Black

The man said: “McCary.”

“No.” I shook my head and started to push past him, and he said: “McCary,” again thickly, and then he crumpled into a heap on the wet sidewalk.

It was dark there, there wasn’t anyone on the street — I could have walked away. I started to walk away and then the sucker instinct got the best of me and I went back and bent over him.

I shook him and said: “Come on, chump — get up out of the puddle.”

A cab came around the corner and its headlights shone on me — and there I was, stooping over a drunk whom I’d never seen before, who thought my name was McCary. Any big-town driver would have pegged it for a stick-up, would have shoved off or sat still. That wasn’t a big town — the cab slid alongside the curb and a fresh-faced kid stuck his face into the light from the meter and said: “Where to?”

I said: “No place.” I ducked my head at the man on the sidewalk. “Maybe this one’ll ride — he’s paralyzed.”

The kid clucked: “Tch, tch.”

He opened the door and I stooped over and took hold of the drunk under his armpits and jerked him up and across the sidewalk and into the cab. He was heavy in a funny limp way. There was a hard bulge on his left side, under the arm.

I had an idea. I asked the kid: “Who’s McCary?”

He looked self-consciously blank for a minute and then he said: “There’s two — Luke and Ben. Luke’s the old man-owns a lot of real estate. Ben runs a pool-hall.”

“Let’s go see Ben,” I said. I got into the cab.

We went several blocks down the dark street and then I tapped on the glass and motioned to the kid to pull over to the curb. He stopped and slid the glass and I said: “Who’s McCary?”

“I told you.”

I said: “What about him?”

The kid made the kind of movement with his shoulders that would pass for a shrug in the sticks. “I told you — he runs a pool-hall.”

I said: “Listen. This guy came up to me a few minutes ago and said ‘McCary’ — this guy is very dead.”

The kid looked like he was going to jump out of the cab. His eyes were hanging out.

I waited.

The kid swallowed. He said: “Let’s dump him.”

I shook my head slightly and waited.

“Ben and the old man don’t get along — they’ve been raising hell the last couple of weeks. This is the fourth.” He jerked his head towards the corpse beside me.

“Know him?”

He shook his head and then — to be sure — took a flashlight out of the side-pocket and stuck it back through the opening and looked at the man’s dead face. He shook his head again.

I said: “Let’s go see Ben.”

“You’re crazy, Mister. If this is one of Ben’s boys he’ll tie you up to it, and if it ain’t...”

“Let’s go see Ben.”

Ben McCary was a blond fat man, about forty — he smiled a great deal.

We sat in a little office above his pool-hall and he smiled heartily across all his face and said: “Well, sir — what can I do for you?”

“My name is Black. I came over from St. Paul — got in about a half hour ago.”

He nodded, still with the wide hearty smile; stared at me cordially out of his wide-set blue eyes.

I went on: “I heard there was a lot of noise over here and I thought I might make a connection — pick up some change.”

McCary juggled his big facial muscles into something resembling innocence.

“I don’t know just what you mean, Buddy,” he said. “What’s your best game?”

“What’s yours?”

He grinned again. “Well,” he said, “you can get plenty of action up in the front room.”

I said: “Don’t kid me, Mister McCary. I didn’t come over here to play marbles.”

He looked pleasantly blank.

“I used to work for Dickie Johnson down in K C,” I went on.

“Who sent you to me?”

“Man named Lowry — that’s the name on the label of his coat. He’s dead.”

McCary moved a little in his chair but didn’t change his expression.

“I came in on the nine-fifty train,” I went on, “and started walking uptown to a hotel. Lowry came up to me over on Dell Street and said ‘McCary!’ and fell down. He’s outside in a cab — stiff.”

McCary looked up at the ceiling and then down at the desk. He said: “Well, well” — and took a skinny little cigar out of a box in one of the desk-drawers and lighted it. He finally got around to looking at me again and said: “Well, well,” again.

I didn’t say anything.

After he’d got the cigar going, he turned another of his big smiles on and said: “How am I supposed to know you’re on the level?”

I said: “I’ll bite. What do you think?”

He laughed. “I like you,” he said. “By God! I like you.”

I said I thought that was fine and, “Now let’s try to do some business.”

“Listen,” he said. “Luke McCary has run this town for thirty years. He ain’t my old man — he married my mother and insisted on my taking his name.”

He puffed slowly at his cigar. “I guess I was a pretty ornery kid” — he smiled boyishly — “when I came home from school I got into a jam — you know — kid stuff. The old man kicked me out.”

I lighted a cigarette and leaned back.

“I went down to South America for about ten years, and then I went to Europe. I came back here two years ago and everything was all right for a while and then the old man and I got to scrapping again.”

I nodded.

“He’d had everything his own way too long. I opened this place about three months ago and took a lot of his gambling business away — a lot of the shipyard men and miners...”

McCary paused, sucked noisily at his cigar.

“Luke went clean off his nut,” he went on. “He thought I was going to take it all away from him...” McCary brought his big fist down hard on the desk. “And by the Christ! I am. Lowry’s the third man of mine in two weeks.

It’s plenty in the open now.”

I said: “How about Luke’s side?”

“We got one of the—” he said. “A runner.”

“It isn’t entirely over the gambling concession?”

“Hell, no. That’s all it was at first. All I wanted was to make a living. Now I’ve got two notch-joints at the other end of town. I’ve got a swell protection in with the law and I’m building up a liquor business that would knock your eye out.”

I asked: “Is Luke in it by himself?”

McCary shook his head slowly. “He don’t show anywhere. There’s a fellah named Stokes runs the works for him — a young fellah. They been partners nearly eight years. It’s all in Stokes’ name...”

“What does Stokes look like?”

“Tall — about your build. Shiny black hair, and a couple of big gold teeth” — McCary tapped his upper front teeth with a fat finger — “here.”

I said: “How much is he worth to you?”

McCary stood up. He leaned across the desk and grinned down at me and said: “Not a nickel.” His eyes were wide and clear like a baby’s. He said slowly: “The old man is worth twenty-five hundred smackers to you.”

I didn’t say anything and McCary sat down and opened another drawer and took out a bottle of whiskey. He poured a couple of drinks.

“I think the best angle for you,” he said, “is to go to Stokes and give him the same proposition you gave me. Nobody saw you come in here. It’s the only way you can get near the old man.”

I nodded. We drank.

“By God! I like your style,” he said. “I’ve been trying to get along with an outfit of yokels.”

We smiled at one another. I was glad he said he liked me because I knew he didn’t like me at all. I was one up on him, I didn’t like him very well either.

Stokes sat on a corner of the big library-table, his long legs dangling.

He said: “You’re airing Ben — how do we know you’ll play ball with us?” His eyes were stony.

I looked at the old man. I said: “I don’t like that fat — son of yours — and I never double-cross the best offer.”

Luke McCary was a thin little man with a pinched red face, bushy white hair. He sat in a big armchair on the other side of the table, his head and neck and wild white hair sticking up out of the folds of a heavy blue bathrobe.

He looked at me sharply. He said: “I don’t want any part of it.”

“Then I’ll have to act on the best offer.”

Stokes grinned.

The old man stood up. He said: “Why — damn you and your guts...” He opened a humidor on the table and took out a small automatic. “I can shoot the buttons off your vest, young fella... I can shoot you for a yegg right now, and no one’ll ever know the difference...”

I said: “You’ll know the difference — for not having taken advantage of talent, when you had the chance.”

He put the automatic back in the box and sat down and smiled gently at Stokes.

Stokes was looking at the floor. He said: “Five grand if you wipe out the whole outfit. Run ’em out of town, stick ’em in jail, poison ’em... Anything.”

“Wouldn’t you like a new railroad station too?”

They didn’t say anything for a minute. They looked at me.

I went on: “No sale. I’ll take care of Ben for that — but busting up the organization would mean sending for a few friends — would cost a hell of a lot more than five...”

The old man looked the least bit scared for a second-then he said: “Ben’ll do.”

“How about laying something on the line?”

Stokes said: “Don’t be silly.”

The old man cackled. “Well I never saw such guts,” he said.

I said: “All right, gentlemen. Maybe I’ll call you later.”

Stokes went downstairs with me. He smiled in a strange way. “I never knew the old man to go for anything that look’s as tricky as this. I guess it looks good because Ben thinks you’re working for him.”

I nodded. I said: “Uh huh — Ben’s a swell guy. He’ll probably blast me on sight.”

“I don’t think you’ll find him at his joint.”

I waited and Stokes leaned against the door, said: “There’s a big outfit downstate that’s been running twelve trucks a week through here from the Border. They’ve paid off for this division of the highway for years — to the old man. The last two convoys have been hi-jacked at Four-mile Creek, north of town — a couple drivers were killed...”

He paused, looked wise a minute, went on: “That was Ben. There was a convoy due through last night — they run in bunches of four, or six — it didn’t show up. It’s a cinch for tonight — and that’s where Ben’ll be.”

I said: “That’s fine. How do I get there?”

Stokes told me to follow the main highway north, and where to take the cutoff that crossed Four-mile. I thanked him and went out.

I walked down to a drugstore on the corner and called a cab. When it came, I got in and had the driver jockey around until he was parked in a spot where I could watch the front door of the McCary house.

After a while, Stokes came out and got into a roadster and snorted up past us and turned down the side street. I told the driver to follow him. I don’t think the driver knew who it was. It didn’t matter a hell of a lot anyway.

I got out and told the driver to wait and walked on down Dell Street, keeping close to the fence. It was raining pretty hard again. I passed the place where Lowry had come up to me, and I went on to the corner; and then went back the same way until I came to the narrow gate I had missed in the darkness.

It was more a door than a gate, set flush with the high fence. I finagled with the latch for a while and then pushed the gate open slowly and went into a yard. It was a big yard, full of old lumber and old box-car trucks — stuff like that. There was a long shed along one side, and a small two-story building on the far side.

I stumbled along as quietly as I could towards the building and then I went around the corner of a big pile of ties, and Stokes’ roadster was sitting there very dark and quiet in the rain. I went past it and up to the building and along the wall until I saw the lighted window.

I had to rustle around quietly and find a box and stand on it to see through the little square window. The panes were dirty; the inside looked like a time-office. Stokes and Ben McCary and another man were there. They were arguing about something. McCary was walking around waving his arms; Stokes and the other man were sitting down. I couldn’t hear a word they said. The rain was roaring on the tin-roof of the shed and all I could hear was a buzz of voices.

I didn’t stay there very long. It didn’t mean anything. I got down and put the box back and wandered around until I found McCary’s car. Anyway, I guessed it was his car. It was a big touring-car and it was parked near the gate on the opposite side of the block from Dell Street, where Stokes had come in.

I got in and sat in the back seat. The side-curtains were drawn and it was nice to get out of the rain for a while.

In about ten minutes, the light went out and I could hear voices coming towards the car. I sat down on the floor. The three of them stood outside for a minute talking about “a call from Harry” — then Stokes and the other man went off towards Stokes’ car, and McCary squeezed into the front seat and stepped on the starter.

I waited till we had burned through the gate and were halfway up the block, and then I put a gun against the back of McCary’s neck. He straightened out in the seat and eased the brake on. I told him to go on to the old man’s house.

We sat in the big room upstairs. The old man sat in the big armchair by the table, and Ben sat across from him. I was half lying down in another chair out of the circle of light and I had the gun on my lap.

The old man was fit to be tied. He was green with hate and he kept glaring at Ben out of his little red-rimmed eyes.

I said: “Well, gran’pa — if you’ll make out that check now, we’ll finish this business.” The old man swallowed.

“You can give me your twenty-five hundred in cash,” I went on to Ben. “Then I’ll put the chill on both of you — and everybody’ll be happy.”

They must have thought I meant it. Ben got rigid, and the old man cleared his throat and made a slow pass at the humidor.

I fiddled with the gun. I threw a pack of cigarettes on the table and said: “Smoke?”

The old man looked at the cigarettes and at the gun in my hand, and relaxed.

I said: “Still and all — it don’t quite square with my weakness for efficiency, yet. Maybe you boys’ll get together and make me an offer for Stokes. He’s the star — he’s been framing both of you.”

I don’t think Ben was very surprised — but the old man looked like he’d swallowed a mouse.

“He’s been in with Ben on the truck heistings,” I went on. “He’s been waiting for a good spot to dump you — working on your connections.”

The old man said: “That’s a — damned lie.”

“Suit yourself.”

I went on to Ben: “He made the five-grand offer for your hide, in Luke’s name, tonight — and he gave me the Four-mile steer...” I hesitated a moment. “Only you wouldn’t try three in the same spot, would you?”

Ben finally got his smile working. He started to say something but I interrupted him:

“Stokes told me you rubbed the two boys on the trucks, too.”

Ben’s smile went out like a light. He said: “Stokes shot both those men himself — and there wasn’t any need for it. They were lined up alongside the road...”

Something in the soft way he said it made it sound good.

I said: “He’ll be around your place — no?”

“He went home.”

Ben gave me the number and I called up, but there wasn’t any answer.

We sat there without saying anything for several minutes, and then the door downstairs opened and closed and somebody came up.

I said to Ben: “What’ll you bet?”

The door opened and Stokes came in. He had a long gray raincoat on and it made him look even taller and thinner than he was. He stood in the doorway looking mostly at the old man; then he came in and sat down on a corner of the table.

I said: “Now that the class is all here, you can start bidding.”

The old man laughed deep in his throat. Stokes was watching me expressionlessly, and Ben sat smiling stupidly at his hands.

“I’m auctioning off the best little town in the state, gentlemen,” I went on. “Best schools, sewage system, post-office... Best street-lighting, water supply...”

I was having a swell time.

The old man was staring malevolently at Stokes. “I’ll give you twenty-five thousand dollars,” he said to me, “to give me that pistol and get out of here.”

If I’d thought there was any chance of collecting, I might have talked to him. Things happen that way sometimes.

I looked at my watch and put the gun down on the arm of the chair where it looked best and picked up the phone.

I asked Ben: “Where’s the business going to be pulled off tonight?”

Ben wanted to be nice. He said: “A coffee joint about six miles north of town.” He glanced at Stokes. “This — tried to swing it back to Four-mile when he thought you’d be there sniping for me.”

“The boys are there now?”

He nodded. “The trucks have been stopping there to eat lately.”

I asked the operator for long-distance, and asked for the Bristol Hotel in Talley, the first town north. The connection went right through. I asked for Mister Cobb.

When he answered, I told him about the coffee place, and that I wasn’t sure about it; and told him he’d find the stuff that had been heisted in the sheds of the yard on Dell Street. I wasn’t sure of that either, but I watched Ben and Stokes when I said it and it looked all right. Cobb told me that he’d gotten into Talley with the convoy about midnight and had been waiting for my call since then. I hung up. “There’ll be some swell fireworks out there,” I said. “There’s a sub-machine-gun on every truck — double crews. And it don’t matter much,” I went on to Ben, “how good your steer is. They’ll be watching out all the way.”

Stokes stood up.

I picked up the gun. “Don’t move so far, Skinny,” I said. “It makes me nervous.”

He stood there staring at the gun. The water was running off his raincoat and it had formed into a little dark pool at his feet.

He said: “What the hell do you want?”

“I wanted you to know that one of the kids you shot up last week at Four-mile was my boss’ brother. He went along for the ride.”

I don’t think Stokes could move. I think he tried to move sidewise or get his hand into his pocket, or something, but all he could do was take a deep breath. Then I shot him in the middle of the body where he shot the kid, and he sank down on the floor with his legs crossed under him, like a tailor.

The old man didn’t get up. He sat a little deeper in his chair and stared at Stokes.

Ben moved very fast for a fat man. He was up and out the door like a bat out of hell. That was OK with me — he couldn’t get to the coffee place before the trucks got there. I had the keys to his car, and it was too far anyway.

I got up and put the rod away and went over to the table and picked up my cigarettes. I looked down at the old man, said: “Things’ll be a little quieter now, maybe. You’ll get the dough for haulage through your territory, as usual. See that it gets through.”

He didn’t answer.

I started for the door and then there was a shot out in front of the house. I ran on down to the front door. It was open and Ben was flat on the threshold — had fallen smack on his face, half through the door.

I ducked back through the hall and tried a couple locked doors. When I came up through the hall again, the old man was on his knees beside Ben, and was rocking back and forth, moaning a little.

I went through another room and into the kitchen and on through, out the back door. I crossed the backyard and jumped a low fence and walked through another yard to a gate that led into an alley. I sloshed along through the mud until I came to a cross-street, and went on down to the corner that was diagonally across the block from the McCary house.

A cab came down the street and I waited until it was almost to the corner, stepped out in front of it. The driver swerved and stepped on the gas, but he had slowed enough to give me time to jump on the running-board.

I stuck my head in to the light from the meter. That turned out to be my best hunch of the evening because in another second, the driver would have opened up my chest with one of the dirtiest looking .45’s I ever saw, at about two feet. It was the kid who had picked Lowry and me up. He hesitated just long enough when he saw who I was.

We nearly ran into a tree and I had time to reach in and knock that cannon out of his hand. He stepped on the brake, and reached for the gun, but I beat him to it by a hair and stuck it in my overcoat pocket and got in beside him.

I said: “Shame on you — almost crashing an old pal like me.”

He sat tight in the seat and got a weak grin working and said: “Where to?”

“Just away.”

We went on through the mud and rain, and turned into a slightly better lighted street.

I said: “How did you know Ben shot Lowry?”

The kid kept his head down, his eyes ahead. “Lowry and me have lived together for two years,” he said. “He used to be in the hack racket too, till he got mixed up with McCary...

“Lowry won a lot of jack in one of Ben’s crap games a couple day ago, and Ben wanted him to kick back with it-said everybody that worked for him was automatically a shill, and couldn’t play for keeps. But Lowry’s been dropping every nickel he made in the same game, for months. That was okay with Ben. It was all right to lose, but you mustn’t win.”

I nodded, lighted a cigarette.

“Ben shot Lowry tonight at the joint on Dell Street. I know it was him because Lowry’s been afraid of it — and that’s why he said ‘McCary.’”

“Did you know it was Lowry when you picked us up?”

“Not until I used the light. Then, when we got to Ben’s I saw him get out of his car and go in just ahead of you — then I was sure. I took Lowry up to his pa’s after you went in.”

The kid drove me to the next town south. I forget the name. I got a break on a train — I only had to wait about ten minutes.

Red 71

Shane pressed the button beneath the neat red 71. Then he leaned close against the building and tilted his head a little and looked up at the thick yellow-black sky. Rain swept in great uneven and diagonal sheets across the dark street, churned the dark puddle at his feet. The street-light at the corner swung, creaked in the wind.

Light came suddenly through a slit in the door, the door was opened. Shane went into a narrow heavily carpeted hallway. He took off his dark soft hat, shook it back and forth, handed it to the man who had opened the door.

He said: “Hi, Nick. How is it?”

Nick said: “It is very bad weather — and business is very bad.”

Nick was short, very broad. It was not fat broadness, but muscled, powerful. His shoulders sloped heavily to long curving arms, big white hands. His neck was thick and white and his face was broad and so white that his long black hair looked like a cap. He hung Shane’s hat on one of a long row of numbered pegs, helped him with his coat, hung it beside the hat.

He stared at Shane reproachfully. “He has been waiting for you a long time,” he said.

Shane said: “Uh-huh,” absently, went back along the hallway and up a flight of narrow stairs. At the top he turned into another hallway, crossed it diagonally to an open double doorway.

The room was large, dimly lighted. Perhaps fifteen or eighteen people, mostly in twos or threes, sat at certain of the little round white covered tables. Three more, a woman and two men, stood at the aluminum bar that ran across one corner.

Shane stood in the doorway a moment, then crossed the room to where Rigas sat waiting for him at a table against the far wall. Several people looked up, nodded or spoke as he passed; he sat down across the table from Rigas, said: “Bacardi,” to the hovering waiter.

Rigas folded his paper, leaned forward with his elbows on the table and smiled.

“You are late, my friend.” He put up one hand and rubbed one side of his pale blue jaw. Shane nodded slightly. He said: “I’ve been pretty busy.” Rigas was Greek. His long rectangular face was deeply lined; his eyes were small, dark, wide-set; his mouth was a pale upward-curved gash. He was in dinner clothes. He said: “Things are good with you— Yes?” Shane shrugged. “Fair.”

“Things are very bad here.” Rigas picked up his cocktail, sipped it, leaned back. Shane waited.

“Very bad,” Rigas went on. “They have raised our protection overhead more than fifty per cent.”

The waiter lifted Shane’s cocktail from the tray with a broad flourish, put it on the table in front of him. Shane looked at it, then up at Rigas, said: “Well...”

Rigas was silent. He stared at the tablecloth, with his thin lips stuck out in an expression of deep concentration.

Shane tasted his cocktail, laughed a little. “You know damned well,” he said, “that I’m not going to put another dime into this place.” He put down his glass and stared morosely at Rigas. “And you know that I can’t do anything about your protection arrangement. That’s your business.” Rigas nodded sadly without looking up. “I know — I know.”

Shane sipped his drink, waited.

Rigas finally looked up, spoke hesitantly: “Lorain — Lorain is going to get a divorce.”

Shane smiled, said: “That’s a break.”

Rigas nodded slowly. “Yes.” He spoke very slowly, deliberately: “Yes — that is a break for all of us.”

Shane leaned forward, put his elbows on the table, put one hand down slowly, palm up. He stared at Rigas and his face was hard, his eyes were very cold. He said: “You made that kind of a crack once before — remember?”

Rigas didn’t speak. He gazed wide-eyed, expressionlessly at Shane’s tie.

“Remember what happened?” Shane went on.

Rigas didn’t speak, or move.

Shane relaxed suddenly. He leaned back, glanced around, smiled faintly.

“I back this joint,” he said, “because I thought you might make it go. I don’t like you — never have — but I like Lorain, have liked her ever since we were kids together. I thought she was an awful chump when she married you and I told her so.”

He sipped his cocktail, widened his smile. “She told me what a great guy you were,” he went on, “an’ she stuck to it, even after you’d dropped all your dough, and hers. Then she told me you wanted to take over this place, an’ I came in on it, laid fifteen grand on the line.”

Rigas moved uncomfortably in his chair, glanced swiftly around the room.

“Since then,” Shane went on, “I’ve chunked in somewhere around five more...”

Rigas interrupted: “We’ve got nearly twelve thousand dollars’ worth of stock.” He made a wide gesture.

“What for?” Shane curved his mouth to a pleasant sneer. “So you can be knocked over, and keep the enforcement boys in vintage wines for a couple of months.”

Rigas shrugged elaborately, turned half away. “I cannot talk to you,” he said. “You fly off the handle...”

“No.” Shane smiled. “You can talk to me all you like, Charley — and I don’t fly off the handle — and I’m not squawking. But don’t make any more cracks about Lorain and me. Whatever I’ve done for you I’ve done for her — because I like her. Like her. Can you get that through that thick spick skull of yours? I wouldn’t want her if she was a dime a dozen — an’ I don’t like that raised eyebrow stuff. It sounds like pimp.”

Rigas’ face turned dull red. His eyes were very sharp and bright. He stood up, spoke very softly, breathlessly, as if it was hard for him to get all the words out: “Let’s go upstairs, Dick.”

Shane got up and they crossed the room together, went out through the double door.

On the third floor they crossed an identical hallway, Rigas unlocked a tall gray door and they went into another large room. There were two large round tables, each with a green-shaded drop-light over it. There were eight men at one of the tables, seven at the other; Rigas and Shane crossed the room to another tall gray door.

The stud dealer and two players looked up from the nearest table, one of the players said: “H’ are yah, Charley?” Then Rigas opened the tall door and they went into a little room that was furnished as an office.

Rigas pressed the light switch, closed the door and stood with his back to it for a moment. His hands were in his coat pockets.

Shane sat down on the edge of the desk. Rigas crossed to the desk slowly and when he was near Shane he jerked his right hand out of his pocket suddenly and swung a thin-bladed knife up at Shane’s throat.

Shane moved a little to one side, grabbed Rigas’ arm near the elbow with one open hand; the knife ripped up crosswise across the lapel of his coat. At the same time he brought his right knee up hard against Rigas’ stomach. Rigas grunted and one of his knees gave way and he slumped down slowly, sidewise to the floor. The knife clattered on the glass desk-top.

As Shane slid off the desk, stood over Rigas, the door opened and a very tall, very spare man came a little way into the room.

Shane glanced at the man and then he looked down at Rigas and his eyes were almost closed, his mouth was a thin hard line. Rigas groaned and held his hands tight against his stomach, his chin tight against his chest.

Shane looked up at the tall man, said: “You’d better not let this brother of yours play with knives. He’s liable to put somebody’s eye out.” He spoke with his teeth together. The tall man stared blandly at Rigas. Shane went past the tall man, to the door, went out and across the big room. All of the men at the tables were looking at him; all of them were very quiet. Two men were standing up at the nearest table.

Shane went out and closed the door behind him, went swiftly down two flights. He found his hat and coat and put them on. Nick came up from the basement as he was knotting his scarf.

Nick said: “Shall I get you a cab, Mister Shane?” Shane shook his head. He slid the big bolt and opened the door and went out into the driving rain. He walked to Madison Avenue, got into a cab and said: “Valmouth — on Forty-Ninth.” It was five minutes after eight.

Shane’s rooms at the Valmouth were on the eighteenth floor. He stood at one of the wide windows and looked down through the swirling, beating rain to Fiftieth Street.

After a little while he went into the bathroom, turned off the water that was roaring into the tub, slipped off his robe.

Someone knocked at the outer door and he called: “Come in,” looked into the long mirror in the bathroom door that reflected part of the living room. A waiter with a wide oval tray opened the door, came in and put the tray down on a low table.

Shane said: “There’s some change on the telephone stand.” He kicked off his slippers and stepped into the tub.

In five minutes he was out, had put on a long dark-green robe, slippers, and was sitting at the low table cutting a thick T-bone steak into dark pink squares.

As he poured coffee the phone buzzed; he leaned side-wise, picked it up, said: “Hello.” Then he said: “Mister Shane is not in... She’s on the way up!... What the hell did you let her start up for?...”

He slammed the phone down, went swiftly to the door and turned the bolt. He stood near the door a moment, then shrugged slightly, turned the bolt back and went slowly back and sat down.

Lorain Rigas was slender, dark. Her black eyes slanted upward a little at the corners, her mouth was full, deeply red, generous. She wore a dark close-fitting raincoat, a small suede hat. She closed the door and stood with her back to it.

Shane said: “Coffee?”

She shook her head. She said: “Charley called me up this afternoon and said he was going to give me the divorce-that he wouldn’t fight it.”

“That’s fine.” Shane put two lumps of sugar in a spoon, held it in the coffee and intently watched the sugar crumble, disappear. “So what?”

She came over and sat down near him. She unbuttoned her coat, crossed her slim silken legs, took a cigarette out of a tiny silver case and lighted it.

She said: “So you’ve got to help me locate Del before he gets to Charley.”

Shane sipped his coffee, waited.

“Del started drinking last night,” she went on, “an’ he kept it up this morning. He went out about eleven, and some time around one, Jack Kenny called up an’ told me that Del was over at his joint — roaring drunk, and howling for Charley’s blood. He gets that way every time he gets boiled — crazy jealous about Charley and me.”

She leaned back and blew a thin cone of smoke at the ceiling. “I told Jack to let him drink himself under the table, or lock him up, or something — an’ in a little while Jack called back and said everything was all right — that Del had passed out.”

Shane was smiling a little. He got up and went to the central table and took a long green-black cigar from a humidor, clipped it, lighted it. Then he went back and sat down.

The girl leaned forward. “About three o’clock,” she said, “the Eastman Agency — that’s the outfit I’ve had tailing Charley for evidence — called up and said they’d located the apartment house up on the West Side where Charley’s been living with the McLean woman...”

Shane said: “How long have they been on the case?”

“Three days — an’ Charley’s ducked them until today — they traced a phone call or something.”

Shane nodded, poured more coffee into the little cup.

Lorain Rigas mashed out her cigarette. “I told Eastman to keep his boys on the apartment until they spotted Charley going in — then I figured on going over tonight and crashing in with a load of witnesses — but in a little while Charley calls me and says everything’s okay, that he’ll give me the divorce any time, any place, and so on.”

Shane said: “You’ve had a busy day.”

“Uh-huh.” She reached over and picked up the cup of coffee, sipped a little. “I didn’t call Eastman back — I figure on going through with it the way I intended to — get the evidence an’ the affidavits an’ what not. Then if Charley changes his mind...” She put the cup back on the tray, leaned back and lighted another cigarette. “But we’ve got to find Del.”

Shane said: “I thought he was cold at Kenny’s.”

She shook her head, smiled. “I called Kenny to see how Del was, and Del was gone. He came to and started where he left off — stole a gun out of Jack’s trunk, and went out the back way. I don’t think he’d really go through with it, but he goes nuts when he gets enough red-eye under his belt...”

Shane was leaning far back in the deep chair, staring vacantly at the ceiling. He said: “If you think Del would really make a pass at Charley—” He puffed at the cigar, finished slowly: “You don’t seem quite as excited about it as you should be.”

“What the hell’s the use getting excited?” She stood up. “It’s a cinch they won’t let Del into 71 — an’ he wouldn’t wait outside for Charley — not when he’s drunk. He gets big ideas about face to face and man to man when he’s drunk. I know Del.”

“Then what are you worrying about?” Shane looked up at her, smiled gently. “He’s probably at home waiting for you.”

“No — I just called up.” She went over to the window.

Shane looked at her back. He said: “You’re pretty crazy about Del — aren’t you?”

She nodded without turning.

Shane put his cigar down, reached for the phone. “Where do you think we ought to start?”

She turned, cocked her head a little to one side and looked at him sleepily. “If I knew where we ought to start, Dick,” she said, “I wouldn’t have had to bother you. You’ve known Del for years — you know the screwy way his mind works as well as I do — and you know the places. Where would he go, do you think, looking for Charley — besides 71?”

Shane picked up the phone, stared at it a little while, put it down. He got up, said: “I’m going to put on some clothes,” and went into the bedroom.

Lorain Rigas sat down near the window. She pushed the small suede hat back off her forehead, leaned back and closed her eyes.

When Shane came in, knotting his tie, she was lying very still. He stood over her a moment, looking out the window. Then he finished his tie and looked down at her and put one hand out tentatively, touched her forehead with his fingers. She opened her eyes and looked up at him expressionlessly for a little while; he turned and went to the chair where he had thrown his coat, put it on.

The phone buzzed a second after Shane had closed and locked the door. He swore under his breath, fished in his pockets. The girl leaned against the wall of the corridor, smiled at his futile efforts to find the key.

The phone buzzed insistently.

He finally found the key, unlocked the door hurriedly, and went to the phone. Lorain Rigas leaned against the frame of the open door.

Shane said: “Hello... Put him on...” He stood, holding the phone, looking at the girl; spoke again into the phone: “Hello, Bill — Yeah — Yeah — What the hell for...?” Then he was silent a while with the receiver at his ear. Finally he said: “Okay, Bill — thanks.” Hung up slowly.

He sat down, gestured with his head for the girl to come in and close the door. She closed the door and stood with her back to it, staring at him questioningly.

He said: “Charley was shot to death in the Montecito Apartments on West Eighty-Second, some time around eight-thirty tonight.”

Lorain Rigas put her hand out slowly, blindly a little way. Her eyes were entirely blank. She went slowly, unsteadily to a chair, sank into it.

Shane said: “They’re holding the McLean gal — an’ they’ve found out that Charley and I had an argument this evening — they want to talk to me. They’re on the way over to pick me up.”

He glanced at his watch. It was nine-forty. He got up and went to the table, took a cigar from the humidor, lighted it. Then he went to the window and stared out into the darkness.

“One — base of brain. One — slightly lower — shattered cervical.” The autopsy surgeon straightened, tossed the glittering instrument into a sterilizer and skinned off his rubber gloves. He glanced at Shane, turned and started towards the door.

Sergeant Gill and an intern turned the body over.

Gill said: “Rigas?” looked up at Shane.

Shane nodded.

Gill spread a partially filled-out form on the examining table near Rigas’ feet, took a stub of pencil from his pocket and added several lines to the form. Then he folded it and put it in his pocket and said: “Let’s go back upstairs.”

Shane followed him out of the room that smelled of ether and of death; they went down a long corridor to an elevator.

On the third floor they left the elevator and crossed the hall diagonally to the open door of a large office, went in. A tall, paunched man with a bony, purplish face turned from the window, went to a swivel chair behind the broad desk and sat down.

He said: “How come you stopped by tonight, Dick?” He leaned back, squinted across the desk at Shane.

Shane shrugged, sat down sidewise on the edge of the desk. “Wanted to say hello to all my buddies.”

“You’re a damned liar!” The tall man spoke quietly, impersonally. “A couple of my men were on the way over to pick you up when you showed up, here. You were tipped, an’ I want to know who it was — it don’t make so much difference about you, but that kind of thing is bad for the department.”

Shane was smiling at Gill. He turned his head to look down at the tall man silently. Finally he said: “What are you going to do, Ed — hold me?”

The tall man said: “Who tipped you to the pinch?”

Shane stood up, faced the tall man squarely. He said: “So it’s a pinch?” He turned and started towards the door, spoke over his shoulder to Gill: “Come on, Sarge.”

“Come here, you bastard!”

Shane turned. His expression was not pleasant. He took two short, slow steps back towards the desk.

The tall man was grinning. He drawled: “You’re hard to get along with — ain’t you!”

Shane didn’t answer. He stood with one foot a little in advance of the other and stared at the tall man from under the brim of his dark soft hat. The flesh around his eyes and mouth was very tightly drawn.

The tall man moved his grin from Shane to Gill. He said: “See if you can find that Eastman Op.”

Gill went out of the room hurriedly.

The tall man swung a little in the chair, turned his head to look out the window. His manner when he spoke was casual, forced:

“The McLean girl killed Rigas.”

Shane did not move or speak.

“What did you and him fight about tonight?” The tall man turned to look at Shane. His hands were folded over his broad stomach and he clicked his thumbnails nervously.

Shane cleared his throat. He said huskily: “Am I under arrest?”

“No. But we’ve got enough to held you on suspicion. You’ve sunk a lot of dough in Rigas’ joint and so far as we know you ain’t taken much out. Tonight you had an argument...”

The tall man unclasped his hands and leaned forward, put his arms on the desk. “Why don’t you help us get this thing right instead of being so damned fidgety?” He twisted his darkly florid face to a wry smile.

Shane said: “Rigas and I had an argument about money — I left his place at eight o’clock and I was in my hotel at a quarter after. I was there until I came here.” He went forward again to the desk. “I can get a half-dozen people at the hotel to swear to that.”

The tall man made a wide and elaborate gesture of deprecation. “Hell, Dick, we know you didn’t do it — and it’s almost a natural for McLean. Only we thought you might help us clean up the loose ends.”

Shane shook his head slowly, emphatically.

Sergeant Gill came in with an undersized blond youth in a shiny blue-serge suit.

The young man went to the desk, nodded at Shane, said: “H’ are you, Cap?” to the tall man.

The tall man was looking at Shane. He said: “This man” — he jerked his head at the youth — “works for Eastman. He was on an evidence job for Mrs. Rigas and went in with the patrolman when Rigas was shot...”

“Yes, sir,” the youth interrupted. “The telephone operator come running out screaming bloody murder an’ the copper come running down from the corner an’ we both went upstairs” — he paused, caught his breath — “an’ there was this guy Rigas, half in the bedroom and half out-, an’ dead as a doornail... The gun was on the floor, and this dame, McLean, was in pyjamas, yelling that she didn’t do it.”

The tall man said: “Yes — you told us all that before.”

“I know — only I’m telling him.” The youth smiled at Shane.