if she’d been backsliding it sure hadn’t hurt her slider. Of course, all I could see was the back of her head and about 97 per cent of her epidermis. What, I thought, is the luxurious, high-class, hoity-toity Diplomat coming to? I liked the Diplomat. I just didn’t like Joe Rice.

He didn’t like me, either. When he saw me walking toward him his usually sour and somewhat blubbery chops assumed an expression like the fifth face down on a totem pole. He seemed to be straining to have a bowel movement. He stared at me, shooting me down like a dog with his eyes.

I stopped by the beach umbrella, pulled up a chair, and sat. Usually I’m more polite, and wait to be asked. Not with guys who try to kill me, though. And not with such as the Mafia s.o.b.‘s, which he was.

“Hello, Joe,” I said. “Mind if I join you?”

“Yeah.”

“But I wanted to ask you about some guys.”

“So ask. You’re here.” His eyes were dark, hooded, muddy, and shot with broken veins; they were about the shade and consistency of burning fuel oil. “What guys?” he went on.

“Snag and Booby,” I said casually. “And — “

“Never heard of’m.”

“Tony Anguish — “

“Never heard of’m.”

“How about Francis Boyle?”

“Never heard of’m.” He sat up straighter, skin of his loose breasts and pot belly jiggling, and kicked the blonde on her hind end. “Go play with your money, baby.”

“Honey, I don’t have any money.”

“You’re a goddamn liar. I gave you a buck. Go — ” He stopped, thought for a while, looking at the place where he’d kicked her, then reached for a checkbook and pen on the table. Hiding the vital details from me, he scribbled on a check, tore it out, and handed it to the blonde. “Go play with that,” he said.

She looked at it and her eyes widened. “But, honey — “

“You want it in cash? Or you want a kick in the head? Go buy yourself some mink pants. Beat it.”

She stood up obediently.

I said to Rice, “How about Charley White?”

“Never heard of’m.”

“Joe Rice? Benjamin Franklin, John D. Rockefeller?”

“Never heard — Ah, shut up.”

The blonde was moving away, with a moving-away movement to cause heart stoppages and secret ruptures. She went straight from us over to another table under a a beach umbrella, where sat a man looking very sweaty in a black suit. He was a big man with a wiry black mustache and a bald spot that covered his entire head.

I said, “She’s left you already for another dandy. How much did you give her?”

“A buck. Same as always.”

“Joe, your charm equals your beauty. And is exceeded only by your generosity.”

He mulled that over, almost smiled, mulled some more. Don’t ever swallow this guff about criminal masterminds — not hoodlum or Mafia masterminds, anyway. Maybe there’s one in about ten thousand, but the rest feel a sense of accomplishment when they tie their shoelaces unaided. They’ll sit there looking at their feet and say, “How about that?”

Maybe I exaggerate a bit, but not much. It takes no brains to pull a trigger, swing a sap, or muscle scared citizens around. And, oddly, right there in my weighty thoughts, I took a better look at the sweaty bald guy in the black suit, and recognized him.

His name was Bill Bonchak, he was called Billy Bounce, and he probably wore the coat to cover up a couple of guns and a bloody knife; he wasn’t neat or tidy. Billy Bounce had fallen from L.A. for assault with a deadly weapon, plus one charge of extortion, and two of rape, and had done big time on the ADW charge. The others were dismissed for lack of evidence. After all, it was his word against theirs. He worked for Joe Rice.

“One more name,” I said.

“Yeah.”

“Billy Bounce.”

He turned his head and looked at Billy Bounce. “Never heard of’m.” Then he stopped and did some more mulling. “Yeah, I heard of’m. You mean Mr. Bonchak. He lives here at the hotel.”

“At your beck and call.”

“Beck?”

“Like a signal, a — I mean, he works for you.”

“The hell. He don’t. Nobody don’t.”

“I believe you.”

“Scott. I’m gonna surprise you. Instead of having you drowned in the pool, I’m gonna tell you anything you ask. I got nothing to hide and all I want is you to get through here and blow. OK?”

“OK.” I didn’t believe him, but it wouldn’t hurt to try. And, surprisingly, he was actually much more cooperative from then on than I had any reason to expect. I’d thought I might have a chance to shake something out of him — or at least shake him up — which was why I’d come here, but he really did tell me a little.

We went through some more of the “Never heard of’m” routine, but then I said, “Thanks for the cooperation. I know damned well Tony Anguish works for you.”

“Well, he did. But he don’t.”

I blinked. “You admit he did work for you?”

“He did. But he don’t.”

“Since when?”

“Since a couple months. He, uh, used to run errands for me.”

Yeah. Go kill this guy, go kill that guy, go buy some poison. I said, “Well, I’m glad to know he wasn’t working for you when he and Snag and Booby tried to kill me.”

“Tried to kill you, huh? Too bad they didn’t.” It wasn’t said with anger. Just with sincerity.

“I don’t suppose you know,” I told him, “but Snag’s dead. Tony got away, but Booby’s in jail singing his head off.”

“He won’t open his goddamn…” Rice let it trail off a bit late. Oddly, though, he didn’t reach under the table and get a sawed-off shotgun and start blasting at me. He just smiled and said flatly, “I was thinkin’ about someone else.”

“Yeah. Speaking of checks…” I glanced over toward Bonchak’s table. He was gone, but the blonde was still there, drinking something pink from a tall glass. “I hear you contributed a fat one to Horatio Humble’s campaign. Not directly, of course, but through Sebastian. You do know Sebastian, don’t you?” Hell, he’d hired the Shrine Auditorium for a testimonial dinner for Sebastian two years ago. It had been in the newspapers, even.

So it didn’t surprise me when he said, “Sure, I know Ulysses. Fine fellow.”

“Come on, Joe. How much was that campaign contribution? A buck?”

He thought about that awhile, glanced over at the blonde, let the oily eyes rest on me. Then he did surprise me. He surprised hell out of me by admitting it. “A couple hundred G’s,” he said. “What about it?”

I was so flabbergasted I couldn’t tell him what about it. I hadn’t expected him actually to admit anything; I’d simply wanted to hit him with everything I knew or suspected about him, and hope I might pick up a hint or two from his expression, or reaction, or telepathy or something.

I was quiet so long Rice said, “What’s wrong with contributing to the party of your choice? Don’t everybody do it?”

“No, unfortunately. But what’s in it for you?”

Not that I didn’t think maybe I had an idea. It was a sort of secret open secret in Washington that, after the State Department had managed to kick out all the old-time security officers, there had been some possibly unusual deals relative to the issuance of passports and visas to people who maybe shouldn’t have got them — like known Communist Party members, and big-name hoods — and, so the reports went, the blocking of deportation orders for undesirable characters, like Mafia bosses. There’s big money in the visa-and-deportation gimmick, and while it may be an ugly fact of life, facts don’t go away simply because they’re ugly.

“I’m just being patriotic,” Rice said.

“Yeah?” That made me think of something else. There wasn’t much chance Rice would tell me anything about it, even if he knew, but I hadn’t expected that first plum. Maybe he felt gabby today.

The Communist Party always works for one of the two candidates in a Presidential election — the one who trusts them most, I guess — and it was no secret that the CP was supporting Humble. That is, with the usual propaganda-and-words approach, editorials in the Worker and such. But I’d picked up off the wire a rumor that a Commie named Midas Kapper, sort of an errand boy and bagman for a member of the Party’s ruling executive board, had carried to Humble either a large check or cash — not directly to Humble, of course, but loot that was supposed to have become mingled with his campaign funds. It was only a rumor, however, and there are always rumors.

“Just being patriotic, huh?” I said. “I hear the CP dished out half a million for Humble’s campaign. Were they being patriotic, too?”

“What’s the CP?”

I grinned. “The CPUSA, the Communist Party, U.S.A. Now I’ll bet you remember.”

“Oh, them. Well, they’re a political party, too.”

“Sure. Like the Mafia.”

I kept grinning, but for the first time his face got really hard. You wouldn’t think a face so fat and blubbery could get so hard. Those fuel-oil eyes burned a little brighter.

Then he said, “There ain’t no such thing as the Mafia. It’s a myth. That’s all been proved a bunch of newspaper baloney.” He didn’t say baloney; he never said baloney.

“OK, the hell with that. You getting any more H from Red China?”

Well, that time I think if he’d had the shotgun handy he would have been at least tempted to use it. It’s a strangely frightening thing to see a man like Rice really angry — and he was really angry. There’s plenty of evil in a man like that to begin with, and evil is a force; with his anger pushing it from him, I could almost feel the slimy blow on my flesh. I know I felt it somewhere. In that moment I knew Joe Rice was capable of anything, absolutely anything; that there was no crime so base or obscene that he would hesitate for a moment to commit it if he had the opportunity, and if the opportunity meant gain for him — or the satisfaction of a strong emotion, like revenge or hate. I knew he was going to kill me if he could.

Of course, I was pretty well convinced he’d already tried. But it would be different now; he’d try harder.

And that’s why I couldn’t understand what happened next. He fought the anger down.

It was almost like hearing a preacher start singing obscenities from the pulpit, in reverse. It just wasn’t done. Not by Joe Rice. But he fought the anger down.

Then he said, “Scott, you take a lot of chances.” He looked past me, shaking his head. “A lot of chances.” He shook his head some more, swallowed visibly, then said in a voice that was almost controlled, “You know I never got touched on that. I was clean all the way.”

“Some of your boys went to Q.”

“Some boys went to Q. Not my boys.”

“OK, forget it. We both know you’re a friend of Sebastian’s — well, an acquaintance, at least. So please don’t sit there and tell me you never heard of Johnny Troy or Charley White.”

“Ah, hell, sure I’ve heard of ‘em. Who hasn’t? I just don’t know the bums.”

“How about Francis Boyle?”

He shook his head. “Who’s Francis Boyle?”

I was watching him, his eyes and mouth, his hand on the arm of his chair. Nothing. “Just a guy,” I said. “A dead guy.” I paused. “I was getting a sort of half-cocked idea you were maybe, just maybe, blackmailing Johnny Troy. Or even Charley White.”

“You sure take a lot of chances.” He blew air through his fat lips. “I wasn’t, and don’t, blackmail nobody. Now, what else do you want to know?”

We sat there for a few more minutes, but he didn’t let anything else drop. Then he said suddenly, “That’s it, Scott. You can’t say I haven’t been cooperative.”

It was true enough. What puzzled hell out of me was why. I didn’t know for sure what this conversation had told me; but I knew it had told me something. I just didn’t have sense enough to figure out what it was.

Rice heaved himself to his feet and waddled toward his cabana. I sat there for a few seconds, checked the time. It was twenty minutes till 4 p.m. I got up and left. On my way I passed the blonde, alone at her table and sucking the last of her pink concoction through a straw.

I said pleasantly, “What are you going to buy with all your money?”

She looked up. It was a hard face. “Mink pants,” she said.

</code>

<code> CHAPTER ELEVEN

I drove straight back to the Spartan and went up to my apartment and took a shower. I wanted to wash Joe Rice off of me. Then with a towel around my waist I went back into the living room, plopped on the chocolate-brown divan, and used the phone.

I called Sylvia White and she came on with a tinkle.

“Hi,” I said. “Shell Scott. You find that record?”

“Yes, I did, Shell. Do you want it now?”

“I’d like to check it later. What’s the full name and so forth?”

“Just a minute.” She left the phone, then came back. “It’s a forty-five, ‘Annabel Lee.’ Vocal by Johnny Troy, with … with the Eric Manning Quintet.”

“Eric Manning Quintet, huh? Never heard of them.”

“Neither have I. The other side is the same, only it’s something called ‘Comin’ Home.’ With an apostrophe instead of the g.”

“‘Comin’ Home’ and ‘Annabel Lee.’ Charley was just playing ‘Annabel Lee, huh? Not the flip side?”

“That’s right.”

“What’s the label? The company?”

“Oh, yes. Imperian.”

“It’s probably nothing, Sylvia, but I’d still like to check the thing. I’m just cleaning up a bit. What say I come and pick it up when I leave here?”

“I could bring it over if you’d like. I’m — there’s not much to do.”

There probably was nothing to do, except just sit there, Charley’s funeral was tomorrow. I said, “How about this? Get ready and bring the record over, and let me take you out to dinner. OK?”

“Oh, fun. I’d like that. I’m starved.”

Just the word attacked my stomach like a piranha trying to get out. I hadn’t had breakfast, naturally, and I hadn’t stopped for chow since then. So this would be my lunch — not to mention making up for the three meals I cleverly hadn’t eaten yesterday. “That’s good,” I said. “Because I have been involuntarily fasting, and you’re going to see a display of voraciousness which will go down in your memory as a low point in the history of delicate dining. We’ll start out with charcoaled steaks for hors d’oeuvres, then a dozen lobsters on the half shell — “

“Oh, dear, I don’t eat much at all — “

“Tonight, you eat like crazy. As soon as possible. Oh, mmyumm-mmyumm, I can’t wait. Hurry, hurry!”

“But I have to shower and dress…. An hour?”

“OK. But hurry, hurry!”

“Five o’clock,” she laughed.

“Five o’clock is fine, Sylvia. I can last. I think.”

We hung up. I was smiling. She was a sweetie. Not exactly my type. But maybe she was still growing.

After I’d showered and dressed, it was only four-thirty. I peeked into the refrigerator and went mmyumm-mmyumm, but restrained my healthy animal impulses. Sylvia would soon be here. I would be strong. Boy, I was weak! But I slammed the refrigerator door and danced around the kitchenette a bit, then went into the living room. How could I have let myself get into such a famished state? Probably I’d lost pounds already. My pants wouldn’t stay up. My shorts would fall off. I’d faint. Especially if my shorts fell off.

I sat on the couch and used the phone. Eric Manning Quintet, huh? OK, I’d use the time working, tracing that record down. It was strange that I’d never heard of it, I thought. Two local calls were blanks, then I got the owner of a record-distributing company on Cahuenga.

He told me that Imperian Records was a small Chicago company, about twenty years old and still in business. He checked back into his records and found that he’d received 150 copies of the “Annabel Lee-Comin’ Home” disk several years ago, had sold sixty and shipped the rest back.

I called Chicago. It took a few minutes but I got to one of the executives, named Gordon — luckily, because the company was closed for the day at this hour back there. I explained what I wanted and he left the phone. While waiting for him to return, I looked around the room, peered at the fish, glanced at Amelia, then lit a cigarette. I started to take a puff, and stopped. Something was … wrong. I didn’t know what; just that something had started bothering me. I couldn’t pin it down. Maybe I’d heard something? I listened. Nothing; just the traffic moving on North Rossmore in front of the Spartan.

It kept digging at my mind, though, as Gordon came back and said, “Yes, here is the information, Mr. Scott. ‘Annabel Lee-Comin’ Home,’ Johnny Troy vocal, Eric Manning Quintet. We pressed ten thousand in March, nineteen sixty-one, and shipped three hundred and fifty to California. About half of them were returned. Here’s an odd thing. We sold the entire remainder, nearly six thousand, to one company six years ago. In … let’s see…”

While he talked I’d glanced around the room, beamed at Amelia. She was a little askew. Of course, she’s always sort of askew, but she seemed a bit more askewed than usual. Gordon was going on, “October of nineteen sixty-two, that was. The entire stock, to Trojan Enterprises.”

“To what?”

“Trojan Enterprises.”

That was the Johnny Troy-Charley White-Ulysses Sebastian company. Well, it made sense that they’d buy up the old records if Sebastian was preparing to put the well-known Sebastian polish on Troy, then introduce him with a bang and flourish. Which he certainly had, with “The Magic of Love.” I guess I’d have done the same thing, particularly if the record wasn’t top-quality — and Imperian Records didn’t exactly strike me as the Alpha and Omega of the recording industry.

Amelia kept bugging me.

It started to come through then.

Gordon had told me all he knew, so we hung up.

Bugging me. I walked to Amelia, reached for the frame — and stopped. Swore mentally. Went back slowly over the carpet. Whistled a little, stamped into the bedroom. I took off my shoes, got a flashlight, and walked back to Amelia. By pressing my face against the wall and moving the flashlight’s beam around, I found it. Small, a half-inch cube. A compact wireless microphone-transmitter.

No wonder Amelia had been bugging me; she’d been bugged.

I went back into the bedroom, put on my shoes again. No sense looking for other mikes. Probably there was only the one. Besides, it would have a range from here of no more than a few blocks. Unless the signal was being picked up, amplified and retransmitted, whoever was eavesdropping on me was probably only a block or so away. And, if I had a little luck, he was in for a very rude surprise.

I moved around, thinking, ran water in the kitchen sink, hummed a little to keep making just enough noise. He wouldn’t be directly across Rossmore — that was the grounds of the Wilshire Country Club there, out in the open. And I knew most of the hotel people nearby. The nearest apartment hotel on my right was full up, I knew. But there were a couple of small places.

I checked my gun, started out, then remembered Sylvia. It was five minutes until five. I scribbled a hasty note telling her to go on in and wait, stuck it to the door with a piece of Scotch tape, and left the door unlocked as I went out.

A kind of pleasant excitement was starting to build up in me. That bug had been put in my apartment at least within the past week. I go over the whole place periodically. And I would have given odds it had been put there in the last day or two. In other words, since I’d started investigating the “accident” of Charley White’s death.

I stopped at the Spartan’s desk and said to Jimmy, “Anybody move in the last couple of days? A man alone, maybe a couple of guys?”

He shook his head. “Nobody for a month. We’re filled up. Why?”

“Just looking for a guy,” I said.

I went out. In twenty minutes or so I hit pay dirt. It was a small hotel less than a block from the Spartan. Unfortunately it took just a bit longer there than it should have. The guy on the desk was about as bright as Booby. He was tall and thin, with a skinny head and an obviously squashed brain. He was a good nineteen years old, and not obsessed by life’s urgency.

The third time I asked the questions, he said, “Duh … only guy I checked in was only a hour or so ago, maybe. Man and his wife. A married couple.”

“What time was it?”

He checked a card. “Duh … four o’clock. Maybe just a few minutes before.”

“How do you know they were married?”

“They said they was. I didn’t ask ‘em to prove it. Yahh.” That was him, laughing at his little joke. That’s about as little as they get.

“What did the guy look like?”

It took him a while, but I couldn’t miss. Big, bald spot all over his head, wiry black mustache, black suit. Bill Bonchak. Bill Bounce.

The sweaty guy I’d seen at the Diplomat. I guessed Rice had sent him, somehow. Seemed like half the time when I talked to somebody — at least, Dr. Withers, and now Joe Rice — it drove them wild and they sent somebody to shoot me or bug me or otherwise vastly annoy me.

The kid behind the desk was saying, “…and the girl was…” Then he started whistling, rolling his eyes around, and in general acting as if he was having a fit. Maybe he was. But, no, he was describing the girl.

“She’s a mess, huh?” I said.

“No, man, she’s real snorky, whoopee, boy!” He rolled his eyes like that again. Snorky, I guessed, was whoopee. Whoopee was good, apparently. What did I care? I was here to massacre Billy Bounce.

“What room are they in?”

“Lemmeesee,” he said. He found a card and studied it. “Three?” he said hopefully. “I can’t read it.”

“You can’t read numbers?”

“Can’t read my writin’. It looks like a three. Five?”

I grabbed the card and looked at it. “Hell, that’s a three,” I said. “Any damn fool could see that.”

“If you say so.” He took the card back. “Yeah, I think you’re right. Sure. They went into three.” He pointed. “Left there, and down near the end of the hall. Five’s the last one, then three this side of it, on the same side of the hall.”

I charged to the turn, turned, charged down the hall. There it was. Three. Boy, I was excited. Or awfully hungry. Or maybe I’d caught something from that idiot out there.

Think clearly, I told myself. Forget your goddamn stomach. Inside would be tough Bill Bonchak, and with him — yeah. That’s what I’d been trying to think of. With him a wow-whoopee gal. Who else? Rice’s tomato, wearing mink pants.

OK, I told myself, he’s in there. Listening. To nothing. Somehow, that pleased me. But he’d be alert, on guard — and all over guns. Loaded with guns. Loaded guns. Couldn’t give him warning. One knock and rat-a-tat-tat, he’d blaze away. I’d have to kick the door in.

I got into position, lifted my leg — and wham. It felt like it broke my heel. Boy, talk about hurt. And the door didn’t go in, either, It’s those damned TV detectives; they’ve ruined it for us real ones. I kicked the door again — that first clunk must have given Bill a little warning that something was wrong — and at last the door went sprack, with almost exactly the sound of a fractured ankle, and flew open, crashing around against the wall.

I limped inside, gun ready in my right hand.

No man in sight. But a girl was coming toward the door. In a hurry. A blonde, wearing nothing but tight white capris and high-heeled shoes, a mink coat in her hand. No blouse, no bra, nothing, just — She was real snorky, whoopee, boy! She came to a sudden stop.

I forced myself to concentrate. “Where’s Bill Bouncy?” I snarled.

“Who?”

“Bill Bouncy — arrgh. Bounce. Hell, you know.”

“Who?”

The hell with her. I charged through the room. It was easy, since there was only one room. That is, except for the john. I peeked in there. Just a quick peek. Even a hood like Bonchak — that was it, Bonchak — is entitled to some privacy. But he wasn’t there, either.

I stalked back to the girl. She had wide-set gray eyes, orange lipstick slightly smeared on a sensuous mouth, a dandy figure — but she wasn’t the gal I’d expected to see.

“You get out of my room,” she said.

“Look, you checked in here an hour or so ago with Bill Bonchak, right?”

By now she was holding the mink stole over her bare breasts. “You must be out of your cotton-picking mind,” she said.

Oh, boy, I thought. I got it: Five.

But could there be two gals like this one? Sure. I’ve seen dozens of them.

That goddamn idiot on the desk. Three, huh? I’d kicked the wrong door in.

“Um,” I said, “excuse me.”

Then I charged out of the room, down to five.

Now we’re cooking, I thought. Of course, he’d be alerted for sure this time. I’d have to go in like a pro. Fast. Low. Rolling. OK. Wham, it went in that time. So did I. Fast, low, rolling. I came up onto my sore feet, gun ready.

I had them covered. An old geezer and an elderly lady wearing a knitted shawl, and a look of pure astonishment.

The geezer was saying, “Wha … Wha … Wha…” But I couldn’t take my eyes off the old gal. She opened her mouth wide and her upper plate fell down on the lower one with a delicate chop, and her expression right then gave me a dizzying sensation of unreality. It was a horrifyingly ghastly smile in the midst of crumbling chaos, like Tragedy laughing. Believe me, when the world comes to an end it will start from a spot like that. From such a spot earthquakes, floods, typhoons could commence.

“Oh-h, argh,” I said. “Don’t do that.”

The old geezer was standing stock still, saying “Wha…” Then he flapped his arms like a rooster. “Wha…”

“I’ll bet,” I said, “I’m in the wrong room.” It hit me in a flash. Tricked! I spun around and raced to the next room. Empty. Now I knew what had happened. I’d been tricked. They had flown the coop.

In a flash I was back in the other room. I was getting pooped. The old geezer was still standing stock still where I’d left him. I didn’t look at the lady.

But the geezer looked at me. He raised a finger and pointed it at me. He started toward me, combining a dodder with a totter, but getting closer. A queer-expression grew on his face. He head started waggling, and his lips flapped out sideways, and he began clicking his gums together. Not exactly clicking, but knocking them together with a sort of gumming sound.

I said, “I’d like to apologize for kicking your door in. It was a mistake.”

He took a deep breath that must nearly have filled his lungs. “I figgered it was,” he said in a high, quavering voice. “I figgered.”

“I’ll pay for the door. I’m really sorry.”

“I heard the commotion. Was comin’ toward the door. If’n you’d waited just a leetle longer, I’d of made it. Halfway there, when bang, she come flyin’ innards. Like to of scared the life outa me — what there is of it.”

I left him there. I turned and started running, heart pounding, fear tight in my throat.

It happened in a split second. The whole chain of thought formed and jumped into my mind at once. No telling how long Bonchak had been gone from room three when I finally got there. It had taken me nearly twenty-five minutes just to reach that door, even though things had happened fast since I’d gone into Bonchak’s room to see the blonde — partly that was what had thrown me. I’d been expecting to see Rice’s hard-looking tomato.

As I ran past the desk, the kid there yelled, “Hey, that blonde just ran outa here. She used my phone — “

I didn’t hear the rest. But I knew what it meant. She’d been calling Bonchak — somewhere — to tell him Shell Scott was tipped, running around with a gun. Putting Bonchak on guard. And where would she have called him?

I ran into the Spartan, took the steps three at a time, then moved quietly down the hall to the door of my apartment. It was ajar. I thumbed back the Colt’s hammer. If Bonchak was in there, he’d be waiting for me.

I shoved the door open and stepped in, low, both arms forward, right hand gripping the .38, left touching its butt, ready to grab the gun if my right hand or arm got hit.

The door swung slowly around and flattened against the wall.

Bonchak wasn’t here. But little Sylvia was. All over blood.

</code>

<code> CHAPTER TWELVE

My legs got weak. I felt as if they’d turned to water.

I jumped to Sylvia, kneeled by her.

She was alive. Her tiny mouth was puffed and bloody. Her lower lip hung down and I could see a broken tooth. There was a long welt on the left side of her face, and her neck was bent at a frightening angle.

Her eyes moved, blinked. Then her lips moved.

“Shell…”

“Ah, Sylvia, honey. Don’t talk. Don’t try — “

Her hand found mine, gripped one of my fingers. “He — “

“Shhh. I’ll get an ambulance.”

“No. No…” Her hand tightened on my finger. The grip was weak, but I couldn’t quite break away.

“Have to tell you. A man — “

“I know. Bald, black mustache.”

“Yes. Came in. With a gun, hit me. He looked for you. Then…” Her eyes closed. I thought she’d died. There was a funny sound in my throat.

Her eyes opened again and she said, “Took the record. I don’t know why. He took it. Then he waited. For you. I know … know he was going to kill you.”

“It’s all right, honey. Be quiet. Be still.”

“Shell, he … then…” She stopped, finished it. “He raped me.”

I stood at the phone. Only seconds had passed. It seemed like an hour.

Finally the officer answered in the Hollywood Division. I said, “Emergency. Get an ambulance — and the police — out here. Spartan Apartment Hotel. For God’s sake, hurry.”

“Spartan … Shell? Is that you?”

“Yes.”

“It … doesn’t sound like you.”

“Will you shut your damned mouth and get that ambulance here? And hurry — a girl’s been hurt. I think she’s dying.”

I slammed the phone down, went back to Sylvia.

No need for hurry. She’d lasted long enough to tell me. Just that long.

I stood up, went to the window, leaned out. I could see people walking along North Rossmore. I’d bitten my lip and could taste the blood.

The blur of people walking. A faster blur. Someone running. A flash of white, of blond hair. It was the blond girl. I shook my head, spotted her running diagonally across the street, mink wrapped around her shoulders. She was headed toward a car parked almost a block away.

And running, too, just climbing into the car, was the big bald-headed obscene son of a bitch Bill Bonchak, almost there. I had my gun out and aimed at his back before he climbed in. I started squeezing them off, one after the other, until the gun was empty.

I knew I hit the car. I saw the windshield sliver. But I couldn’t know if I’d hit him. Then the car jerked forward, swung around in the street, slammed into the opposite curb. As he backed it up again, the girl reached the car, jumped in. On the street below, a middle-aged couple looked up at me; across the street a child stared.

I jammed the Colt back into its clamshell holster, turned, walked to Sylvia, smoothed her skirt, straightened her arms and legs. Her head still lay over at that odd angle. She was so small, so fragile, her neck would have broken easily.

I left her, ran out of the hotel to my Cad, and started up Rossmore after Bonchak. The ambulance, siren screaming, passed me on the way.

I didn’t catch him. Somehow I hadn’t expected I would — even if I hadn’t spent those few moments with Sylvia. He’d been gone in a hurry. It had been getting dark by then. And it was long dark now. I hadn’t called the police to report Bonchak. Not yet. I wanted my chance at him first. He was one man above all I wanted to get myself. Of course, Joe Rice had sent him.

When I’d calmed down a little I figured that part out, the when and how, even if not all the way.

Maybe Joe Rice wasn’t bright, but he’d been bright enough, this time at least, to sucker me. He’d sent the girl — his girl — to Joe Bonchak with a note. A note written on a check. The bastard had written it right in front of me.

I remembered another thing, too. The thing that had stirred him up, the thing I’d said immediately before he went through that byplay with his hard-faced blonde and gave her the check — which had greatly surprised her, and no wonder.

It was the first time I said “Francis Boyle.”

He’d straightened up, written a note, sent it to Bonchak with the girl, then Bonchak had left — and before 4 p.m. Bonchak had bugged my apartment and checked into that little hotel nearby. While Rice fed me enough information to keep me interested, and at the Diplomat.

Maybe it wasn’t the kind of evidence that would hold up in court — particularly with one of today’s “compassionate” judges presiding. But it was good enough for me. Besides, it’s well known my own compassion is warped. I didn’t have a goddamned bit of compassion for Bonchak; somehow I couldn’t get all worked up about his distress and misfortune. I didn’t even feel merciful and forgiving. If I’d found him, I would have killed him.

I might have killed Joe Rice, but I didn’t find him, either. Or the blond twist. I looked, you can bet I looked. But they knew I was looking.

It was well after 9 p.m. when I parked in front of the big white house in Beverly Hills. The man who lived here was a long-time friend named Steve Ferris, an actor and now part-time producer of films for television. He was in his fifties and I’d known him for almost ten years, and knew he was a hi-fi and stereo nut.

I’d made a dozen calls earlier, and finally rang the bell with Ferris. He had — or had had, he thought — a copy of the old “Annabel Lee” forty-five. He’d told me to come on over, while he rummaged around in his record stacks.

I’d headed straight for Beverly Hills. Because I really wanted to get my hands on that record now. If it was important enough for Bill Bonchak to steal, it was damned important to me. Bonchak, of course, had heard me talking to Sylvia about it, when we’d been on the phone shortly after 4 p.m. But he wouldn’t have been acting on his own when he barged into my apartment. Somebody — Rice, surely — must have given him his orders by phone.

I went up to the front door and rang the bell. Chimes bonged inside, then Steve opened the door. There was a peculiar expression on his lean, tanned face.

“Come on in, Shell,” he said.

“Hi, Steve. Any luck with that record yet?”

“Not yet.” As I went inside and he closed the door, Steve said, “What the hell’s going on? What’s this about a dead girl in your apartment?”

I blinked. “Where’d you hear that?”

“I had the radio on. News program. Didn’t get it all, but there was something about a girl killed in the Spartan — your apartment. Dead when the police got there. And…” He stopped.

“Well, finish it.”

“And you fleeing the scene, was the phrase.”

“I wasn’t fleeing away, I was fleeing at. Or, rather, chasing the bastard who killed her.”

“It did happen, then?”

“Yeah. That first flash must have been a little bare of detail.”

He was frowning. “It didn’t make you sound too good, Shell. That’s a fact.”

It still didn’t worry me. I said, “Well, I’d better phone Sam before they throw out a dragnet. I just hadn’t been thinking about that angle until now. Hell, I’m the one called the police and ambulance.”

He nodded, noncommittally, and I said, “Let’s shake it up on that record, OK?”

“I’m going through the old forty-fives now. Sure I had it around here at one time.”

I used his phone in the record room, got Homicide but not Samson. He was busier than hell, I was told — by somebody. I didn’t know who I was talking to; nor did the other guy, for that matter.

So I hung up, planning to call back in a few minutes. And right then Steve called out, “Hey, here it is. Knew I had it.”

I grabbed the record. Same one, obviously. I hadn’t really seen either of the others, but this was the Imperian label “Annabel Lee” — “Comin’ Home” disk. “Put it on, will you, Steve?”

He set it up, and as the needle dropped into the first groove, said, “News on TV at ten o’clock. Might be a mention of you, Shell. Want it on?”

“Fine. Warm it up, anyway. I want to hear this.”

I listened to the record, “loved with a love…” Same one I’d heard in Troy’s living room, same that Sylvia had heard Charley playing over and over. It didn’t tell me anything. It was Johnny Troy’s voice, but in embryo, the same lovely lilt and phrasing — though, to be sure, inferior to the other records I’d heard and owned. But he’d been a lot younger then, a lot less experienced — and without the Sebastian polish or the ton or two of electronic equipment which now smoothed out any rough spots.

I felt a vague disappointment. I’d thought maybe everything would open up if I got my hands on the record. The other side was the same. Young Johnny Troy singing up a storm, even then enough to curl a teen-ager’s toenails.

I couldn’t figure out why Bonchak had wanted Sylvia’s copy. Was it somehow different from this one? Had he, maybe, wanted that copy, not just any copy? I was looking at the record itself, studying the label, when Steve said, “Here’s the ten-o’clock newscast, Shell,” and turned up the volume.

I put the record down, relaxed in a big soft chair near the set. The lead announcer came on with national and international news. A couple of Soviet diplomats, assigned to the UN, had been caught spying. They couldn’t be arrested because of their diplomatic status, so they’d been asked to go back to the Soviet Union.

Ho-hum, I thought. Same old news.

But then the news changed. Changed my life.

The announcer said, “In one minute, Gary Baron with tonight’s ‘Top of the News’ file. The story of a local private investigator, Sheldon Scott, a story of murder — and rape.” He paused. “Right after these important announcements.”

</code>

<code> CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I didn’t even see the commercials.

I was, understandably, wondering how the story would be handled. True, I’d been out of touch. But the police knew I’d called them…. They didn’t know a hell of a lot more than that, actually. I hadn’t been concerned with filling out reports and signing statements and such.

Maybe it would be a routine story. But I hadn’t liked the implication in the way it had started. And “Top of the News” was newsed by Gary Baron.

It started out all right. A man claiming to be Sheldon Scott — I wasn’t too happy about the “claiming,” but Baron moved along from there all right — had phoned the Hollywood Division police station at 5:36 p.m. and asked that the police and an ambulance be sent to the Spartan Apartment Hotel. As Baron talked, the TV camera shifted to a screen on which a shot of the Spartan was being projected. Then there was a view of the lobby, and finally the interior of my own apartment. Baron’s voice over the shots identified everything, and sure mentioned my name a lot, I thought.

The police had arrived, checked Mr. Scott’s apartment and discovered the body — here a shot of body under a sheet, then cut to an ambulance, stretcher being rolled into its back.

A still shot of lovely Sylvia; one of Charley White, brother of the murdered woman. The coroner had stated Sylvia White had been raped, her neck broken.

It was all covered without undue emphasis, all the facts brought in neatly — and fast; Baron had only a ten-minute segment. Everything was made quite clear, except who had committed the bestial crime. An idiot might have guessed that Shell Scott possibly had something to do with it, but I hadn’t been accused of anything. It was even stated that I had often worked very closely with the police in the past. Which helped me. If not the police.

Then Baron’s face filled the screen again.

Then it began.

“Yesterday afternoon your reporter sat next to Mr. Sheldon Scott in the living room of Johnny Troy’s suite in the Royalcrest Hotel. And I must now confess that I did not protest as Mr. Scott opened up old wounds — no, new wounds, for Charles White was dead only two days, not yet in his grave — by almost literally forcing Johnny Troy to speak of his dead friend. Without the slightest evidence of any compassion or sensitivity for the feelings of Johnny Troy, he spoke bluntly of suicide, even — ridiculously — of murder.

“I watched as Mr. Scott callously interrogated Johnny Troy until, when the pressure became too great for this sensitive artist to bear — though he did bear it without verbal complaint, without a word of protest — he crushed a glass in his hand, laying it open to the bone.

“I watched as Mr. Sheldon Scott manhandled and callously insulted one of the most brilliant stars on our literary horizon, young Ronald Langor, author of Lie Down and Die, which is now on The New York Times’ best-seller list. I have seldom if ever witnessed such a vicious tongue-lashing of a fine artist in my career.

“But enough. I mention this only because Johnny Troy is now dead and these two stories seem to blend into one — these three. The coincidence of Mr. Scott’s, ah, questioning of Johnny Troy so soon after Mr. Charles White’s death, and the rape and murder a few hours ago of Sylvia White, the dead man’s sister, is, of course, merely that: coincidence. But it is news; it is a coincidence which shrieks for explanation. I, for one, am sure that Mr. Scott will be found — he is hunted by the police even now — and will be able to explain the truth of this horrid affair. If Mr. Scott is within sound of my voice, I plead with him to turn himself in. Explain the truth, clear up the mystery surrounding the death of Sylvia White.”

I checked my watch. Only three minutes used up. Seven to go — and he could use it all on me, if he wanted to. And he would.

I was suddenly, and quite seriously, alarmed, almost frightened.

I knew what was going to happen.

I watched it happen.

Ulysses Sebastian: “Yes, I’m afraid I did arrange for Mr. Scott to see Johnny. He couldn’t have gotten in otherwise. I had no idea … He did seem obsessed” — that tiny lisp, very faint, not quite “theem obthethed” — “with the idea that Charley White had been murdered. Thrown from his balcony. And … I really don’t like saying this.”

Shot of Baron from the waist up, holding a microphone. “Mr. Sebastian, don’t you feel it is your duty to tell us whatever you can? After all, we are making no accusations. But we must have the facts.”

“Yes … I suppose so. But I do dislike — “

“Of course, Mr. Sebastian. That’s understandable. But you were saying Mr. Scott was convinced Charles White had been murdered….”

“Yes. Well, he seemed to have this fixed idea that Johnny Troy must have killed Charley. You understand, the falling out of old friends, the moment of sudden anger….”

Baron again, nodding soberly. “I see.”

Ulysses Sebastian, shaking his head, rubbing the heel of one hand along the silver-gray at his temple. “Looking back, it almost appears that he had a — What do the psychiatrists call it? A fixed delusion? But of course Mr. Scott was perfectly charming. Quite pleasant, jolly…”

And that was all for Sebastian. It was enough. He had simply stood there and, quite baldly, lied.

But how, I wondered, could I prove he’d lied? We had been alone in the office. We could face each other and both say, “You’re a liar.” Fine. I knew who would be believed — despite the fact that those who know me know I wouldn’t lie to get out of a seat in hell. “Those who know me” did not include the million or two people drinking in this jazz.

I’d supposed it couldn’t get much worse. It did.

I watched the rest of it in a kind of daze, not quite comprehending it all. Baron had a rapid, breathy delivery and was able to cram a lot into his ten minutes. It was beautifully done.

Right after Sebastian. Right after his quiet, casual use of “obsessed” and “psychiatrist,” his almost offhand reference to “fixed delusion.” With the words still buzzing in the community ear. Dr. Mordecai Withers.

Not a psychiatrist — an analyst. There’s a world of difference. Psychologists, psychiatrists, they’re a different breed, and many of them do a great deal of good — those, that is, not affected, of afflicted, with the Freudian or Duerfian delusions. Dr. Mordecai Withers wrapped it up.

“Yes, Mr. Shell Scott — the name he gave me — visited me at my office yesterday. My professional opinion is that he — without being aware of it, of course. It’s unconscious. Can’t be aware of the unconscious. Um, as I say, he presented a splendid case of … um…” He hesitated a moment, then went on.

“He was an extremely disturbed man. His basic problem was obviously Supideo, with repressed cannibalismus escalating toward traumatic implosion. He struck me, essentially, as a disturbed man expressing his repressed cannibalistic urges outwardly in violence. And I have no doubt that if I could observe him at greater length, I could find evidence of a highly progressed oge in stressed conflict with both di and ogerepus.”

I didn’t doubt it, either. He found it in everybody. They didn’t know they had it because it was buried in their unconscious, where they couldn’t peek. Only Mordecai could peek.

He finished it up gracefully. “As a professional man I found him very interesting. Extremely violent, obviously. Almost frightening, I thought … um.” Then the wise plump old face grew a benevolent and kindly smile. “If I may interject — “

Gary Baron’s face. “Of course, Doctor.”

“This is one of the ills — or, rather, disturbances — of mankind which Duerfism can with certainty … um … eradicate. Even so extreme a case as Mr. Scott would, I am sure, be completely changed if only he would consent to be Duerfed. He would lose his hostility, his anger, his paranoid reactions, and become filled with love, understanding, and peace. He would lose his terrible individuality. Only by becoming one with the great brotherhood of all mankind can these stresses and traumas of naked individualism be stamped out — be removed as thorns are removed from flesh … um — “

That was all the Withering for tonight.

“Thank you, Doctor. That was Dr. Mordecai Withers, the foremost Duerfianalyst in the world.”

I thought he was signing off. No. There was one minute left. A series of ten-second interviews.

An obviously ill-at-ease police officer. I knew him well — and he knew me. “…when the call came in. Yes, I took the call. He said he was Shell Scott. No, I — well, it didn’t sound exactly like Shell. I mentioned it to — to the man on the phone. And I know — ” He was cut off then, but I saw his mouth move without sound as he said “damned well…” I knew what he’d have been going to say. “I know damned well Scott didn’t have anything to do with murder and rape or any of this baloney.” Something like that — he was one of the men who knew me. But, naturally you can’t have profanity on television.

Right after that, with perfect timing, a middle-aged couple. “Yes, it was Mr. Scott, all right. White hair and all. We’ve seen him taking girls up to his apartment before. Sometimes it looked like they were both drunk — laughing and all. He was what? Oh, yes; he was leaning out the window, shooting at those two people. We thought he was going to kill us…. I don’t know. Just people.”

The little girl. They’d managed to get her crying. “Yes, sir. Bang, bang, bang, I don’t know how many times. I ran home.”

Then — though I was beyond shock by now — possibly the most damning evidence of all: a photograph of Shell Scott.

You know what I look like, right? Kind of crazy stand-up white hair, white bent-boomerang eyebrows, gray eyes. Not really bad-looking. Good teeth. Good strong jaw. A little marked up, yes; nose broken and not set exactly straight. And the wee piece shot from my left ear. You remember, huh? The hell you do.

I look like Dracula descending on a blood bank. I have teeth which appear to be pointed cavities. My nose has one nostril, and even it’s no great shakes. Where they got that photo I don’t know; it wasn’t retouched. It didn’t have to be retouched. Maybe I need to be retouched, but they just happened to find a picture of me which had been shot from all possible bad angles at the same time.

The camera pulled back from Dracula, lusting for the fresh, gurgling young blood of innocent maidens, to show the fresh, unravaged face of Gary Baron. Hoo-boy, he was handsome. He looked like a shy girl. He didn’t quite pucker up and kiss the camera as he said, “Let me hasten to make it clear that there is as yet no real evidence to connect Mr. Sheldon Scott with this fiendish crime.”

The hell there wasn’t. It was right there behind him, looking over his shoulder, about to eat him.

“But because the dead girl was found, raped, in his own apartment, and he was seen emptying his gun at two passersby, and allegedly phoned the police before fleeing in great haste from the scene in his expensive new Cadillac convertible — “

That did it. I was a goddamned capitalist. That did it. Now I was in real trouble.

“The police are searching for him. That’s tonight’s ‘Top of the News,’ folks.”

The original announcer said heartily, “Thank you, Gary Baron!” Then he told us to stay tuned for something, “right after these important announcements.”

Came a film of a girl in a bathtub, apparently being seduced by a bar of soap.

I stood up. “Steve? You still here?”

He was. But he didn’t look so good. Probably I looked just great. “Steve,” I said, “I didn’t do it. I didn’t do … what they said.”

“I’m glad of that,” he said dully.

“I have to leave, of course. You’d get lynched if I was found here in your house. But I’d like to ask a favor.”

“Sure, sure,” he said, too readily.

“Let me use your phone first. Then I’ve got to get far from here — apparently I was lucky to make it this far in my Cad. Can I borrow your car? Hell, you can say I stole it. It won’t make any difference.”

“Sure, sure,” he said.

I called Samson. I told him who it was.

“Good God almighty,” he yelled. “Where in hell are you?”

“Sam, don’t mention my name, for Pete’s sake. Did you happen to catch the ten-o’clock news?”

“No, but I’ve been catching — “

“Listen, I’ve only got a minute. Here’s what happened — Hey, are you tracing this call?”

“Shell, you’ve got to come in. Right away. I’ll stand behind you — “

“Sure. I come into town, I’ll get torn limb from limb. I’ll get smothered under a thousand mothers. Fathers will — “

“Just tell me what happened. From the beginning.”

I hung up. I knew the honest, dedicated old cop too well. I knew that note in his voice. He was tracing the call, and lickety split there were going to be eight squad cars outside. He was my good friend; but he wasn’t going to lie for me or to me; he was supposed to haul me in, and he was by God going to haul me in, and slap me in a cell. And then he was going to fight everybody up to and including the Supreme Court — which would fix my wagon — to help me prove I didn’t do it, whatever it was. He was my very good friend. “Quick, your keys, Steve,” I said.

“Are the police coming out?”

“Sam didn’t have time to trace the call, but I’m on my way. Look, if you’re worried — “

“No, Shell.” He smiled finally. “I know you didn’t blow up City Hall, or whatever all that was. But, brother, it was nearly overpowering. What in hell got the world so down on you?”

And that jarred my brain. Yeah, what had? It wasn’t the world, of course. It merely seemed like the world. It was, in fact, a set of circumstances and only three people — but those three were people whose opinions went into the ears and noodles of millions of other people. Millions of others, among whom, unfortunately, were great chunks who got many of their “facts” from those three people.

And those three opinion-molders were liars. Ulysses Sebastian, Mordecai Withers, and Gary Baron. They had lied with ease and ooze, with expertise and aplomb, with conviction. They had, I knew, convinced a lot of people. I had the cold feeling that this might be one I wouldn’t get out of. You can erase evidence; it’s hard to erase brains.

But I wasn’t about to lie down and die. I hadn’t been Duerfed yet.

</code>

<code> CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I had reached a sanctum, a temporary refuge. It was called Brown’s Motel. It was a little dump, old, clear out on Adams Boulevard. I guess it was owned by Mr. Brown. But I had me a room.

And you know what I was thinking? After all the night’s misery — and the night not over yet?

I was thinking: Oooh, I’m hungry! And the night not over yet!

It’s true. When you’re starving, life and death fade into insignificance. Of course, I knew that people had fasted, gone without eating for days — ten, twenty, fifty. It hadn’t killed them. Not usually. But it hadn’t been fun.

So my thoughts went. Aside from the horrible, gnawing emptiness, which you wouldn’t believe, going without food sometimes does weird things to your thinkpot. I hoped mine held up until I got out of this mess.

It didn’t look too good.

I’d used two pay phones on the way here, both times to call Samson. When I hung up the second time I had told him the whole story — the true story. Sam got it and believed me — especially since he knew what had gone before, on Benedict Canyon Drive and the rest of it. But he insisted that I come in. I insisted I wouldn’t. And there followed this bit of communication:

“Sam,” I said, “I know you’ve got your job to do, and you’ll get me if you can. But not with my help — my job’s to save my hide. If you toss me in the clink I’ll be cleared, sure — in time. But by then what do you think Baron and Withers and Sebastian, and anybody else who’s on their side, will have done to me? I shudder to think — “

“I can’t help that, Shell.”

“I know it. But I can’t come in, either.” I paused. “So, Sam, old friend, it kind of looks like it’s going to be you against me.”

He said quietly, “Yeah.”

“I won’t wish you good luck. Remember all the names, Sam — including Bill Bonchak.”

After that I found the motel. I chose it because there were small individual garages with sliding doors next to each unit. I wanted not only to hide myself but to conceal Ferris’ car, too. There’d be a call out on it by now, I imagined.

There wasn’t any trouble getting in. Sleepy clerk, I had a hat on, signed illegibly with my left hand, went along into the room. No trouble getting in. That’s usually the way; usually it’s tougher getting out.

Before leaving my Cad with Ferris, I’d transferred everything I thought I’d need from it to his car, and since then brought the stuff into my motel room. It was a dismal array. Some cartridges for my Colt; a makeup kit — which might help; a flowing false beard I’d once worn to a party — which was ridiculous; a hat to cover my hair. That was it. Not much.

There was TV in the room. After showering, I watched it from bed. No point describing the news; it just got worse. It seemed to me the news was all about three things: Tuesday’s elections; the queerly linked deaths of Charley White, Johnny Troy, and Sylvia White; and me, the menace to the republic.

Then I turned off the TV and lay awake thinking about the case. I was stumped. Consciously, at least. The subconscious mind has all the answers we ever need, if we could just reach down into it and get them. That’s the trick; and I didn’t know the trick.

Finally I rolled over and went to sleep.

I guess it was sleep. It was queer, weird, crazy. It was sleep and dream and thought, too, half-waking alternating with half-sleeping, which isn’t quite the same thing. I dreamed, all right. It was nutty. Some of it melting, shifting, like abstract paintings spinning … some things in rhyme … even singing.

I thought at first I was waking up, but strangely realized I was only dreaming I was waking up. They’d caught me, I was sentenced to be tarred and feathered, set on fire, then hanged in the gas chamber.

Everything swirled, swam, then swish, I was in a huge courtroom. I was condemned, but I had a chance. They were giving me a sanity hearing combined with a trial to decide the nature of my death. Evidence was being given, at first almost normal — but then in rhyme, all in rhyme.

The witnesses sang.

The words were in rhyme, the speeches in rhyme — even my thoughts were in rhyme.

I was standing before the bench. The judge, in black robes and white wig, was — Ulysses Sebastian.

The foreman of the jury was Joe Rice, and in the jury box were eleven other living and dead hoods — Bill Bonchak. Tony Anguish, Booby, Snag, and other mugs I’d shot years ago. They all held submachine guns, and had knives in their teeth.

The court reporter was Gary Baron. On my left was Horatio M. Humble, the vigorous D.A.

On my right was David Emerson, attorney for the defense.

Suddenly Humble left his place on my left and marched to the jury box. He was waving a lot of bottles, marked “Fluorine,” “Serum,” “Vaccine,” “Goodies.” There he made his opening remarks, which apparently had nothing to do with me; it was a political speech. It was a typical Humble speech, only it was all in rhyme, and he sang it in a very nice voice.

He did a little dance, whirling about, one-two-three-kick, then alternately to the jury and then the courtroom — filled with people I couldn’t see behind me — he sang; and after every verse he did his little dance again, and laughed a little laugh.

</code>

<code> Then Emerson sang in a mellow bass

A look like Ralph Waldo’s on his face:

</code>

<code> I woke up in a cold sweat, mumbling, “I didn’t do it, I didn’t do it, I’m innothent!”

But — finally — I realized I was awake, really awake and not just dreaming I was. I was clammy, sweating, the sheets wet beneath me. The dream filled my noodle. Wow, I wondered, could I be nuts? I might be the last to know. Off I go — to Cuckooland.

Hell, no. I was as sane as the next one. Ah, but that next one. What kind of shape was he in?

Man, I thought, I want something to eat!

I got up and showered, dressed, and felt pretty well back to normal. I had lots of aches and pains and twinges; but that’s normal. I was as ready as I could get for whatever the day might hold. But, frankly, I wasn’t much looking forward to it.

</code>

<code> CHAPTER FIFTEEN

That dream stayed with me. Not troublesomely any longer, but persistently. As the morning wore on I thought about it a lot. It didn’t even seem crazy any more. It was starting to make sense.

Despite the cuckooisms of Freudian analysis and Duerfianalysis, Siamese twins hatched from the same rotten egg, I still believe that somewhere within reach of a man’s subconscious mind is all knowledge, all power, all the answers. In a strange and not yet understood way, men can use that power and knowledge, only we can’t just press our navels and turn it on.

Even so, it’s known that most of the work in any creative endeavor or problem-solving routine goes on beneath the surface of consciousness. In the “subconscious.” And when the work is done, bang, it’s presented to the conscious mind. And sometimes the presentation is sneaky. Sometimes it’s done in dreams.

Freud had something there, until he gucked it up with weirdly sick sexology, private parts, incestual hangovers and other such idiocies — just as he had his hands on a lot of valuable things which he finally mangled, apparently because of a delusion that everybody else was as sick as he was. Maybe the best thing Freud did was also the worst: He made men aware that they had a subconscious mind; and then he convinced them it was a chamberpot of horrors.

It’s that, sure; but there’s the whole rest of the mansion, too. It’s as if Freud saw only midnight and darkness. But the hell with Freud. Take it from me: The sun comes up every morning.

It was up now. In the night I’d had a dream, and there’d been some horrors in it — but daylight in it, too. In other words, the answers. It was a funny thing, but I knew all of the answers — all of them — were in that dream, if I could just find them. Enough at least to show me the way to go, what to do. More; enough somehow even to get me out of this horrendous pickle.

And, friends, it was a pickle.

I’d had the TV on most of the morning. I’d ducked outside, very speedily, swiped a newspaper and read it — then tossed it back; no matter what they say about me, I’m not all bad.

But that’s not what they were saying.

My flight was virtual proof of guilt. It was known I’d shot at lots of people, and so on. I’d been in some peculiar situations in the past, and they were brought up again, including a few somewhat erotic episodes. There was more about Sylvia. I was known to be a man of violence, and so on. It was more than a little ugly. No point in covering it all; you can guess. Nobody came right out and said I’d scalped Custer, disguised as an Indian.

There were columns and columns of it, TV words and radio words and, no doubt, millions of mouth-to-mouth words. The whole off-key jazz was on the wire services, coast to coast. It had started yesterday with mention of my name in the stories about Johnny Troy’s death. Now my story was almost crowding Troy off the pages.

If it hadn’t been for the Troy thing itself, and the once-in-four-years Presidential elections, the Shell Scott story would have been even bigger. But, after all, the big thing, way above all else, was: tomorrow.

Because this was Monday, the first Monday in November. Tomorrow, Tuesday, the people voted.

For Emerson — or Humble.

For Self-Reliance — or Duerfism.

That, I’d decided, was what it boiled down to. Because during these last two days, and especially last night and this morning, it had become clear — to me, at least — that the basic philosophy of Duerfism — whatever’s wrong with you, it’s somebody else’s fault; something-for-nothing is really something; there is a free lunch; the world owes you a world; I’ll pull myself up by your bootstraps; we’ll scalp Samsons to make wigs for bald weaklings; criminals aren’t crooked, they’re just sickly; there’s no such thing as a bad bad; we must have tolerance for everything, including evil; and all the political claptrap and analytical chop-chop stirred together into Duerfism — was basically Humble’s philosophy.

He called it doing good for the people — by taking some good from other people; he called it Welfare when most of the time it was simply stealing, and crutches for uncrippled people; he called it compassion, sympathy, pity, but he didn’t even know that the man who wants your pity doesn’t deserve it. He had so many wacky ideas, it was a problem of infinite proportions to figure out how his brain held them all. And how he could talk about trusting Communist leaders, of the Soviet Union or anyplace else, considering the very nature of Communism, its avowed goals — and the scores of broken treaties, millions of executions, lies and subversion and deceit, the murders of men and rapes of nations — was something that simply paralyzed my comprehension. And Humble was running for President of the United States.

Running — and likely to be elected.

Actually, Horatio Humble was just about like the Humble of my dream. Take the verse away; take the exaggeration away; it was the same old “The government will do it for you, even if you can do it yourself. Even if you’d rather.” The welfare-state philosophy. Socialism. Or in another word: collectivism. Some would call it Creeping Communism.

Humble — or Emerson. Well, we’d know tomorrow night.

At noon I turned the TV set on again.

I was damned near ready to pop open. No telling what was going on out in the world. But I couldn’t simply stalk out of here with no plan, no goal, no idea of what I was going to do.

But I couldn’t stay here forever, either. In time, maybe very little time now, somebody was sure to find me. Either the police or some hood. I had six slugs in my gun, so I could take maybe six hoods if it came to that. With cops, of course, I’d go peaceably. I like cops. I just didn’t want them around right now.

I’d turned the TV on because I was stumped, and also because I was about to climb out of my skull. There was something bubbling in me, trying to break through. A queer ferment, sizzling. The TV sound came on. Starting at noon were a pair of half-hour segments, the final kick in the ‘68 election campaigns. The speeches — first Humble, then Emerson on another channel — would be repeated again tonight. Watching the speeches wasn’t the thing I wanted to do more than anything else in the world, but it should give my mind a rest — at least, Humble’s was sure to.

He was just coming on, starting his address with his usual opening, “My dear friends….” I couldn’t concentrate on it. I paced the floor, itchy as hell — and, of course, dreaming part of the time of rare, juicy, foot-thick prime ribs.

I caught a phrase from time to time. The same old your-government-will-do-this-and-that jazz. Humble can do more for you. Bigger pensions, bigger checks, bigger health services, bigger aid to education, mastication, everything but fornication — and it wouldn’t have surprised me if he got around to a little of that before his half hour was up — just in case that wasn’t what he was doing.

I may not have impressed you enough with this: I had intended to vote for Emerson.

I didn’t agree with what Humble said, but I sure agreed with the way he said it. That warmly oozing voice poured out over the land like music, like a song, as chummy as if he were crawling into bed with humanity. He was compelling, almost hypnotic. I’d thought it before: he was to politics what Johnny Troy had been to show business. The most glamorous personality, the most magnetic, with the most charming voice.

The trouble with Humble was that he had no common sense in him. If he had even a nodding acquaintance with logic, he had only nodded once, but because his voice made love to ears he was able to sink his verbal fangs into the collective noodle and pour into millions of brains his honey, or venom, depending on your point of view.

Right now he was saying, “It will be a new age, my dear friends, a glorious age — an age without disease or want, with every need filled. Your vote for me means a vote for security, for safety — for you, your loved ones, your little babies.”

And then he stumbled just a little, a thing which Horatio Humble seldom did in a speech. He misread a word. He was going on about Medicare, denticare, momma-and-poppacare and kiddiecare; then he said. “This is the truth, the simple truth,” but it’s a little difficult to say.

And it came out, “This is the truth the thimple truth.”

He said it almost right but kind of bass-ackward, like Mordecai Withers’ “Shtop your silly-sallying,” and for a moment it sounded as if he were lisping. Like Ulysses Sebastian, for example, or like —

I was on my feet. Rigid. Staring. All of a sudden I had it. Had it all, everything — it had all been in my dream. That apparently senseless nightmare had, after all, included all the answers.

All of it had been in verse, in rhyme — like songs. It had, in fact, been sung.

Sebastian had been the judge and jury, even though hoodlums sat in the box and carried out his sentences.

I hadn’t seen Johnny Troy.

I’d seen Gary Baron, appropriately as court reporter, treating the farce as a serious trial.

When I protested my innocence, Sebastian’s voice came out of my mouth.

There was more, but it all added up to the answer. The so-simple answer.

When Johnny Troy, America’s most popular, most loved singer of songs, thrilled the world with those songs, Francis Boyle stood smiling, handsome before the world.

But Charley White sang.

</code>

<code> CHAPTER SIXTEEN

It swept over me. I wallowed in it.

I knew it was true. I hadn’t put everything together yet to prove it, but I knew I could.

At first I didn’t even wonder about proof. I just thought: Why not? Wasn’t that the official philosophy of the country? If you can’t earn it, steal it. Nobody put it quite that simply, but from Washington, D.C., on down to your little old TV set, that’s what it boiled down to.

No?

There were the TV stars who blandly urged their audiences to “Eat Yummies, I do”; or “Smoke Philters, it’s my smoke”; or “I wouldn’t be without my Sinkleen.” He didn’t; it wasn’t; the hell she wouldn’t. Incidentally, Sinkleen isn’t for sinks.

There were ghost-written books and ghost-written speeches, the bald lies on movie-mag covers, a thousand examples of phony advertising, laugh tracks, unions striking for better featherbedding. There were guys like Ronald Langor; the axle-and-toilet-bowl sculptor; the puke painter — hundreds of them, all blown up and bowed to by certain “critics” and by all the duerfs.

And that’s only scraping the surface; there was more, a lot more, and now — almost inevitably, maybe — Johnny Troy.

Lip-syncing was an old story. We’d come a long way from the day when a film star’s voice was played back to her, while she mouthed the words, so she could sing well and dance at the same time. Next was somebody else’s voice dubbed in for the star. Then duets sung by two other people.

And you can do just about anything with today’s sound tape — cut it like ribbon, splice it, take out, or add, as little as a single note, or even a piece of a note. An expert could take raw sounds and put them together to manufacture recognizable speech. That’s almost the way some of those pop singers I’ve mentioned, who came along in the late fifties and early sixties, were manufactured. And when you can choose the best bits from maybe a hundred tapes of a song and put them together for the master, even Bozo the Chimp wouldn’t sound too bad.

So take a real singer. A man with a magnificent voice — like Charley White, making his first record under the name Johnny Troy. “Johnny Troy” sounds better than “Charley White.” And a hell of a lot better than Francis Boyle. Grab him up; sign him. Man, what a voice! Wait till we tape, splice, improve, and all that jazz.

But he’s a funny-faced little fat guy. Where’s the sex, man? Where’s that old pizzazz, the sock, the babe-appeal? This kid is only five feet, six inches tall. Can you imagine him crooning to American Womanhood? We’ve got to stir them up, heat their hormones. But with him? Charley White?

So: Take an Adonis, a guy with real fire, hot blood, magnetism. He’s handsome, the face and physique combined. So he can’t sing; so what? Man. Daddy, I got the greatest idea since bathtubs. We’ll clean up.

Then the boom and buildup, the press-agentry; in a word, the high-powered Sebastianizing.

If Charley White had made that first record, “Annabel Lee,” it explained a lot of things. It explained the widely circulated, and of course completely phony, Sebastian-spread story about Troy’s “hysterical paralysis” of the throat. It explained why Troy — Boyle that is — and Charley were always together, including in the recording studio. “Yeah, Troy can’t sing unless Charley’s around.” I hope to shout he couldn’t. It explained — well, the whole bit. No need to go over it all.

“Annabel Lee” had been made by Johnny Troy in March, 1961.

But “Johnny Troy,” or Francis Boyle, had been doing that P.S. 487 bit in the San Francisco can, the car-theft jolt, from February through July, 1961. He’d been in the slammer all during March.

So obviously handsome Francis Boyle couldn’t have made the record. But the record was made by Johnny Troy. The real one.

I was all keyed up, heart pounding, face a little warm. Something else was trying to break through, something…. Other bits were slipping into place — the fact that Charley White had been born and grew up in Springfield, Illinois, and that Imperian Records was in Chicago, Illinois, for example. But that wasn’t it. It was … sure. Of course.

Slowly it came. Johnny Troy was the biggest fraud in the history of entertainment. He — or, rather, they were Sebastian clients. Clearly Sebastian not only had to know of the fraud, but more: No other conclusion was possible except that Sebastian himself had engineered the fraud.

No wonder I had to be destroyed, ridiculed, discredited — killed if possible. I had wondered why there was so much heat on me, so much sound and fury, attacks from so many different people and places. Well, Sebastian had a lot of friends, one hell of a lot, many of them in positions where they could influence hundreds of thousands, even millions, of people — which was how he’d sold Johnny Troy, among others. And there it was, there was the sensitive center of it.

If the Johnny Troy fraud was exposed — by me — then Ulysses Sebastian would be exposed as a fraud, too. Exposed as the initiator and architect of the enormous deception. But more: If it became public knowledge that Sebastian — with the help, often innocent, but still help, of his wide network of associates and mouthpieces, his friends and those beholden to him — had foisted one fraud upon the public, why not others? “Johnny Troy” had at least been possessed of real talent, the magnificent facade of Boyle and the glorious voice of White; but what of men like the painter of “Life and Death,” the author of Lie Down and Die, the sculptors whose creations were both literally and figuratively junk? What of them and scores of others?

All those Sebastian clients had traveled the same route, had been built up and boomed by the same claque, lauded by the same critics, given essentially the same saturation treatment — until others, not even remotely connected with Sebastian, were swept along, picked up the cry and added their applause, almost in the way that one or two men who start clapping loudly in a theater can sometimes start a thunderous ovation.

Well, enough. Undoubtedly only a handful close to Sebastian knew the whole truth about Johnny Troy. The rest went along with Sebastian for a variety of reasons. But the great mass, the people at large, believed in and loved Johnny Troy. They believed in and at least admired, respected, Ulysses Sebastian. Probably they didn’t know much about Langor, Dalton, and the rest, but assumed that where there was so much critical smoke there must be the fire of genius.

But if I spilled the beans?

Oh, brother.

No wonder I was as good as dead. Most of those howling for my scalp had good and honest reason to do so — until and unless I proved the truth to them — but at least three sonsofbitches had lied, and lied, and lied: Ulysses Sebastian, Gary Baron, and Mordecai Withers. Three — think of that; it only took three to start it. Even if all the rest who’d jumped on me before any of the facts became known were completely honest, if they had believed Sebastian, Baron, and Withers, they had believed in and were acting on lies. The honest ones wouldn’t like that. And nobody was going to like the truth about Johnny Troy.

If I spilled that, the reaction could be like the toppling of a row of dominoes, one going down and knocking down more and more. It could take Sebastian down, and maybe much of his empire with him, from his tight-pants poets to guys like Gary Baron.

I was pacing the floor, nerves on edge, thinking. Finally I stopped, plopped down in a chair before the TV set, lit a cigarette.

Humble was saying, “Let us be logical. If it is true that the brotherhood of man includes all men, not merely some men, it includes our brothers behind the so-called iron curtains and bamboo curtains. We have no quarrel with the peoples of Red China or of the Soviet Union.”

True, I thought, puffing furiously on my smoke. We don’t have any quarrel with the victims of kidnapers, either. It’s the goddamn kidnapers we’re after. But I didn’t think that was what Humble meant. Nope, it wasn’t.

He continued, “They are, in the larger humanitarian sense, just as much our responsibility as the poor and needy here among us. We must aid them whenever and however we can.” There was some more blah, then he said, “In the field of foreign affairs we must continue our realistic policy of accommodation with the Soviet Union, Red China, Red Cuba, and Red Latin America. This policy, which has worked so well in the past, must not be abandoned now when we are so close to victory. Our ultimate aim is to see that these Communist nations eventually become members of the world community, through a process of peaceful evolution. Our aid to them can speed the fulfillment of this humanitarian dream.”

I didn’t quite follow it all, but it sure sounded nice.

And then the horrifying thought struck me.

I was thinking, almost idly, as he spoke, that all the polls, all the odds, even my non-Humble opinion, indicated that Humble would be the next President of the U.S.A., particularly if he carried California, as expected. And I was imagining how pleased Ulysses Sebastian was going to be, because nobody had worked harder for Humble than Sebastian himself — and, of course, his whole apparatus, the gang that had built up the tight-pants artists and such. Humble in the last couple of years had been given, in addition to a lot of help from other sources, the Super-A-Number-One Sebastian Treatment.

Just like Johnny Troy.

And that was when I thought:

When Horatio M. Humble opened his mouth — whose voice came out?

</code>

<code> CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Well, it rocked me.

But it didn’t knock me dizzy. I guess some such idea as that had been under the surface of my thought ever since I’d first heard Humble yacking about. “Not the fear of death but the death of fear,” and “not a want of freedom but a freedom from want.” and “we must be held together by love or torn apart by hate.” Because those phrases bore the unmistakable stamp of the speech writers who had written the speeches and “extemporaneous remarks” for the man who’d preceded Humble as his party’s candidate for the Presidency.

Those twists and alliterative reverses simply tumbled out of them. The phrases didn’t actually mean much, but they sounded pretty. And they were easy to write; they didn’t require much thought; they were kind of duerfy. But hurled from on high in the stirring, ear-lovin’ voice of a Horatio Humble, they sounded deep.

It seems to be getting old-fashioned to believe that when a man makes a speech — and acknowledges the cheers, bows to the applause — he shouldn’t be reading the words, thoughts, phrases, and philosophy that somebody else wrote for him. Somebody probably not even known to the people, the voters in the case of a politician.

But it also seems that few politicians worthy of the name — the name “politician” — write their own speeches, voice their own thoughts these days, any more than the man we called Johnny Troy sang his own songs.

Francis Boyle, handsome, charming, magnetic, had been the perfect front for Charley White’s voice.

Horatio M. Humble, handsome, charming, magnetic, would make a perfect front for — whoever might be behind him.

I knew who had been behind Troy.

I didn’t know who might be behind Humble.

And I never would know unless I could somehow get out of my pickle. Neither, for that matter, would the voters, who would probably elect him President or something tomorrow. That is, elect those invisible men behind him, by voting for Humble.

Of course, maybe I was clear out in left — make that right — field. Maybe I was all wrong about Horatio Humble. Maybe he was a rugged individualist. Well, I did know plenty — plenty that was fact, not conjecture. And I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to tell the whole cockeyed world about it. But these days the world wasn’t listening to me. And with every minute that passed, my situation got worse.

Humble was just finishing his speech. He wrapped it up expertly, and his last words were, “Remember that at the polls tomorrow, fellow Americans. Humble can do more for you.” He smiled, beamed, and looked very confident.

Then, commercials. A toothy announcer was smiling, and smiling, and smiling, and saying, “Folks, you’ll be glad to know that New Improved Old Reliable has been improved again. It’s at your supermarket now. Just ask for new New Improved Old Reliable.”

Then that same gal in the same bathtub. Same soap. Man, it was some soap. If she didn’t watch out, she was going to get pregnant.

David Emerson’s speech was scheduled for another channel, and I started out of my chair toward the set. Something must have told me to move right then. One second later would have been too late.

I didn’t hear the door open. I didn’t hear a thing — unless maybe it was the hushed spat as the gun was fired. But I felt the bullet go past, nicking my chin just enough to bring blood, and I heard it smack into the wall.

The rest happened in two or three seconds. I didn’t think at all. It was as if I moved in frozen silence, reacting automatically, squatting, then uncoiling my legs and leaping sideways, turning in the air, hand jumping beneath my coat and grabbing the .38 there.

I was still in the air, turned toward the door with the gun in my hand and still turning, when he fired again. I didn’t hear the sound this time, either, but I felt the slug rake my ribs. I saw him. Inside, with the door just closing behind him. I was spread out in the air with my feet slanting toward him and lower than my head. But my arm was pointed at him, gun at its end, and I jerked off one shot, then hit the floor hard, skidded and flipped over onto my belly, swinging my arm back toward him again.

But I didn’t fire. He stood in the same spot, but he was leaning back against the door. The gun was in his hand — a revolver with a long tube extending forward from its muzzle, a dumb-gat, a silenced pistol. But his hand was jammed against his chest. The gun wasn’t pointing at me.

He made a sound. Not a word but a muffled half-cry, half-cough, and bent forward a little. It was Tony Anguish, teeth shoved together, lips parted, pain squeezing his eyes nearly shut.

I scrambled up, jumped forward, and slapped the gun from his grip. When I hit his hand he turned slightly, fell heavily to his knees.

From there he twisted his head up toward me and said through his teeth, “You bastard. You bastard. You’ve killed me. It’s — ” and the words choked off in a grunt. Blood was pouring through his fingers now, over the hand pressed against the hole in him.

I shoved my gun back in its holster. “I’ll call an ambulance. You don’t deserve it, you sonofabitch. But I’ll call. Only don’t expect me to stick around and — “

“It don’t make no difference.” He’d sunk down on his haunches, both arms wrapped around his chest, hands squeezing his ribs. He wasn’t looking at me, but past me. “Don’t make no difference,” he said again. “That one did it. I know — “

His voice was still strong enough; he just stopped in the middle of the sentence. His eyes were bright and staring, like the eyes of a man with high fever. I saw it happen. I’ve seen it before. Enough times that I’ve wondered what really goes on in the mind of a man when he knows, knows for sure, that he’s dying.

It wasn’t much. It just seemed that the fever went out of his eyes, and they got cold. And he shivered. His head jerked a little.

Then he said quietly, almost as if we were having a friendly conversation, “Joe sent us boys out. Six of us. Twenty-five G’s to the guy that gets you. Never seen him in such a sweat. All of them looking for you, every cop in town, half the goddamn jerks in the country looking, and I’m the lucky one who finds you. Twenty-five — never been so close to twenty-five G’s in my life — oh.”

His features contorted as a spasm of pain gripped him. “Oh, Jesus.”

“I’ll call — “

“Skip it.” It looked as if he tried to smile, but the corners of his mouth didn’t turn up. “I only got a minute,” he said. “Want to tell you. Jesus, here I’m turning fink at the end. Who’d of thought — Oh, goddammit. I didn’t think it’d hurt so goddamn much.”

I put my hand on his shoulder, steadied him. “Joe?” I said. “Joe Rice?”

“Sure, Joe Rice. We missed you on Benedict Canyon, but it wasn’t so important then. Now it’s important. You wouldn’t believe how important.”

I glanced at the door, closed now. I must have left it unlocked after tossing the paper out there and ducking back inside. Apparently nobody had noticed the one shot; at least, there wasn’t any commotion. But if Tony had made it to here, soon others would, too.

“How’d you find me?” I asked him.

“Knew you might check into some place to stay. The six of us took different parts of the phone book, started checking. I got the first part of the book.”

He’d found me about the same way I’d found Bill Bonchak last night. The police would, too, and before much longer, I was certain. But at least the five other hoods, whoever they were, wouldn’t be looking here. Unless…

“You tell anybody you’d found me? Phone anybody?”

“Hell, no. I wanted that twenty-five G’s.”

“Where’s Rice now?”

“I don’t know. I know where hell be about four p.m. There’s a big meeting then, hush-hush meet of some kind, up in Sebastian’s. His office. Joe said call him there if…”

His voice suddenly got weaker. From one second to the next its volume dropped until he was almost, whispering. “Any of us spotted you, or knocked you down. Had to know right away, he told us. Important he know, made a difference.”

I was beginning to understand more and more clearly why it made a difference. “At Sebastian’s agency, huh? Who’s going to be there?”

“All I know is Joe. But it’s important. There’s others. It’s about the election, part about that — but you, too. Guys are going nuts. You got no idea the heat on you.” His voice was almost gone, hanging by a thread now.

I said, “Tony, what about Charley White? And Johnny Troy?”

He looked up at me, lifting his head with an effort. “Don’t know about White. But I done for Troy. Joe said he’d be alone, that had been took care of. Just make it. look like suicide. He was pretty drunk and I poured some straight vodka in him. Practically out when I shot him. Made it look good, didn’t I? I know my business … even fooled the fuzz….”

“Tony, what’s this meeting? It doesn’t make sense Sebastian and Rice would want to be seen together, especially not this close to the election.”

“They ain’t gonna be seen. He can go in clear at the other end of the block, up through them other offices. Trojan Enterprises. Whoever’s at the meet, they’ll be there an hour or so, then they’ll slip out one at a time, same way. Nobody’ll even know they been there. They all got to figure out what to do; you got their bowels in a uproar. Best place to meet without being seen, Joe says.” Between every sentence the pauses were longer. His head was drooping, chin almost touching his chest.

After a long pause he went on. “They got to figure the angles. Both ways. If you get killed, and if you don’t. Makes a difference, Joe says. Says you know about some guy named Boyle. Whatever that means.”

“I know what it means. He was killed because he couldn’t sing any more. Except to cops, or newspapermen.” I thought a moment. “Did you take that record he’d been playing?”

“That little one off of the player — yeah. After I done the job. Joe told me he had to have it. Big deal.” He paused. “Scott. Scott, what do you think — ” He stopped suddenly. I felt his body shudder beneath my fingers. “Jesus,” he said. “Oh, Jesus, God…”

I waited till the spasm passed. “What about Charley White, Tony? You hear anything about whether he was killed, or just — Tony?” The only reason he was upright was because my hand still held him. I let him go. He fell forward, slumping. His face thudded against the carpet.

Just because a man stops talking and falls doesn’t mean he’s dead; but Tony Anguish was dead. Perhaps appropriately, he’d gone out swearing. I guess he was swearing.

I stood up, went to the door and made sure it was locked this time. Then I walked back and forth in the small room, trying to decide what to do. Somehow I had to tell what I knew, get the story spread all over town — before I got killed. If I got killed — which was a likely possibility right now — not only would I be dead, but so would what I knew. And I had a fat chance of waltzing into a newspaper or TV station. Assuming I didn’t get my head shot off; assuming I didn’t accidentally wind up telling my story to a guy like Gary Baron, or some other duerf; at the very least I’d be slammed into a cell before I could open my yap.

Maybe just as important, not many people were going to believe anything I said right now.

I had to get the story told, though. Somehow. Not only to save my neck, but because it was a story that should be told. The people should know about Troy, Sebastian…. Yeah. Maybe it was a story the people — the voters — ought to know before they went to the polls tomorrow.

I went to the television set and turned the dial. David Emerson’s face filled the screen.

It was a good face. Not handsome, but strong, almost stern. A face with character, deep lines between the eyes, a rather straight mouth. There was a sort of pleasant plainness about him, but with — I guess the word was individuality. It was a kind of craggy face; he didn’t look like a glamour boy chosen to head his party because he was photogenic, a polished speaker with oodles of TV-appeal. I guess all you could say was, he looked like a man.

I paced the floor, restless, an idea taking shape, or trying to. Then I sat down and listened to Emerson. And as he spoke I felt that idea taking form, the decision being made; slowly it locked itself in my mind.

Emerson was well into his speech by now, and was saying, “We hear socialists calling themselves and their kin liberal, progressive, compassionate, humanitarian, concerned with human welfare — anything but socialist. The reason may be that socialism has always failed. The reason it has always failed is that it must. It enslaves the flesh and withers the spirit, because all things have their price and the payment of every just debt is inescapable. Men cannot ask that government satisfy their every need and at the same time demand freedom; the scales must balance, measure for measure. Men do not willingly relinquish that which they have earned by the sweat of their brain or brow; thus socialists must in the end rely on force in order to take the substance from some and give part of that substance to others. Inevitably, this means the end of freedom. I know this to be true; my opponent does not.

“Under the free-enterprise capitalist system, men here, on this land, built from wilderness a nation with the most freedom for the greatest number of people enjoying the highest standard of living the world has ever known. The fact of this magnificent achievement is inescapable; it surrounds us; it is part of our blood and bone. Yet there are men today who — with a blindness or perversion stunning to the rational mind — would abandon or even destroy the system which produced it.”

I stared at the set in open-mouthed disbelief. I stuck my fingers in my ears and waggled them about. No, it wasn’t my ears. I’d heard him correctly. The damn fool was telling the truth, he was throwing the election away!

Emerson was going on, quietly, hands clasped in front of him, looking directly into the camera. “The socialists, who do not call themselves socialists, believe that some men are entitled to property earned by others. They are wrong. The inescapable moral law is that men are entitled to everything earned by themselves, but not to any part of that which has been earned by others. But in large measure because of this government policy, men have come to speak of their desires as needs, and then their needs as something they deserve; the result is that men have come to believe the satisfaction of their desires is something they are entitled to.

“Men in government, in response to the demand they have created, in return for the kind of love that beggars give to their benefactors — and for votes — have attempted to satisfy these real and fraudulent needs. But not with their own money. No, with yours. The instrument is the graduated income tax, progressive and confiscatory taxation — which lessens or eliminates entirely the opportunity for individuals to amass sufficient wealth to allow them the luxury of Christian charity. Thus government becomes the great dispenser of charity, and claims to be motivated by compassion for the needy.”

Emerson unfolded his hands, folded them again. His voice rose slightly, seemed to acquire a greater vibrancy. “But there is no such thing as compulsory compassion. Charity must be spontaneous or it injures both those who give and those who receive. To steal from one man and make another the receiver of that stolen property is a criminal action whether it is committed by a gangster or a government, by a felon with a gun or an elected official with a law. To call this process compassion, welfare, or concern for the underprivileged is to prostitute both our language and our people. This process has given us a climate in which men covet and steal, and feel that their acts are not crimes but virtues. Is it any wonder that in such a climate we see, on every hand, other and endless examples of inverted morality, of truth turned inside out?”

Man, I was on my feet again. I smacked a fist into my palm. I lacked an imaginary duerf in the head. Knocked his Supideo clear out of him.

I knew what I was going to do. I didn’t have the faintest idea how, but I knew what. And I sure as hell knew why. If Emerson had been a girl, I would have kissed him.

I grabbed some paper from a drawer, got out my pen and started scribbling. Emerson had been silent for a long time. Now he said, “Let it be entirely clear what my administration will at least attempt to do if I am elected. Those unable to help themselves will not be abandoned. But the parasites will have to stop feasting on the bodies of their involuntary hosts. No one is starving in the United States, and no one is going to starve. But, in the rude old-fashioned phrase we have all heard, some will have to accustom themselves to living less high on the hog — unless they buy their own hog. Hog stealing has become entirely too common lately. And I have not yet met a hog stealer who had much self-respect.

“That is what I am concerned with — and about. Your self-respect, self-reliance, self-help. Not government ‘aid,’ which weakens both those from whom it is taken and those on whom it is bestowed — and it is bestowed on more and more citizens of late, and thus further weakens us all. But I do not believe that the descendants of those men who transformed a wilderness into this, the greatest nation the world has ever known, have forgotten how to do for themselves. I do not think the American people are children to be suckled forever at a government nipple. I do think it is time for weaning, not more welfare.”

He was silent for so long I thought he’d come down with paralysis of the throat. But, no, he was thinking. It had been so long since a high official had actually thought in public that I’d forgotten what it looked like.

Emerson gazed directly at the camera again. “Perhaps my language is too blunt and specific for ears accustomed to the limp generalities of socialist semantics. If so, so be it. I have no desire to be President of a nation of men without self-respect, women without pride, children without hope.” His voice softened. “But I believe in you, the American people. I believe in your innate wisdom, your ability to decide for yourselves, not in a necessity that government make your decisions for you. And I have faith that — despite an apparently general impression to the contrary — the majority of you agree with me, that you in fact believe in these things that I have said. And I think that others of you, who are not sure, also agree with me in your hearts.

“That is why, in concluding these remarks, I intend to quote a wise and truly compassionate man. It is fitting, I think, that at a time when the fate of the world hangs in the balance because of the struggle between the forces of Communism and the forces of freedom, that I, an American aspiring to be President of the United States, should quote a great Russian. For we have no quarrel with the Russian people — only with their leaders, and the evil of materialistic and atheistic Communism itself — and truth is the same whether spoken by a Soviet citizen or a citizen of the United States. The man to whom I refer spoke of truth, in his essay ‘The Power of Truth.’ His name was Leo Tolstoy.

“He spoke of the necessity that men should not succumb to public opinion of the past, artificially induced by government, and stated, ‘It is only needful that each individual should say what he really feels or thinks, or at least that he should not say what he does not think.’ He remarks essentially that if even a few people would do this, the false opinion would fall away and the true opinion of the people be revealed.

“Then Tolstoy goes on, ‘The governments know this, and tremble before this force, and strive in every way they can to counteract or become possessed of it. They know that strength is not in force, but in thought and in clear expression of it, and, therefore, they are more afraid of the expression of independent thought than of armies; hence, they institute censorships, bribe the press, and monopolize the control of religion and of the schools. But the spiritual force which moves the world eludes them….

“‘One free man will say with truth what he thinks and feels amongst thousands of men who by their acts and words attest exactly the opposite. It would seem that he who sincerely expressed his thought must remain alone, whereas it generally happens that everyone else, or the majority at least, have been thinking and feeling the same things but without expressing them. And that which yesterday was the novel opinion of one man, today becomes the general opinion of the majority. And as soon as this opinion is established, immediately by imperceptible degrees, but beyond power of frustration, the conduct of mankind begins to alter.’”

Emerson was quiet for several seconds, looking into the camera, then he said, “This nation is now so deeply enmeshed in the welfare-state snare of socialism that many say the cause of true liberty and freedom, which we once knew well, is lost. But I am not one of them. I know that I, and those who believe as I do, face a great and powerful organization, men opposed to everything I believe and have said here. If, when you vote, you vote for my opponent, you are sympathetic to and in a sense part of that organization.

“But if you vote for me, perhaps — to conclude with Tolstoy’s words again — ‘… like wax in the face of fire, this organization, which seems so powerful, will melt, and be consumed.’”

The camera pulled back from David Emerson’s sober face.

I turned the set off.

In my mind at the moment, more than any specific thing Emerson had said, was the startling — even appalling — contrast between his words and Humble’s. The total difference in their attitudes toward collectivism. Communism, the Soviet Union.

If we had to elect an American and a Russian, I sure figured it ought to be Emerson and Tolstoy — not Humble and Khruschchev. That was the choice, it appeared.

There was no question which of the two speakers had made more sense, which had spoken the truth. It was as if they spoke different languages. And, I think, they literally did. More different than Russian and English, for example. Tolstoy had written in Russian and Emerson had spoken his words in English; it didn’t matter. Truth remains the same no matter how it’s phrased or what the source is. It’s like a gal changing from a mink suit to a pink Bikini: the body remains the same; it’s just wearing a different dress.

But when Humble spoke — well, words of truth have vitality, weight, juice, power. They have substance; you can almost reach out and feel them. But you can’t grab the phrases of a Humble; the words pop in your fingers.

Men like Humble may win votes, I was thinking, but never real belief. No matter how warm the voice or bright the smile, their words are cold. Their words may charm the ear, but not the mind or heart. The difference is, perhaps, that men like Emerson and Tolstoy speak to the spirit. It’s as if we’d heard it all before, knew it all before. It seems to “awaken a memory of an almost forgotten truth,” to quote Emerson — Ralph Waldo. And men recognize the truth, if only in that same subconscious from which my dream had come.

But men like Humble do win votes — and it’s votes that give them power. Power to warp the mind, wither the spirit….

A chill rushed over my skin.

I knew what I was going to do. And why. More, I knew I was going to do it.

And now I knew how.

Friends, it scared hell out of me. And that’s the truth.

</code>

<code> CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

It was sure a dinky airport.

Actually, it wasn’t an airport. It was just a private airstrip several miles outside of L.A. at the farm of one Victor Vanada.

I didn’t know him. I’d found his name in the yellow pages, in the section headed “Aircraft.” He’d had a small advertisement on one page which said, “Stunt Pilot,” plus a few lines to the effect that he was available for county fairs, crop dusting, movie work, television, private parties — oh, lots of things. Also there was one big word in black capitals: cheap.

I figured a guy who was available for so many things, and cheap at that, wouldn’t be choosy. In my eagerness to make arrangements — which I’d already done by phone — it hadn’t occurred to me that maybe cheap also meant lousy.

But I figured under the circumstances I was lucky to get anybody. I also figured my luck must be about used up. I’d left Tony Anguish in Brown’s Motel, taken the few items I’d brought into the room last night, and found Tony’s car, parked at the curb half a block away. It was the black sedan I’d seen before on Benedict Canyon Drive.

I was wearing my hat, and had used some gunk from the makeup kit to darken my eyebrows a peculiar reddish shade of brown. Not because I especially liked the color, but because that was the approximate shade of my beard. It was a fun beard — for parties, not disguise — and was bushy and curly, quite abundant, and hung down onto my chest half a foot. Consequently I looked like Shell Scott with gunk on his eyebrows, wearing a reddish-brown fun beard.

But I’d gotten through traffic without being arrested or shot at or causing a panic, made one stop on the way, then come straight here. It was 4:20 p.m. now. That other stop had taken up nearly three hours.

I’d told Vanada to be ready at four o’clock, though I might be a little late. He wasn’t ready, and that wasn’t encouraging. Neither was he.

The farm looked as if it just might be used for raising dirt. It was a flat, bare expanse of brown earth with a one-story frame house, vintage about 1929 — not one of the good years — and a small garage near it. The airstrip was simply a smoother path in the ground, extending away from the house and garage for a few hundred yards. Victor Vanada wasn’t in sight when I drove in past the sign, vanada aviation, but as I parked and hauled my heavy, bulging gunnysack from the Cad, he came staggering out the door.

I began to have serious misgivings. I’d had little misgivings before that moment, but they grew bigger when I saw him. This was my pilot? He didn’t look like a Victor. He looked like a Loser. He was about eighty years old if he was a day, and he looked more freakish than I did. He was wearing whipcord pants with patches on the knees, the trouser legs tucked into the tops of laced hunting boots, a red deer hunter’s shirt, and a faded bandanna around his neck. And he was wearing goggles, the kind that go with leather jackets and motorcycles. He was carrying a couple of bulky packages.

“Hey, there y’are,” he cackled. “You Scott?”

“That’s me. You’re not … not … not Mr. Vanada? You aren’t, are you?”

“Yessiree, Bob. Ready to go? Here, put this on.” He handed me one of the packages. It looked like a parachute.

“Wait, wait,” I said. “What’s this?”

“An old chute,” he said in his high, quavering voice. “Better put it on right away.”

“A parachute? Man, we’re not even off the ground yet. Where’s the plane?”

“In the hangar.” He jerked a thumb.

“There? It’s in that little garage?”

“That’s the hangar. Come on.”

“OK. But I sort of expected … Did you say an old chute?”

“Come on.”

He went to the garage and opened the door and went inside and pushed the plane out.

That’s right. Here he was about eighty years old — at least — and he just lifted up the plane’s tail and pushed it out. Like a wheelbarrow. I almost pulled my ripcord right away.

“What … what…” I said.

“Don’t see many of these any more, do you?” he cackled.

“No, I guess not,” I said. “What is it, a Spad?”

He cackled, but didn’t answer. Maybe he didn’t know. Or, more likely, it was parts of several things which previously had been planes.

“Gives ‘em a big boot at county fairs,” he said. “Takes ‘em back.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Had another one, little newer, but I cracked it up.”

“You cracked up the other one? What happened to this one?”

“Nothin’. Yet.”

This was a helluva time for me to team up with a negative thinker. The flying was supposed to be the easiest part of this operation. Merely incidental to my brilliant plan. I’d thought it was brilliant. At least not completely stupid. But then I’d been all fired up by David Emerson’s speech. I’d been thinking, “There is no limit to the possible,” and such elevating things. Well, there is a limit.

I said, “This is the limit.”

He didn’t hear me. Or didn’t understand me. Or didn’t want to think about it. Surveying his winged beauty, he said, “How do you like her?”

“You’ll never get it off the ground.”

He laughed. “Well, let’s go — oops.”

“What do you mean, oops?”

“You got your chute on all right, but you better snap that there buckle in front.”

“Here? This?”

“Yep, snap it … there you go. There you go. Be bad luck if you pulled the ripcord and the chute opened, and then you fell out.”

I sort of blacked out. I had a vision. I was falling through the air, next to Vanada. I pulled the ripcord and pow, my chute opened and floated off in the air, way above me, higher and higher, and Vanada kept cackling, “There you go … there you go…” his voice getting fainter and fainter, until —

“What’s the matter?” Vanada said. “You feeling ill?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t feel good?”

“Yes, I don’t. But it doesn’t matter. I’ve got to go through with it. Can’t back out now.”

“OK. Wait’ll I climb in and you can spin the prop.”

“Spin the prop, huh?”

He climbed in with the agility of an eighty-year-old invalid, and I took a careful look at our bird. It had two wings, one above the other — one almost above the other — a tail section, two wheels, and a prop. There were two holes in the body’s top. Cockpits. Vanada was in the front one, fiddling with things.

“Contact!” he yelled.

“Oh, come on.”

He waved me over to the propeller and told me how to turn it, then give it a yank. I said, “What’ve you got, a big spring in there? Or — “

“Contact!”

I got the thing buzzing on the second try, then stepped back aghast. It was going hickety-hock-hocket … ppppshaw, hickety-hock. I stood there, analyzing the situation. It was that ppppshaw that bothered me.

But Vanada yelled for me to climb in, “Quick, quick!” and I threw my heavy, stuffed gunnysack into the rear cockpit and climbed in myself, positively blue with panic. Now I knew why he had those patches on his knees. He prayed a lot. We were moving, hitting what seemed to be big holes in the ground. Clunk, clank.

Then the clunking and clanking stopped. There was only the whee of the wind and hickety-pshaw … hock. We were airborne. It was four-thirty. Vanada had given me a pair of goggles, too, and I slipped them over my eyes. After a couple more minutes it wasn’t so bad. Sounded awful, but we were soaring along nicely. Way up in the air. I began thinking anything was possible. Maybe it would work after all.

It had to. If it didn’t, on top of all the other crimes I was suspected of would be added a couple dozen more. Probably the penalty was immediate execution. I opened the top of my gunnysack and took a last look at my handiwork.

Back there in Brown’s Motel, after listening to David Emerson, I’d been so fired up that my brain had gone Click-click and in a trice all had become clear as a smogless day. The answer had been in Emerson and Tolstoy all along — as in Emerson quoting Tolstoy — from the sentence “It is only needful that each individual should say what he really feels or thinks, or at least that he should not say what he does not think,” clear on up to and including “And that which yesterday was the novel opinion of one man, today becomes the general opinion of the majority.”

The majority — that was the ticket. That was the ticket I wanted to convince. And if Tolstoy was right, they probably agreed with me already. All I had to do was remind them. What could be simpler? All I had to do was tell the truth. So I had written it all down: The whole ball of wax.

Being hired, talking to Sebastian, Mordecai Withers, Johnny Troy. The dates of Francis Boyle’s jail term and the date when the record “Annabel Lee” was made. Tony Anguish’s confession. Joe Rice’s admission that he’d contributed $200,000 to Humble’s campaign. I charged Ulysses Sebastian, Mordecai Withers, and Gary Baron with making false statements, deliberately distorting the facts, on Baron’s Sunday-night telecast. I included only things I knew, and not my conclusions, hoping enough people would draw the same conclusions from the facts. But I gave them plenty of material.

Once it was all down, there remained the problem of seeing to it that people did get those facts. That the story wasn’t buried. There was one way to be certain of getting the story to police, newspapers, on the air, to the general public, all at once. I had nine thousand copies printed.

The one stop before Vanada’s had been at a big job-shop printer’s where I’d done business for years. The owner knew me well — he had to know me well to do what I’d asked. It took some persuasion and a large check, but he did it, and with maximum speed and efficiency at that. The sheets were half the size of a newspaper’s front page, and he printed nine thousand of them, and just a bit more.

Then I’d hired my plane. And — well, the final step was about to begin.

I pulled out one of the sheets. In bold black letters across the top was printed: “sex — murder — rape — mafia — read all about politics!”

Well, maybe I did include one little conclusion of mine, if only by implication.

To make certain the leaflet would be widely read, just in case that wasn’t enough — and also because I’d written it — it was signed in big type: “shell scott.”

I’d told Vanada simply to head for downtown Los Angeles, and now I could see the tall Sunset-Vine Tower, the Los Angeles Federal Savings Building, up ahead at the corner of Sunset and Vine. We would pass a little to the left of it, between there and the corner of Hollywood and Vine. The heart of Hollywood; it seemed a good place to start.

I grabbed a double handful of the leaflets, held them out over the side of the plane — and hesitated. It was, of course, a hell of a time to be wondering if this was really a good idea. But it swept over me that once I let go and those sheets of paper started fluttering down toward Hollywood, I’d have a pretty hard time getting them back. Yessiree, Bob. Should I? I thought. Yeah, why not? I let go.

Swoop, they were whipped back behind the plane. Then down they went, separating, fluttering, dwindling, getting smaller in my sight as they spread out above the city. That did it; I’d done it.

Victor Vanada craned his head around and yelled over the sound of the engine and wind, “What in hell you doing?”

“I dropped some little pieces of paper,” I yelled.

“Looked pretty big to me.”

“OK, I dropped some big pieces of paper.”

He nodded, staring at me.

“Watch where you’re going!” I yelled.

He shrugged, turned his head and we went hickety-hock on toward Los Angeles. The Hollywood Freeway was below and on our left, jammed with cars going in both directions. I tossed out a handful of my fact sheets, then another. I had lots of them. As we neared the City Hall, Civic Center, Police Building, I glanced over my shoulder. Way back, there was one hell of a traffic jam on the Freeway. I could see little dots I thought might be people scurrying about. Cars seemed to be aimed not merely in both but in all directions, every which way.

Over the Los Angeles Police Building I gave it a real go, throwing out two double handfuls, then another handful as we turned and soared in an arc over the city. Phil Samson would soon be reading my defense. I spotted the Hamilton Building on Broadway between Third and Fourth — where my office is — and had Vanada fly low over it while I tossed out another gob, more as a sentimental gesture than anything else. Then we headed back toward the airstrip we’d started from.

I was down at the bottom of my gunnysack by now, and I gathered up the last handful as we flew over Hollywood again. Up ahead were the green contours of an eighteen-hole golf course, green of fairways, deeper green of greens, beige of bunkers. Little people down there locked in grim combat over a little ball, worrying about their scores. I’d give them my last handful. Might as well reach the country-club set, too; let them in on it.

It was kind of nice up here. Peaceful. Above it all. You get an entirely different view of things. I began feeling almost euphoric. Everything was going to be all right, fine and dandy. Down there on earth were millions of people, a lot of them by now getting my message. Some impressed, others feeling “So what?” and others hating me. Probably plenty hating me. No telling what kind of feverish pitch they’d been raised to since I’d been out of touch. So they wouldn’t be likely to believe my printed story right off the bat. It would take some time for the truth to be absorbed, digested, accepted. Despite Tolstoy. So right now, I’d have been willing to bet, a lot of those citizens were virtually frothing at the mouth when they even thought about me. Killer, fiend, monster. Hating, hating, hating!

It was a good thing I was way up here where they couldn’t get their hands on me.

And then —

The engine made an ominous sound. And since it was damned ominous to begin with, it just about scared my pants off. From an almost soothing hickety-hock-hocket … ppppshaw, it changed and went: hick-hick-hock and then ppppshaw-waw-waw and then just ppppppppp.

There was no mistaking it. Something was wrong.

Vanada pulled his head around and said, “I was afraid of that,” and he didn’t look happy-go-lucky, either.

Then something went spong!

“What’s that?” I yelled.

“There goes a strut,” he yelled without looking around.

“What in hell’s a strut?”

Spong!

There went another one, whatever it was. I didn’t know what it was, but I was pretty sure we needed it. Then, for an unforgettable moment, it was: Spong-pppppppp-hocket — hocket — wow — spong — spong — spong — spong — spong — ppppppppp.

And then zowie! The engine stopped entirely.

A wing on my left bent downward.

“Hey-hoy,” Vanada yelled. “There she goes. Got to bail out.”

“Bail out, huh?” I said. Then there was a little pause. “Bail out?”

“Yup.”

“OUT? OUT where?”

“Where else?”

“Where?”

He jerked a thumb.

Later, perhaps, I would realize his thumb had made a very pithy remark. But not yet.

I said, “Are you out of your mind?” Zoop, he was gone. I leaned over the cockpit and yelled at him, “Are you out of your cotton-picking mind? Why, the very idea is ridic — “

Oh, he was way down there.

He was gone. He’d jumped out of the plane, all right. I was alone. Here in … aloneness.

But I wouldn’t panic. Not much. Wind whistled past my ears, and out of my mouth, like a gas well coming in. Ahead of me, Vanada’s parachute opened, bloomed whitely. Sure. He’d kept the new parachute.

Then a sticky thought stuck me.

Ahead of me?

He should be way down below me. And even behind me. If I was flying along on a level — Ah, that was it. I wasn’t flying along on a level. I was diving. I was preparing to crash. Yeah, that explained it. In fact, if old Vanada didn’t get out of the way, he’d get what for. I grabbed for the joystick or whatever they call the thing down there, so I could pull the plane’s nose back up. I was full of ideas; I was ready to climb out there and fix that wing, tack those spongs back on. But there was no stick. No joy, either. Nothing but my empty gunnysack.

Feeling its rough gunnysacking between my fingers, I thought: It’s a sign. It’s a sign I shouldn’t have done it. This is my karma. Instant karma, that’s what. I’m paying for my sin before I even get to commit it.

I’d missed Vanada. He was way back behind me now. I was close enough to earth by this time that I could clearly see four guys on one of the greens below. I’ve always figured if I had to die, I’d like to die in bed. Even my bed. But I was going to die on a golf course.

No, by golly! Moving like lightning, I had the safety belt unbelted and my legs uncoiling and then I was out of the plane, tumbling through space, grabbing the ring of the ripcord and yanking it.

Nothing happened. That goddamned Vanada —

But then the chute opened with a crack. It was my back that cracked. Vertebrae snapped and popped and rearranged themselves in new combinations. But the chute was open and I was still a good hundred yards from the ground.

There was a great thudding, crashing, rending, and ripping sound as the plane tore into the fairway and exploded. Flames leaped up and licked at the fuselage.

I was turning in the air, and I just happened to turn toward those four golfers below me on the putting green. I’m told that golfers are very serious about their game. Especially when putting. They’ve got to have absolute quiet. You can’t even say, “Shh.”

One of them was lying flat on his back on the grass, rigid. Another was running wildly through a sand trap, both arms waggling above his head. A third was squatting with his hands over his ears. There wasn’t a fourth guy. I guess he was a very speedy guy.

Don’t let anybody tell you that you just float to earth when you parachute. You, land as if you’d jumped out of a second-story window. My feet were under me when I hit but my knees buckled and I went down pretty hard. But nothing broke, and I seemed unsprained. I yanked on lines and rolled, managed to spill the air from my chute, started trying to get out of the contraption.

Just as I got loose, I saw those three remaining golfers. They were staring at me. Then one of them jumped straight up in the air, like those guys in old Mack Sennett comedies, and started running at me. The other two charged after him, brandishing their putters. Some of these golfers bet pretty heavily, I’m told.

Then I heard some yelling and yowling. On my right maybe a dozen guys were sprinting toward me, some of them waving pieces of paper. Well, I wouldn’t have taken offense, really, except that those were my own pieces of paper. So they knew. On the fringes of the small crowd two guys at the steering wheels of electric golf carts came at me, hunched over like daredevil racers. They were going a good fifteen miles an hour, but it was still too fast to suit me.

A couple of hundred yards beyond them, up at the top of a rise before a big red-brick clubhouse, more carts were in motion. There must have been two or three dozen of them coming down the hill like a fleet of small tanks, some just getting started, others well on their way.

They’d heard, too.

I jumped straight up in the air like that golfer, spun about and ran. I didn’t know where I was going, but a sign told me when I passed the seventh tee, a 480-yard par-five hole, and I made it to the green in what I was positive must be a new record for the distance. An arrow pointed up the eighth fairway, a short par three, and I veered that way, sprinting, arms pumping, legs driving, tongue hanging out — Then I thought: What am I doing? Where the hell am I going? I’m not golfing. So I angled right and sped into the rough.

I was running from the dozen running guys, the two fiends in golf carts, those other descending vigilantes in the two or three dozen golf carts, but mainly I was flying away from those three golfers who’d been on the green. It would be bad enough to get killed by being shot with a big .45-caliber automatic, or even brained by a golfer with a driver — but those guys with putters? What a way to go!

“Yeah, they caught him in the rough off the eighth fairway. Real heavy rough off the eighth there. Yeah, putted him to death.”

It gave wings to my feet. I flew. They didn’t have a chance to catch me in golf carts. They couldn’t have caught me on horses, mountain goats, cheetahs.

And they didn’t.

</code>

<code> CHAPTER NINETEEN

When the cab pulled over to the curb four miles from the Ellendale Golf and Country Club, where I had put a large hole — and an airplane — into the middle of the sixth fairway, I ducked into the back seat, keeping my face averted, and stroking my beard.

Yes, I still had the beard and hat. During the plane ride I’d stuck them both into my pants pockets. I hadn’t really realized I’d be using them again so soon, but in this life you never know.

The driver didn’t pay any attention to me. He was intent on his radio, which was spewing wild information about Shell Scott. It was awful. I hadn’t done half those things.

I’d heard most of it already. In my travels since leaving the club, I’d heard radios, TV sets, and even yelling people filling the air with similar intelligence. I had sneaked into bushes, hidden under a house, hailed one cab before this one. So far, I was still moving. And I knew, too, where I was moving.

I’d had another idea.

Probably my last for a while. I hoped so. I’d had quite enough of my ideas. But the news had carried to all the local citizens — and a lot of foreigners, too, in places like Istanbul and Krakow, and by drum to the Zambezi — numerous facts. The invasion from the sky had commenced at 4:40 p.m. First city to be hit was Hollywood. Then havoc on the Freeways. Then befuddlement in Los Angeles. Consternation in the Police Building. Conniptions in City Hall. The Mayor had issued a statement. The Chief of Police had issued a statement. So had congressmen, senators, and the Governor issued statements. The gist of it was: Be calm.

I had been called a Communist. Worse, I’d been called an anti-Communist. But most of all I’d been called a maniac. I was obviously a violent paranoiac, agog with homicidal urges, my batty resentment directed against the entire State of California. The ravings in my pronunciamento posed a clear and present danger to the health and spirits of Ulysses Sebastian, obviously, and ten minutes after the alarm, a police cordon had been thrown around the entire block where stood the Sebastian Building.

Protection from the invasion would also be offered Gary Baron and Mordecai Withers when they were found. They hadn’t been found yet — maybe Scott had done away with them already. Nothing was said about Mafia boss Joe Rice. The body of Tony Anguish had been found where I’d said it was; a police ballistics test had already proved the lethal bullet matched slugs from my .38 Colt, which slugs had been on file with the police.

There were going to be suits for libel, slander, commitment, and littering the streets. The FBI had been called into the case. The League of Women Voters had leaped into the case. The Republican Party and the Democratic Party and the Socialist Party and the Communist Party had all joined the party. The Boy Scouts had offered their services in tracking. The Girl Scouts had said they’d make cookies for the Boy Scouts.

Well, I’ll admit it. I hadn’t anticipated every little thing. In fact, I hadn’t looked very far ahead, now that I looked back. After all, I’d thought I was doing something good. I’d only wanted to be helpful.

Anyway, I still had one idea left. It was a great one. Just like my other ideas. It was useless. What I had in mind, or whatever it was in, was based on three bits of knowledge. First, whatever the “secret” meeting was that Tony Anguish had told me about — which was one bit I’d left out of my scattered message — both Ulysses Sebastian and Joe Rice, undoubtedly along with others, were to have been present. Second, that meeting was to have begun at about 4 p.m., to last at least an hour or more. Third, within ten minutes after I’d dropped my first paper bombs — at 4:40 p.m. — a police cordon had been thrown around the block where the Sebastian Building was, which meant that by 4:50 nobody could go in or out of the Sebastian Building without first identifying himself to the police officers.

Conclusion: Either the people who’d attended that meeting had by now left the building, not being concerned about being identified; or, if they wanted either their identities or presence kept secret, they were still there. Because the police cordon was still there.

And I very much wanted to know who was, on this election eve and in the midst of all the furor I’d stirred up, meeting with Sebastian in his office in the Sebastian Building.

So when the cab driver asked me where I wanted to go, I told him the Sebastian Building.

Or almost. I told him to drop me around the corner from Sunset, on Genesee Avenue, which would be just a block from the Sebastian Agency, where I’d been for the first time two days ago. As was getting to be my usual habit, I didn’t have the foggiest idea what I’d do when I got there.

But maybe that “cordon of lawmen” had been exaggerated. Newspapers sometimes do that sort of thing. Maybe the cordon consisted of two cops, and I could sneak past them. If I could somehow get to the Sebastian offices and inside, I was sure that one fact alone would cause sufficient commotion to bring both those cops, and perhaps eight hundred more, on the run. I’m always hoping, and I not only hoped to find out, myself, who was cahooting up there with Sebastian, but to make the info — assuming it was of any value to me — as public as everything else about me seemed to be. There was only one thing wrong with the idea: it was impossible.

It was 7:15 p.m. and dark now, which helped. Not a lot; but I was grateful for a little. Even so, before I got out of the cab on Genesee, it had become clear that this time cordon meant cordon. From a block away I could see four uniformed officers, and there were probably some in plain clothes. A police radio car passed the cab as we pulled into the curb.

I didn’t hesitate this time. The time for hesitation was past. I’d burned my bridges and scattered the ashes. It was onward and upward now, as they say in the inspirational books, until and unless I was stopped by a blank wall. So out of the cab I jumped, dropping the fare plus a buck on the seat — not too much, but enough so he wouldn’t remember me with suspicion.

He pulled away and I was standing across the street from the block where the State Bank Building had stood a few weeks ago. Now the whole block was a shambles, like my life. Ruin lay everywhere. I walked across the street — into Ruin.

It was my idea that by going through the shambles I could avoid walking in plain view on the street, and also duck behind a crumpled teller’s cage, say, if anybody approached. But nothing happened. No guards were posted among the hunks of concrete and piles of splintered wood. I imagine the police didn’t really expect me to be within several miles of here, certainly, not this close. They were doing their job, on the qui vive, but not really expecting what happened. Who would expect what happened?

I skulked forward, dashing from teller’s cage to lumber pile, slinking from ruin to shambles, and when I was three-quarters of the way through the urban-renewal block I saw the slanted steel spire rising toward the sky. It was Jack Jackson’s truck-crane. The latticed boom looked just a little bit like a ladder. And in the deeps of my murky gray matter, down about the brain stem, something wiggled.

Suddenly I became aware of a strange fact. Or rather the absence of a fact, like having an ache for several days then suddenly realizing you’re not aching. I wasn’t hungry.

I knew I hadn’t eaten. So why wasn’t I even hungrier than before? Had I eaten my stomach? Was it down there digesting itself like a snake swallowing its tail?

I shook my head. Was this logical thinking? It was important that I think logically from now on, that was sure. Then I remembered that people who fasted — on purpose — often lost their hunger entirely after two or three days. Now I had the logical explanation: I wasn’t hungry because I was starving. That made sense. It made me feel better to be so clear-headed.

A little lightheaded, too. It was as though the emptiness of my stomach found its parallel inside my skull. Sure, that was it; I was lightheaded because my skull was empty, and my skull was empty because I hadn’t been eating. It gave me a renewed surge of confidence to know I still had my wits about me. Nothing could stop me now. Onward and upward! Down the hatch! Avast and belay there! I was full of inspirational messages.

Fragments of an inspirational poem flitted through my mind like fairy butterflies. It was something about “They said it couldn’t be done,” and the guy who rolled up his sleeves and plunged right in, with a bit of a grin; something like that. There was my kind of fellow. A fellow with confidence. Just show me that old problem, I’ll put on a bit of a grin! I’d been moving forward, and now saw — movement? Yeah, something had moved there, in the cab of the truck-crane. A man, climbing down … Hell, it was Jackson.

I walked up behind him and said softly, “Hey, Jackson.”

He spun around. “Haaallp,” he said.

“Shush. They’ll hear you in Glendale.”

“Haaallp!”

“Shut up, Jackson. It’s me.”

“You!”

“Jackson, we’re friends, aren’t we?”

It took me thirty seconds of the fastest talking of my life — with my left hand behind his neck and my right fist raised like a club — but he calmed down a little. Especially after I explained that my beard was merely a disguise, and not contagious. I told him I had been grievously wronged, that not more than ninety per cent of what he’d heard was true, and so on. He was almost over on my side again — but by that time a police officer was trotting across the street toward us.

“Jackson,” I said, “if you tip him, I’m dead. Tell him you fell asleep, were having a nightmare.”

“I thought I was.”

I flopped on the ground and he went forward to meet the officer. I guess my fast talking had convinced Jackson enough; at least, the policeman didn’t come over and grab me.

Jackson came back and sat down on the ground next to me. “Told him I had a nightmare, like you said. Fell asleep in my cab. He knows I been working here.” He pulled the canteen from his belt and had a belt. “Shell?” He offered it to me.

It seemed a logical thing to do. Maybe it would steady my nerves, I thought I had a belt. Then I explained rapidly some of what had been happening, and asked him how come he was still here.

“Worked till about half an hour ago,” he said. “Boss is anxious to get this job finished so we can start wrecking the next block. I stuck around because of all the excitement over around Sebastian’s. Thought I’d watch it awhile.”

“Uh-huh. Well, Sebastian is why I’m here. I want to get into his office, but there’s not a prayer I can get past those cops. But, Jackson, I … well, with a little help from you I might turn the trick.”

“Help from me?”

He didn’t sound like a man dying to help me. But he didn’t sound exactly sober, either. Probably he’d been pulling at his canteens all day long, and now into the night. Probably hadn’t eaten yet, either, so the booze would hit him a little harder. That’s why when he tilted the flask again I didn’t stop him. Maybe if the booze hit his half-empty stomach, it would spread like wildfire into his blood and he’d be less inhibited, more inclined to lend me a hand.

“Shell?” He held out the flask.

“OK, thanks, Jackson. Just a little one.”

I got just a bit more than I’d intended, and as I handed the flask back, a strange sensation began creeping over me. I got hot, flushed, perspiration popped out on my face, my eyes popped out, my tongue popped out. It was like — like wildfire in my blood.

“Er, uh,” I said. “Think that’s enough for me.”

He said, “What kind of help you mean?”

“Ah, yes. That. Well, it’s really very simple. I want to get up into Sebastian’s office, right? Right. I can’t walk up. Can’t climb up. Can’t float up. But if you’d just kind of put that boom up to the fourth floor there, I could scramble right up it and jump in Sebastian’s window. Right? Right. So — “

“Wrong. See where my truck’s sitting?”

I saw. It was parked just this side of the sidewalk. Beyond it, across the street, was the Sebastian Building. “Yeah,” I said. “I see. I got it. What’s it mean?”

“This particlar boom’s too long for … what you said. Forty-five-tonner with a hundred and twenny feet of boom and jib. Real long sonombitch. Have to bring the truck practicly back here and then lay the boom over if you want it to reach as low down as them windows. See? What I mean, if I didn’t move the rig back, the end of the boom would be way up there.” He pointed. “See?”

“Sure.”

Jackson considered the problem soberly, then had another nip from his flask. Gave me a little nip, too. Just a little one. Then he said, “You don’t want me starting up the engine and tearing around the place, do you?”

“Heaven forbid! That would bring some cops over here, sure.”

“Right. So we don’t want to move the truck. Whatever we do gotta be done fast, right?”

“You bet. Fast as hell. Faster than cops.”

We were in rapport. Our minds were working with the beautiful precision and logic common to drunks.

He said, “But I know how to do it without moving the truck an inch. Not an inch.” He paused, pleased, then went on. “We leave the truck where it is, start her up and real quick turn the crane-cab out facing the street. Lower the boom just a little. Do it fast so nobody notices right at first. Of course, they would eventually.”

“Sure they would.”

“Then I could give the ball a little swing, and I bet if I timed it just right I could lay it right up there alongside of those windows of Sebastian’s office. I could do that fast enough so nobody’d notice — not till it was all over, anyway.”

“Uh-huh. I can see that. But what good would it do me? Unless I was up there on the ball…”

It’s funny how you can be led down a garden path, everything bright and cheery, and then suddenly — one false step — and plunk, you’re in the swamp.

At first the idea struck me as foolish. But then I decided to throw away all preconceived notions and look upon this problem as if it had never been examined before. Look at it, in a word, logically. OK, say I’m on that old skull cracker, I thought. No trouble hanging onto the cable. If I were standing up there on a solid stationary platform outside Sebastian’s office, it would be no great trick to jump through one of those big windows. I’ve jumped through windows before. Cut the living hell out of me, sure, but there hadn’t been anything enormously difficult about it.

OK. Once I’m up there, it’s simple to jump through the window. Only difference is that my solid stationary platform isn’t stationary. It’s moving. And, of course, it’s round. No, not even round — pear-shaped. Not quite as good footing as a real platform. Not nearly … I got a little twinge of doubt right then.

But I remembered that inspirational poem. Not all of it, but the general idea. “They showed him the thing that couldn’t be done; with a grin he went right to it….” That was the stuff. Wished I could remember the last of it; I could use all the encouragement I could get. All right, I’m up there on the ball. And if Jackson timed it right, it would come to a stop a foot or so from the windows. For perhaps a second or two it would be stationary, just ending its forward movement and barely starting back. I could do it. It wasn’t impossible.

“Jackson,” I said. “I am impersed with your presspicacity. There is some merit in your proposal. However, it is essential that you have a steady hand and clear eye. Can you swing that ball of yours up there close — close enough?”

“Nothing to it. I’m an expert with that ball. You know that.”

“Sure. You can hit a fly, or — I forget. Anyway, you figure you can swing the ball up there, with me on it, and then I’ll jump through the window, right? Which window? We’d better decide that.”

“Well, I’ll aim at the strip of wall there between the two windows. Got it?”

“Sure.” I remembered that two-foot-wide hunk of wall, all right. Robert Dalton’s famous “Life and Death” was on the opposite side of it, inside Sebastian’s office. “Perfect,” I said.

“Now, I might be just a leetle bit off to one side or the other. But when you get up there and the ball slows down, you can decide which window is closest.”

“Won’t have much time for thinking, will I?”

“Not a hell of a lot.”

“Have to be a pretty quick decision.”

“Pretty quick.” He nodded soberly.

“Well, uh, what if I don’t decide, and jump, quick enough?”

“I don’t know about you, but the ball’s gonna be comin’ back.”

“You’re right.” I thought about it. “Jackson, what if you’re way off?”

“Not likely,” he said. “Not likely. Don’t you worry about that, Shell, old buddy. Even if I was, you could make up your mind when you got there. No sense asking for trouble.”

It seemed to me there should be some other way. Maybe an easier way. Besides, I wasn’t sure Jackson knew exactly what he was saying. I didn’t even know what canteen he was working on. But we talked about it a little more, and couldn’t think of any other way. Besides, if the police got me — if I wasn’t shot on sight, which was a possibility this close to the Sebastian Building — they’d hustle me to a cell or cackle factory. And once they had me, the police cordon would be withdrawn. Which meant whoever might be in the Sebastian suite could then walk out free as birds.

No, I still felt the way I had originally. If a thing is true, it’s true forever and ever and ever. I had to get inside the suite and draw the law up there. Then, no matter what happened, I would at least have accomplished what I’d set out to do. There was that little poem, too, which was especially encouraging because my dream, in which had been the clues to all kinds of things, had been in verse, too. It seemed a good omen. And I believe in good omens. You can bet I do.

“All right, Jackson,” I said. I paused. There was a queer humming sound inside my head. Yes, it was still working. All was well. “Let’s go!” I said.

I got on the ball. Jackson meshed gears and started hauling me up.

The higher I got, the clearer my thoughts seemed to become. I remembered the last time I’d been up in the air. It had been in that Spad, or whatever it was. That hadn’t worked out so well. Maybe…

Boy, I was way up in the air. It seemed as if the high altitude started clearing my skull, like there was a draft in there. “Jackson,” I said. “I…” Of course, he couldn’t hear me. I was talking more to myself than him, anyway.

Clank, crunch, he was working those gears down there like a madman. I could see him. I could see him tilt his canteen and have a nip. Hell of a time for him to be drinking. Then, with a sound of growling and gears meshing, he swung the crane-cab around at right angles to the truck so it was aimed toward the Sebastian Building across the street. And I was moving. I was out over the street now myself, clutching the steel cable. It wasn’t easy. My feet kept trying to slip off the top of that steel pear. I had a feeling it wasn’t going to get easier. Jackson did something and the ball swung backward with a graceful, sickening motion — way back, back, a momentary pause. Then we were going forward. This was it. No turning back now. The ball picked up speed horrendously, plummeted downward, reached the bottom of its arc and started up.

I tried to put on a bit of a grin, and couldn’t do it.

That was it! Oh, God, that was it!

I remembered the poem. No — I’d been trying to remember a parody on a poem. Now I remembered what I’d been trying to remember and would have forgotten if I’d known what was good for me, which apparently I don’t. It went:

“They showed him the thing that couldn’t be done; with a grin, he went right to it; he tackled the thing that couldn’t be done — and couldn’t do it!”

The ball was swooping up now, up, up, up. Rushing at me was a wall of — of wall.

“Stop!” I yelled.

Nausea swept over me. In a strange and sickening way it was as though I was not on a ball swooping toward the huge building, but as though the huge building was swooping toward me on my ball. It was worse that way. As if the whole six stories of the Sebastian Building had picked me out from all the humans on earth as the one it meant first to mangle. It was alive — and mean! Filled with hate! Hate for all the people who’d been stamping up and down on it for years and years. Now it was going to stamp back.

But something was happening. Either my mind was playing tricks on me or the building was receding. It was, it was going away. Jackson had been far short. The ball had slowed, stopped, started back. I was saved. Boy, I’d never do anything this crazy again. Once this thing stopped swinging I was going to climb down and never ride a ball again. I wasn’t even going to play golf, or catch, or have a thing to do with anything round. Wow, what a relief!

As the ball swung back past the cab I saw Jackson fiddling with things. There was what looked like a manic expression on his face. He held up his thumb and index finger in a circle. The sign that everything’s OK. Then he seized some levers, yanked them. The nut was out of his mind.

“Jackson, stop!” I yelled. “Forget it.”

The ball went way back, to-hell-and-gone back, then swoop, started forward. “No!” I yelled. “Jackson, I’ve changed my miaaaaahhh!”

Swoo-ooop. Really moving. Down to the bottom of the arc, then onward and upward. Hah — onward and upward. The hell with that noise. Give me downward and backward.

This time we were really moving. We were going to crash! No doubt about it. The bastard was overdoing it. He might knock the whole top of the building off. Going to crush hell out of the wall. And me. In a flash I knew what had happened. Jackson — and I probably should have thought of it before — wasn’t used to swinging his ball up to a wall and stopping. Hell, no; he was used to crashing like crazy smack into it and sending it flying. Wham, down she goes! It was just muscle memory, conditioned reflex, habit in operation. Being drunk probably didn’t help, either.

That old wall ahead was getting closer. A lot closer. Wouldn’t be long now.

So this was the end. Maybe they’d put up a plaque: Shell Scott squashed here. It would live — for a week, until the urban-renewal project reached the Sebastian Building. Then I’d be only a memory, a stain on a few old bricks. But that’s life. No use crying over spilt blood. That’s the way the ball bounces.

That old wall was practically on me.

Swoop, swish. Air whistled past my head. And it was very bright here now. The first swing toward the Sebastian suite had attracted some attention. If you want accuracy, it had attracted a perfectly astonishing amount of attention. There were all kinds of lights aimed at me — spot-lights, red lights, flashlights, lots of lights. I was zeroed in, the way ack-ack gunners get planes in their sights. The reason I hadn’t been shot down like a duck was probably because they weren’t quite sure exactly what I was. My beard was flying, whipping, and air was zooming into my open mouth as into a cave. And a lot of blood-curdling noise was zooming out.

And then the wall was right before me. Couldn’t put it off any longer. At least Jackson had aimed right, directly between the two windows. In that last miserable moment I could see through both windows, see people in there — all unaware. Unsuspecting. Relaxed.

There wasn’t even a chance to jump. All I could do was hang on.

The ball hit. wham, crash! There was time — a millionth of a second — for me to realize the racket sounded like the banging of Judge Sebastian’s gavel m my dream. Man, that had been some dream. I’d even dreamed into the future. Lots in it, all right; I even remembered getting killed.

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<code> CHAPTER TWENTY

wham! crash! blam! smash!

So this was death.

It sure wasn’t living.

I felt something giving. I figured it was me giving. My bones and head, etc. Felt as if it were tearing all my etc. to shreds. Talk about excruciating pain! But I wouldn’t be feeling pain if I was dead.

I wasn’t dead. I was getting gouged by a hunk of steel, hit by bricks, things were going bonk on my head, and suddenly I was flying through air filled with hunks of brick and plaster and colorful splinters. That demolition ball had smacked directly opposite Dalton’s “Life and Death.” I saw faces, bodies, a desk, everything in a blur. Then I smacked, still in midair, into two guys just spinning startled faces toward me, and we all three went down in a heap.

I think from then on, if not for several hours before, I was literally in a state of shock. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion — though at first I was moving in real slow motion myself. I didn’t go out. But my head felt broken and my vision was blurred for several seconds.

I managed to get up, and it took quite a while. Not merely apparent time but actual time. I got to my feet, though, aching, bleeding, dazed, but I came up with my gun in my hand; it had still been clamped into the clamshell holster when I reached for it. I was slow, but the others here were in a state of stupefaction. And nobody else was holding a gun — though there was at least one other man with a gun here.

Because as I backed up, left leg almost buckling under me, moving back so I could see all the men present here in Sebastian’s office, I saw the face of Bill Bonchak. The wiry black mustache, gleaming bald head — and still dressed in black. Probably the same black suit he’d worn yesterday. When I’d seen him. When he’d seen Sylvia.

There were several others. Joe Rice, fat, oily-eyed, and paunchy, his jowly face like a pale death mask. Midas Kapper, Communist — no, not a Communist; he’d only been identified twice in sworn testimony, and everybody knows that’s not enough. He sat next to Sebastian, and on the other side of Sebastian was short, pink-faced Mordecai Withers, his pale and wide-set eyes staring at me from behind his big hornrimmed glasses. In the corner on my left stood Gary Baron, his face almost as white as that streak in his hair.

Three or four other men were in the room, including a big-union boss, but with Baron was the prize of the pack:

Horatio M. Humble.

It didn’t surprise me. Maybe I was past surprise. Or maybe it was simply that he belonged here. He not only belonged, it was almost inevitable that he — or someone like him — would be here. The natural result to be expected from these men, and what they believed, was a Horatio M. Humble. It was fitting that he be here — with Sebastian, and Kapper, and Baron, and Withers, and Rice. And Bill Bonchak.

Bonchak of all those here was the only man who’d even attempted to reach for a gun. Maybe he was the only man wearing a gun. The others, most of them, killed with words, with semantic weapons honed to needle sharpness. Of course, some would say that Horatio Humble’s being here with these men on the eve of the national elections didn’t really mean anything; to find him here was only like finding an ex-convict sitting in the bank robbers’ getaway car: “Guilt by association.” He wasn’t committing any crime, certainly. Maybe the thieves were inside; but, hell, the bank hadn’t been robbed yet, had it?

Seeing him here — him and these others — pleased me, however. It figured. And it made all I’d done worthwhile. All I’d done, and all that was going to happen. And it was sure going to happen.

I said as clearly and distinctly as possible, to make sure they all heard it, “As a private citizen, I am placing William Bonchak under arrest for the crime of murder, the murder of Sylvia White.” I got it said. I could hear the elevator coming up, feet pounding on the stairs; somebody was already banging on the locked door. There had been no officer inside the room; Sebastian wouldn’t have permitted that — and no wonder. No wonder, either, that these men hadn’t tried to pass out through that police cordon.

Bonchak, well over on my right, had his hand under his coat. Not quite on the gun he must have carried there, but close. That’s the way he’d been when I’d first looked at him. He hadn’t moved since. Well, I’d give him his chance to move. Every man deserves a chance.

I looked to my left, turned my back to Bonchak. He’d like that. A back would be irresistible to a sonofabitch like Billy Bounce. I showed him my back as long as I could, as long as I dared.

Not one word other than my own had yet been spoken. Something slammed into the door and it gave a little. The next one would do it. I could hear sirens. A lot of sirens.

It seemed a long time, but I gave him maybe a second. His gun was an automatic, uncocked, and he had to work the slide to throw a bullet into the chamber. I heard the click-click as I thumbed back the hammer of my Colt and turned. He was swinging the gun up toward me fast.

Not fast enough, though. I pumped four bullets into his belly. One slug left. It didn’t make any difference; I wouldn’t be using it. The door smashed inward and, before Billy Bounce hit the floor, the cops were all over me.

It was a little rough. No rougher than it should have been. My gun was grabbed and my arms twisted behind me, the cuffs bit into my wrists. I saw one familiar face, Lieutenant Rawlins.

I licked blood off my mouth. “Rawlins!”

He’d been staring at Humble and the others. He swung his head toward me.

“Bonchak,” I said. “Ask him about Sylvia White. While he’s alive.”

He turned toward Bonchak, but I didn’t see what happened then. Two husky officers were hauling me toward the door. But just before we went through it, I passed within a yard of Horatio Humble.

His face was contorted, covered with perspiration and a flush of pink. “You bastard,” he said. “You utter bastard. This could cost me the election.”

I managed a bit of a grin. “Well,” I said, “that’s showbiz.”

It was a long night in jail.

And a long day. Election day.

During the morning Captain Samson — clean-shaven and chewing a black cigar, of course — brought me a copy of the Herald-Standard. The headline was one word: vote. But printed on the front page was the full text of David Emerson’s speech; a photographic reproduction, reduced in size but still legible, of my “Read All About Politics” paper; and a large-enough, and clear, picture taken in Ulysses Sebastian’s office — the well-known smog-filled room — apparently moments after I’d left. The faces were prominent — all the important ones. Horatio Humble, Sebastian, Withers, Kapper, Baron. And even Bill Bonchak’s foot.

All hell was breaking loose outside, I gathered, but I could only get second-hand reports in my cell. It was clear, though, that the story wasn’t merely local or national; it was international. There were feature stories ranging from calm to hysterical, factual to smearing, in everything from The New York Times to the London Observer to the Soviet Union’s Pravda and Trud, or Crud — or whatever they call it. Crud, of course, said my actions were typical of the right wing; imagine that — for all they really knew I might have been a liberal Democrat.

There isn’t an awful lot to do in a jail cell, so I looked over the rest of the paper, picking out headlines, glancing at the leads of several stories.

“officials perplexed by steep rise in rate of adult crime and juvenile delinquency.”

“officials perplexed by steep rise in rate of adult delinquency and juvenile crime.”

“officials perplexed.”

A man who had performed “unnatural acts” on six little girls ranging from four to ten years old had been sentenced to twenty days in jail, the sentence to be served on ten consecutive weekends so that his wife and little girls wouldn’t be deprived of his services during the week.

Two teen-age pranksters who had rifled a TV star’s home and borrowed eight thousand dollars’ worth of Jewels and six thousand dollars’ worth of dollars had been given a severe tongue-lashing and three years’ probation by a local judge.

An industrialist who had either cheated or made a mistake on his income-tax returns had been sentenced to federal prison for twenty years, including weekends; he’d paid only 44 per cent of his earned income in taxes instead of the 62 per cent the IRS said he owed.

A prominent attorney had urged in a speech that all felonies be prosecuted as misdemeanors.

A U.S. Senator had introduced a bill which would require all universities receiving federal funds to employ at least one Communist professor “to assure freedom of speech for all”; in the same speech on the Senate floor he castigated opponents of forced fluoridation as “Crackpots undermining our great democracy.”

Two more Soviet delegates to the United Nations had been apprehended by the FBI for concluding a purchase of classified information from federal employees; since they were diplomats immune from prosecution, they had been requested to leave the country.

Our Ambassador to the United Nations had made a speech in which he called the UN “…at best our one real opportunity to assure a lasting peace, and at worst an international forum where men of good will may engage in calm and reasonable discussion….”

The UN delegate from Bongowa had been severely reprimanded for cooking and eating the delegate from Waboongo.

The U.S. had been outvoted in the UN again.

A Presidential adviser, not elected but appointed by the President, urged again that all armaments be placed under the control of the United Nations “to assure a lasting peace.”

The president of the Committee for a Sane Compromise had joined with the president of the Committee to Assure a Lasting Peace to call for an end to the arms race, because our defensive policy was offensive to the Soviet Union and thus “escalates tensions, damaging our efforts to assure a lasting peace.”

A college professor circulating a petition for the release of a Communist official from federal prison, and a college professor circulating a petition for the abolition of capital punishment, and the local head of the SPCA, had all signed a petition urging that Shell Scott be executed.

The head of a Communist government had been welcomed with a parade and official reception in Washington, D.C.

The head of an anti-Communist government had been denied permission to enter the United States, the land of the free and the home of the brave.

And so on. I didn’t read all of the stories, of course. I only read in its entirety the one about “Officials Perplexed.” They just couldn’t figure out why there was so much immorality.

My first real iota of hope came late Tuesday afternoon, when both Samson and Rawlins came to my cell. Samson told me the police had total proof now that Charley White had made the “Annabel Lee” record and, of course, all the “Johnny Troy” records and albums since then. They’d run down some of the people who had helped in the recording process, the sessions when White and Boyle — alone in a room with a mike — had taped and retaped the selections, including one man who’d been in on the entire operation, knew the whole story of the fraud.

“That information’s been released to the press,” Sam said. “Should help.”

“Yeah. There’s bound to be more info, too. But I hope it’s soon.”

“People are pretty well stirred up. There was some trouble when they were burying Francis Boyle.” He told me about reports, just coming in, that there’d been a riot or something. Seems they actually hauled Boyle out of his casket.

Then Rawlins said, “I’ve been sticking with Bonchak, Shell.” He looked tired. “Tough one. He didn’t spill — until just before he died.” He grinned. “We all knew it wasn’t you. Shell, but we had to play it straight.”

“I know. I wasn’t so sure it wasn’t me, myself. Not after listening to Baron and some of those other sweeties.”

It helped. But I needed a lot of help. The story was snowballing, not melting away. And, I realized, right now, during this afternoon, the citizens were voting. Of course, that picture taken in Sebastian’s office last night was all over the country, all over the world. It was sure to have an effect. No telling how much.

I was getting a lot of hell, naturally. The Worker claimed I was some diabolical plot. And the duerfs said the same thing, of course; they always do. But the evidence — the truth — was beginning to be overwhelming. Sebastian was thoroughly discredited, no changing that. And a number of his clients were discredited, too, deflated like balloons stuck with pins. But whether Humble had been stuck enough, I didn’t know. Nobody would know until long after the polls closed.

And that gave me a chilling thought. There were plenty of charges against me now; there would be more. And I would really be cooked — if Horatio M. Humble was elected President of the U.S.A.

I groaned aloud. What if Humble was elected President?

The shock shook me so much that it gave rise to what was almost another dream, a waking nightmare. In a kind of pink haze before my eyes I saw what would happen — as if it had already happened. Ulysses Sebastian, Midas Kapper, and the tight-pants ninny-poet had gone straight to the State Department. Ronald Langor was our Ambassador to the United Nations. Mordecai Withers had been installed as the new chief of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Gary Baron was heading the United States Information Agency and the Voice of America, telling the story of the real U.S.A. — not the Ulysses Sebastian Agency — to a wide-eared world. Joe Rice had replaced J. Edgar Hoover as head of the FBI. The U.S. had disarmed unilaterally and turned its weapons over to the UN, which would protect us from Communist aggression; the police forces had disarmed and turned their guns over to the Mafia, which would protect us from the Mafia. The Supreme Court had found Shell Scott to be a danger to the nation; a paranoid right-wing extremist, he, and — antiadministration! So he and all his fellow nuts were tarred and feathered and … sent without ifs, ands, or buts — off to Cuckooland!

The pink haze lilted, but I was still groaning aloud. But all I could do was sit in my cell, sit and think and sweat and shiver. So I sat there. And thought. And sweated. And shivered.

It was late at night when Samson and Rawlins came in again. Sam was grinning. He put a beefy paw on my shoulder and said, “Well, Sebastian cracked. Didn’t think it would happen so soon, but it did. He cracked as soon as he heard — Well, the important thing is he confessed to killing Charley White.”

“The hell.”

“He did. White was going to spill the beans, fed up with Boyle getting all the glory, love, attention, when it was his voice. You know.”

“I know.”

“After killing White, Sebastian bad Rice handle everything else that came up.”

“Like me.”

“White didn’t know that nut doctor — “

“Mordecai Withers?”

“Yeah, him. Didn’t know he and Sebastian were like peas in a pod. White was mixed up, this thing eating at him. Started going to Withers, seriously, for help, but couldn’t swallow the guff — “

“Understandably. I’ve heard the guff.”

“But the main thing is he spilled the whole story to Withers. His voice, he should be getting the credit, and so forth. Withers naturally passed it on to Sebastian, who visited Charley that Thursday night. Charley told him to go to hell, he’d had it, was going to tell the world. Figured Sebastian couldn’t afford to kill him because he was Johnny Troy’s voice. Figured wrong. Sebastian helped him over the balcony.”

“I had a hunch that was it. Sebastian had bigger birds in hand than Johnny Troy, and much bigger plans. I just didn’t have any proof of it for a while.”

“Well, we’ve got proof now. Can’t do anything to Withers himself. He didn’t commit any crime — “

“Not much, he didn’t — “

“That, we can prosecute him for. Maybe spilling to Sebastian was a breach of professional ethics, but we can’t slap him in jail for that. Oh, another thing. We found that check you mentioned, in Bonchak’s pants pocket. He still had the note Rice sent him, saying for him to bug your apartment.”

“I thought he still had on that same black suit.”

“Note wasn’t signed, but the check had Rice’s name and address printed on it.” Samson had gotten out a kitchen match and fired up his cigar. The stench was already nauseating.

“Damn you,” I said. “That’s OK in your office. But you know I can’t get out of here.”

He blinked the sharp brown eyes at me. “Forgot to tell you. You’re sprung.”

“Sprung?”

“Oh, we’ve got plenty to talk to you about still, so come in tomorrow. There’s the damage to the Sebastian Building — but they’re tearing it down next week anyway, so that’s not too serious. And you ruined Robert Dalton’s ‘Life and Death.’”

I whistled. “Fifty-two thousand clams. Fine.”

“Oh, Sebastian told us about that, too. No money changed hands. That was just a story to build up Dalton.”

“Somehow it doesn’t surprise me. Man, I must live right.”

Sam looked at Rawlins, and Rawlins looked at Sam, and they shook their heads.

Then Samson said to me, “One of the reasons Sebastian put that monstrosity there was to conceal a wall safe behind it. You knocked that loose when you came through. Plenty in it about Humble, Rice, Kapper, and so on. Some of it’s coded, but we’re working on that. Incidentally, that Dalton cube thing there is one reason you weren’t killed. Putting it in weakened the wall, took out some of the bricks and reinforcing. By the way, what in the name of hell possessed you to — Never mind. I don’t want to hear about it.”

I said, “There must be other charges. Like being a nuisance — and I know I’ve got to pay for repairing a fairway. Maybe even a plane. And probably cover some golfers’ bets — “

“Nothing we have to keep you in for tonight. Want you down here tomorrow, though. I told you, you’re sprung.”

“Whoever did it, he must swing a lot of weight.”

“The President usually does.”

“Pres — You mean, the old…”

“President-elect, I meant.”

My voice shook as I asked, “Hu — Humble?”

Samson grinned. “Emerson.”

After that, of course, it was a breeze.

They let me out. I was free again — and you don’t know how good it feels unless you’ve lost your freedom temporarily. Even the smog smelled sweet.

They took me in a police car; I wasn’t out of danger from confused citizens, among others. But we went straight to the Emerson-for-President Headquarters, which was a scene of joy and wild celebration. Emerson was there, naturally; Humble had conceded within the hour, when it was obvious California was in the Emerson column.

I talked five minutes with the new President. We shook hands, and he thanked me for my help, and I told him I’d just been doing a job for a client. He said that was good. He mentioned that when he got settled in “the new job” he might want to talk to me again. In Washington. I told him any time, any place; I’d be there. At any rate, he seemed quite pleased with what I’d done, even though it was, perhaps, a bit unorthodox. But, hell, any red-blooded American boy would have done the same, I figured.

I was particularly glad that David Emerson was pleased; because, due to circumstances beyond my control, I hadn’t been able to vote for him.

Then it was all over but the shouting — of which there was, and was to be, more than plenty. And I was free, really free. Time now to get back to normal, pick up the threads, start looking ahead. I took a deep breath, breathed in freedom.

Of course, basically it wasn’t really over. There would be times when I would wake up suddenly, fragments of nightmare clinging to my brain. There would be times when I would hear the tinkle of a voice like Chinese bells. I would remember Johnny Troy, too, with a kind of sad affection. Him, and Charley White — among others — and what they might have been.

But in still another way it wasn’t over. Duerfism wasn’t dead; it wasn’t even dying. Lunacy, and “the madness of crowds,” seems to spring eternal from the human noodle. And, too, judging from newspaper stories, radio and TV telecasts, pronouncements from numerous well-known assayers of the contemporary scene, the reaction was just getting under way. A lot of people, one hell of a lot, were on my side; but some damned powerful people hated my “conservative” guts — and they were still at bat. Batting me around. Discussing my actions, which, just maybe, had had something to do with swinging a lot of votes away from their hero. Humble.

Predictably, it was called “a despicable last-minute smear by subversive agents of the radical right.” How about that? Sebastian and Rice, among others — even Humble himself — were guilty; but somehow I had become the whole “radical right” and by implication all the right that wasn’t radical, and was thus the guilty group smearing those poor innocent individuals. But it figured. These big-name duerfs have a slick way of shifting guilt from the guilty to the innocent so neatly that even when you expect it you don’t see it happen. Take a fact; draw from it false conclusions; then wrap those warped conclusions around whomever you’re after — and pretend he’s a whole group of villains. That’s the way to get ‘em.

It’s part of a technique as slick as TV soap, and proceeds to conclusions so divorced from truth as to batter normal brains into total insensibility. It’s divorced from logic, sure; but the hell with logic — it’s that old emotional appeal that gets results. Every hypnotist knows that.

So it wasn’t going to be smooth sailing ahead for me. But I’d never asked for smooth sailing in the first place. And best of all, the ship wasn’t sunk — make that a yacht. I like good old capitalistic yachts; what’s good enough for the President is good enough for me. I’d have one of the things myself if I could afford it. Or if — but, no. Emerson had been elected. There’d be no yachtcare now.

But, one day at a time. Life goes on in the midst of battle. Tonight there was — tonight. So I planned my evening. Eat. That’s what I’d do. I’d eat, and eat, and eat. My hunger still hadn’t really returned, but it was lurking down there. Lurking and making growling noises. I’d start with a big hunk of prime ribs, rare and tender. Maybe I could find a quiet spot where nobody would recognize me.

But there was no sense eating alone. Not when the world’s full of beautiful, hungry women.

So at the apartment, after I’d fed the fish and waved to Amelia, while I showered and shaved off a nearly three-day growth of beard, and said “Ouch” a lot, and dressed in my most resplendent duds, I ran over the possibilities in my mind.

There was Lydia…. Carmen, Natasha, Lulu…. And Polly Plonk. Yeah, Polly, woweewow. And Evelyn, Kyra, Moira. And there was —

Sure, that one. Yes, indeed, that one. But maybe she wouldn’t go out with me, especially after all the fuss. But maybe I could talk her into it. Who knows? A man never knows what he can do till he tries.

I grabbed the phone, dialed.

The sweet-hot sultry voice came on. “Hello-o?”

“Hi,” I said. “This is Shell….”

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