Thriller and Adventure

The Wrong Cat

It was early dawn when the headless dog was thrown over the fence into the wisteria beside the cottage patio.

A fat golden cat skittered sideways to circle the dead dog and get to the cottage door. It mewed twice.

Mary Cloister heard the familiar call, but first she put the coffee pot full of water on the range, adjusted the flame. The glass coffee pot magnified the blue light of the gas flame. She paused to admire the color, wondered if she could capture that combination of blue light and sparkling water on canvas.

Again the cat mewed—this time angrily.

“I’m coming, Puss, I’m coming,” Mary called. She belted her short red corduroy robe tighter around her slim waist and opened the door. Puss rushed in, brushing her legs with dew-damp fur.

Mary stepped out onto the patio, took a deep breath of the morning breeze off the sea. Her favorite view spot was near the wisteria and the fence. She crossed the patio in anticipation of the sight of the blue seawater and white fishing boats below.

Before she could begin absorbing the peace of the view, she saw the monstrosity that had been a dog—brown-and-white fur streaked in gore and an unthinkable horror where the head had been.

“Oh, my God!” she closed her eyes, put her hands to her face, turned, and ran into the cottage, slamming the door. “Oh, God!”

She sank onto one of the two ladder-back chairs by the maple table, closed her eyes. “Who could be so cruel?”

Puss brushed against her legs, purring. When she didn’t reach to pet him, he butted her ankle with his head. “Meow!” he demanded.

She pushed his head away with the side of her foot, leaned on the table.

Now she could be sure the pattern that had begun yesterday was deliberately malicious.

The dead rat in the mailbox could have been trapped there. The knocking on the roof last night could have been squirrels. The sounds at her door—well, the wind blew strongly off the bay.

She stroked her cat’s head, murmured, “That poor dog.”

Across the kitchen, her Tyrolean clock began to chime the hour—7:00 AM. She stared at the clock. Jim had given it to her, and for the first time in many weeks, she began to cry.

Immediately after Jim’s death, she had cried often. She and Jim had been married only two years before the accident. A drunken driver on the wrong side of the freeway, and that had emptied the happiness out of her life.

Mary had tried to return to her painting career. But the city seemed involved in a conspiracy against art. Then Jim’s law partner, Ron Devin, had found the cottage looking down on Santa Maria Bay. He’d insisted she bring her paints and brushes for the summer.

“You need a long rest away from … memories,” he had said.

In the way women know such things, Mary knew Ron loved her. But also in the way of such things, neither had ever mentioned it—or even looked as if it were true.

The cat leaped into her lap. “It’s too soon to think about someone else. It’s been barely a year,” she said aloud, but the picture of Ron’s slim face and sun-streaked blond hair came into her mind. She glanced toward the window.

The wisteria that framed the view forced her mind back to the horror in the garden. She shivered.

Until yesterday, the cottage had been good for her. And now—just when the sun-warmed peace of Santa Maria Bay had begun to ease the pain in her chest—this had to happen.

From the stove came a bubbling hiss. The coffee was boiling over. She jumped up, and the cat sprang to the floor with an indignant shake.

“Sorry, Puss,” she muttered as she turned off the gas. She stared at the mess of coffee grounds and water spreading slowly across the white enamel stove top.

Maybe somebody’s trying to scare me away, she thought. But who? And why?

She crossed to the refrigerator, took out a red-and-white can of cat food.

With a knife from the drain board, she levered a thick slab of the food into Puss’s bowl. The operation took her near the window over the sink, and she knew if she looked out that window she could see the dead dog.

She carefully turned away without looking.

Who would want to scare me away—and why?

The only person she had met here was George Brett, owner of the general store and bait shop. Oh—and that poor brother of his, Willy.

She considered Willy. Could it be that poor half-wit? But what would be the point?

She sighed. The first thing to face was burying the dead animal in the yard. Until that was out of sight, there could be no peace for her.

Puss finished eating, mewed at the door.

She let him out, returned to the window over the sink, steeled herself to glance toward the wisteria.

The body was gone!

It couldn’t be gone! She was sure the dead dog could be seen from this window, but there wasn’t a sign of it.

With quickening alarm, she crossed to the door, stepped onto the patio. The sun was hot on her head as she moved toward the wisteria.

There was a crushed spot in the foliage, nothing else.

In sudden panic, she whirled back into the cottage, slammed the door. A missing dog was more terrible than the carcass in the wisteria.

This is foolish! She told herself. Country-style juvenile delinquents are having a game with me. Or—or some animal has dragged it away.

Mary nodded to herself. The dead dog had become a symbol. She felt if she let this incident completely shatter her peace she might never find her way back.

As a beginning therapy, she stepped once more into the sunshine, forced her reluctant steps toward the wisteria.

It took a few minutes to regain calmness. She made herself gaze out at her favorite view of the bay.

This midmorning light flattened the water far below, and only one boat was in sight, a ketch with red sails hanging limply. Not a breeze stirred. Her artist’s eye measured the light, and she wondered what she could do with that matte look to the water.

The only sign of life between her and the bay was the bait shop store far below. It gave her some comfort to think of George Brett, the owner, puttering around there.

The thought came to her as she stood there that peace and loneliness were only a fraction apart. When she had arrived at the cottage, she had rejoiced in the absence of neighbors; now she longed for the security of nearby humans.

A quick movement to her left caught her eye, and she whirled just in time to see a disturbance in the hedge beyond the wisteria.

Panic choked her. She swallowed. Somebody was hiding there. “Who—who’s there?” she managed.

“Just Willy,” said a gruff voice. The hedge parted. A stocky man pushed through, stepped onto the patio. “Just Willy,” he repeated.

She caught her breath. Willy. Brett had explained him in a hoarse whisper: “My brother. Willy ain’t quite right. But he’s harmless.”

“What are you doing?” she asked. And she asked herself, Was the dog Willy’s doing?

Willy giggled, looked down at the ground. “I just came to bury the poor little dog,” he said.

She stared at him. “You buried the dog?”

“Yes’m.” He frowned, worry wrinkling his face. “Didn’t you want the poor little dog buried?”

Mary managed to swallow. She spoke carefully, as one would speak to a child. “What do you know about the dog? Did you put it in my garden?”

Willy shook his head slowly. It was a heavy, bearlike movement. He looked at her out of tiny, intensely blue eyes. “No. I come by and seen the poor little dog. Didn’t you want him buried?”

Mary felt sure he was telling the truth. Willy was too uncomplicated for much falsehood. “Do you know who—who killed the dog?” she asked.

Unexpectedly, Willy raised one big arm, clamped down on his own wrist with the other hand. It was a powerful gesture, full of implied violence. “If I did, I’d sure get him,” he muttered.

She took a step backwards. Just how harmless was Willy?

He dropped his hands. “I wouldn’t hurt the little dog,” he said. “I loved him.”

“Was—was it your dog, Willy?”

“No. But I knew him.”

The way he said that: “I knew him.” A normal man might mention a human friend in just the same tone. “Why were you walking by my back fence?” Mary asked.

“I come by here every morning,” said Willy.

Mary found the thought unsettling. “You do? Why?”

“I come by to say good morning to your pretty cat.”

We’re all alone here, she thought. What could I do if this poor half-wit became violent?

“I’m glad you like my cat,” she managed. Then: “Why were you hiding in the hedge?”

“Wasn’t hiding,” he said.

Without warning, tears filled Willy’s eyes. One ran down his cheek, and he wiped at it with the back of his hand. “I was looking for the poor little dog’s head,” he said.

For a moment, Mary couldn’t speak. She was aware of pity for Willy, but no words came.

Willy swallowed, said, “Head should be buried with the body.”

He turned and ambled off around the house, saying, “Got to get back to the store.”

Mary sank onto the stone bench near the house, took three deep breaths. Willy had told the truth. She felt a deep certainty of this. So he probably wasn’t the one trying to frighten her. If that was the real meaning of these … incidents. If someone was trying to frighten her away, who could it be? And why? She gazed at the bay. Was she in someone’s way?

Something brushed her leg, and she gasped. Then she heard deep purring and put her hand on a cat’s reassuring fur.

“Poor Puss,” she said. “Your mistress is falling apart.”

The cat moved from under the bench, leaped lightly into her lap.

It wasn’t Puss!

She pushed it away sharply, stared at it.

This was a black tom with a white bib and wide whiskers—and fatter and bigger than her golden Puss.

At her abrupt motion, the strange cat flattened itself to a cautious crouch, then streaked for the wisteria.

Mary stared after it. I’m really falling apart, she thought, when a cat frightens me.

But where was Puss? He wouldn’t let a strange cat get this near his territory.

“Puss,” she called. She stood up and crossed to the cottage door. “Puss. Puss!”

No sign of her cat. She stepped inside, moved into the tiny living room. “Puss?”

Mary felt her fingernails cutting into her palms as she glanced around the bedroom. No cat. She tried not to think of the headless dog.

A tentative mew at the door made her sigh with relief. She returned to the front door, swung it open.

The black-and-white tom stalked in, mewing sharply as it marched past her, its tail held high. The message was unmistakable: “Why were you so long opening the door?”

Mary stared at him.

Without looking left or right, he crossed to a maple rocker, leaped onto the red cushion, turned once, and went to sleep.

A chill moved down Mary’s back. There was no sunlight on the chair, but within a half hour or so, the only sunlight in the room would be right on that cushion.

Puss had learned the same thing and often spent his mornings there.

How did this strange cat know? And where was Puss? A cat in a strange room will always look it over before settling down—but not this silly black-and-white creature.

For a moment, Mary considered throwing the strange cat out. But the feeling of company he gave her was too valuable.

“When Puss comes home, you’ll get chased out fast enough,” she muttered.

She kept reminding herself of this to keep from worrying about her cat, but by midafternoon, Puss still hadn’t returned.

The black-and-white tom slept on in the patch of sun until the light moved across the room. Then he jumped onto the window seat and waited for the afternoon sun to find him there.

At first Mary pretended to be amused by his confidence—but her mood soon gave way to apprehension.

Whenever Puss slept in the sun, Mary would stroke him lightly as she passed by and he would answer with a rumbling purr.

She tried it with the black tom, and his angry yowl made her recoil in astonishment. This was a “do not disturb” cat.

Several times she approached the phone to call Ron Devin in the city—but each time she drew back. It was as if that unspoken attraction for her dead husband’s partner stopped her each time.

Even thinking about going out into that cottage yard took an effort of will, but as the afternoon drew on, she realized she would have to go outside and then into the cellar for firewood. By 6:30 she knew she could put it off no longer. She couldn’t wait for darkness. She steeled herself, told herself the fear was silly, but as she emerged from the house with her flashlight for the cellar, she felt hate around her. There was no doubt in her mind that someone was trying to scare her away.

She lifted the shake doors of the cellar, breathed through her mouth to avoid the sour mustiness of the dirt-floored cellar as she descended. One stab of the flashlight’s beam toward the fireplace wood pile, and before she could help it, she screamed.

Lying neatly on top of the wood was the dead dog’s missing head.

The flashlight began to slip from her fingers. She used both hands to steady it for a moment. With an effort of sheer will, she snatched a quick armload of wood from the edge of the pile, then raced for sun and sanity.

She pushed through the door into the kitchen, locked the door behind her, and dumped her wood into the woodbox.

Panic gave way to anger. She pounded one fist into the palm of the other. “Enough is enough,” she said.

She strode into the living room, determined to throw out the strange cat, no matter how much it yowled.

But the black cat was gone, and her own golden Puss slept serenely in the patch of sunlight.

“Sure looks pretty in the sun,” said a voice by the door.

She screamed and whirled. “Willy! What are you doing here?”

Willy grinned, stepped farther into the room. “Brought back your pretty cat.”

She swallowed. “Thank you, Willy.”

He took a step closer. “Had to put my cat outside,” he said. “Your cat got pretty mad when he saw Blackie.”

“Is the black cat yours?” she asked.

Willy nodded proudly, his tiny blue eyes sparkling. “Yes. Do you like my pretty kitty?”

Mary managed a nod. “He made himself at home.”

Willy grinned. “He used to live here. He belonged to the nice lady who died.”

Who died? Mary wondered. Nobody told me. She swallowed in a dry throat. “Did you know the lady who died?”

Willy shuffled into the patch of sunlight that spread gold across Puss’s fur. He stroked the cat, and it responded with a deep purr. “Sure is a nice cat,” he said. “I took him to see my house.”

Mary tried frantically to think of a way to make Willy leave without antagonizing him. “Did—did your cat go home?” she asked, thinking she might suggest his black cat was hungry and he should attend to it.

Willy shook his head. “No. He likes it better here. I have to keep him closed in my cabin.” His jaw went slack. “Poor lady. She was sure nice to that cat.” He jerked his head toward Mary. “She liked her cat just like you do.”

Mary nodded, took a careful step toward the kitchen door and the phone.

“She got all choked,” said Willy.

Mary’s eyebrows rose. “The cat?”

“Naw. The lady. Her eyes sort of bugged out, and she was real dead, so—”

Mary took two more steps toward the kitchen. Willy was not only half-witted, he sounded psychotic. In a wildly irrelevant way, she recalled reading that simpletons seldom went crazy. Not enough mechanisms to go wrong.

A sudden idea came into her mind. “Willy, would you do me a favor?”

“I’d like that,” Willy said. “I did lots of nice things for the lady who got choked.”

“Yes,” Mary said. What in God’s name was he talking about? “I found the head to the dog, Willy.”

He seemed interested. “Where is the poor little dog’s head?”

Mary almost said, “Where you put it,” but she restrained the thought. “Down in the cellar,” she said. “You have to go outside to go down there.”

Willy grinned in delight, shambled toward the door. “I’ll get it and put it with the rest of the poor little dog,” he said.

Mary took a deep breath of relief as Willy shuffled out the door. She hurried to close it when it opened again and Willy leaned in at her.

“Lady,” he said gently.

She paused in the center of the room. “Yes?”

Willy smiled, and his little blue eyes almost closed. “If you get choked, I’ll take care of that pretty gold cat of yours, too.”

Mary forced the corners of her mouth in a caricature of a smile. “Thank you,” she managed.

The door closed, and she heard Willy’s progress around the house. Three steps took her to the door. She slammed and locked it. She hurried through the house to the back door, checked its double locks.

Through the thin flooring beneath her feet, she could hear Willy in the cellar. She forced the picture out of her mind of the halfwit removing the gory head from the woodpile.

But his voice came through the floor to underline the unseen movement. “Poor little doggie. Poor, poor little doggie. Willy’s going to put you back together. Poor little doggie.”

Still crooning, Willy crossed the cellar, mounted the stairs to the patio behind the kitchen.

Mary returned to the living room and sank into the maple rocker.

On the window seat, Puss opened one eye, mewed lightly.

Mary set the rocker into gentle motion, tried to organize her thoughts. When Willy spoke of “the woman who had been choked,” she had not believed him, but now doubts hit her.

Perhaps Willy had made it all up.

But the cat had acted so much at home.

Skepticism reasserted itself. What I need is sane and logical conversation, she thought, realizing as she did that it was the first time since coming to the cottage that she had thought seriously of returning to the city.

She pulled herself from the armchair, went through to the wall phone in the kitchen.

With one hand on the receiver, she paused, wondering if she was using these incidents as an excuse to call Ron. She shrugged. What if I am? she thought. I was never meant to be a hermit.

The lawyer’s voice came on the phone at the second ring, and she felt suddenly shy.

“Mary!” he said. “How are you? Is Santa Maria taking the—are you feeling better?”

She pushed the receiver hard against her left ear. “It’s—it’s beautiful here, Ron. I wish you could see it.”

His voice sounded light and happy. In her imagination, she could see his big desk with its afternoon clutter of papers. “I wish I could, too. Maybe …” His voice trailed off, then became stronger. “Why don’t I drive up one of these days?”

“Why not tomorrow?” she asked. The receiver felt damp in her hand.

He laughed. “It’s Saturday. Why not?”

Mary took a deep breath. “Well—well, fine, then.” She wanted to tell him how frightened she was; she didn’t know how to begin.

“Mary.” His voice changed, deepened. “Is something wrong?”

She closed her eyes, forced her voice to sound easy. “No. No. Not really. It’s just that something rather awful happened this morning, and I haven’t quite gotten over it.

“What happened?”

“Some kids threw a dead dog onto my patio,” she said. “I found it when I came out this morning.” She took a deep breath.

There was a moment of silence on the phone, filled only by a faint line hum. Then he said, “Couldn’t the dog have been ill—or perhaps poisoned? And just happened to die where you found him?”

Her hand was perspiring so freely it slipped a bit on the receiver. She gave up her pretense of calm. “Ron! The dog had no head! Somebody had cut off its head!”

“Good God!” He hesitated. “That has a nasty sound to it.” Again silence, then: “Have you called the police?”

“No—I—what could I actually tell them?”

His voice hardened. “Look, I’ll be up tomorrow. In the meantime, promise you’ll stay inside and keep the doors locked. This doesn’t sound like kids. It sounds like a nut.”

She promised, although the doors had been locked ever since she’d gotten rid of Willy. Still, the first thing she did after hanging up was recheck the doors—and the windows.

As Mary went into the living room, Puss woke up, stretched in the sunshine, and curled up the other direction.

Mary glanced at the clock. Almost 8:00. Night came late in the summer. She wished for a moment she had insisted Ron come right up, but that would have sounded hysterical. She wondered if she should have told him what Willy had said about the woman who had been choked—but was glad she hadn’t. The ravings of that poor simpleton would have convinced Ron she was a nervous wreck.

The phone rang, and fear clutched at her chest. She forced herself to cross the living room and kitchen slowly, answering it on the third ring. “Hello?”

“Mrs. Cloister?”

Mary smiled her relief. It was the warm voice of Brett at the store. She could picture him, with his shock of brown hair standing almost on end—the gentle expression of his eyes—the work-calloused hands. “Hello, Mr. Brett,” she said, more enthusiastically than she had intended.

“Say, I’m sorry to bother you, but I got to worrying about Willy. Has he been up there pestering you, Mrs. Cloister?”

Mary frowned at the phone. “Why do you ask?”

Brett chuckled, and again his voice warmed her. She pictured him in her mind—thinking suddenly how strange was the similarity between Brett and his brother, yet the bright blue eyes so alarming in Willy were friendly when lit by Brett’s intelligence. And the stocky build, so simian in the brother, looked strong and protective in Brett.

“Well,” said Brett, “Willy was late this morning, and he said he’d been up at your place. I got to thinking, and I was afraid he’d been pestering you. He acts sort of queer sometimes—but he don’t mean no harm.”

Mary took a firmer grip on the phone. This was her chance to clear up the biggest question in her mind. “Mr. Brett, who used to live in this cottage?”

“Last party was a fishing fellow from the city. Before that, a young couple lived there all one summer. Why?”

Something felt wrong in the answer. Mary shook her head, glanced around the kitchen. “Who—who fixed this place up?”

“Must have been the young couple,” Brett said. “The wife was an artist with some magazine. She had pretty fancy ideas.”

Mary’s eye swept the provincial wallpaper, the ruffled priscillas, the almost overdone cuteness. “Oh? Maybe I know her,” she said. “Which magazine?”

Brett named one of the most sophisticated fashion publications in the country. Mary gasped in disbelief. No artist who worked for that magazine could have overdecorated this kitchen. “Are you sure?”

He cleared his throat. “Yes, Mrs. Cloister. She was always talking about it. Seemed pretty proud of her job.”

Mary readjusted her grip on the phone, thinking of the woman Willy had said was choked. “Are you sure someone else—some other woman didn’t live here just recently? Maybe an older woman—?”

Brett’s voice became less friendly. “What do you mean?”

“Oh—just something Willy said.”

The warmth returned to Brett’s voice as he chuckled. “Pay no mind to Willy, Mrs. Cloister. He just ain’t right.” He cleared his throat. “You want I should bring you up some groceries?”

She thought, I’ll need to fix lunch for Ron tomorrow, but I’d better think through a list first. She said: “No, thank you. I’ll need some steaks and things in the morning, though—I may walk down.”

“Glad to bring them up,” he said.

“No, thank you,” Mary said. “I’m not sure of everything I need yet.”

“Give me a call when you need me,” he said. “I’ll come myself instead of sending Willy.”

“Thank you,” she said. She considered telling him about the dog but hesitated to add to his worries about his brother. “You’re very kind.”

“That’s what neighbors are for,” he said. “It’s hard on a woman all alone. A body gets to thinking too much.” He paused, then added, “If you ever feel jumpy or anything, you just call me.”

“I will,” she said. “Thank you, Mr. Brett.”

After she had hung up, she felt jumpier than ever. Perhaps she should have had him bring up some groceries and check the place.

Soon it would be dark. With a shudder, she remembered the sounds that had disturbed her the previous night.

After a late supper that was more a snack than a meal, Mary again went around the cottage, checking the door locks.

The cottage was so far from its neighbors that it had no window shades—just red checked curtains that barely pulled across the night-darkened panes.

She started her fire, sat down before it with Puss in her lap—tried to read. Soon she realized she was just turning pages. Her awareness remained focused on the poorly covered windows.

Was someone out there? And if so—why?

She scratched Puss under the chin, glad of his company. “Well, Puss, I’m scared.” She tried to smile. “If that’s the idea of all this—it’s succeeding.”

The door shook suddenly, and her eyes widened in fear. She stroked the cat as if Puss had been frightened too. Her stomach felt like one big knot.

“Just the wind,” she said.

Again she tried to read—and again failed. She snapped the book shut in anger at her own nervousness.

At the slap of the book’s closing, Puss leaped to the floor, mewed at the door.

What if someone forces his way in as I let Puss out? Mary wondered. She stood up, made herself walk to the door, held it open while Puss marched out.

It was pitch black outside. The wind from the bay blew harsh and cold. She closed the door quickly.

That’s one cat that stays out tonight, she told herself. I’m not opening that door again for anything.

She consoled herself with the thought that Puss often stayed out all night—it wouldn’t hurt him.

The only thing to do was to go to bed, she decided. She refused to check the locks again, turned off the lights. With the lights out, each window didn’t seem to be watching her.

After she got into bed, Mary found herself wishing she had told Ron to drive up this evening. He might have taken her back to the city and the safety of her apartment.

This is nonsense! She told herself. Muscle by muscle, she forced each part of her body to relax—starting with her toes. She stretched, willed a drowsy mood to fill her mind.

Without warning, the bed shook as something heavy hit it. Mary gasped, jerked erect in bed. “What—?”

A deep purring came out of the dark.

“Oh, Puss! You scared me.” She sank back onto her pillow, felt the bed quiver as the cat sought a comfortable spot near her feet.

Mary’s eyes began to close; the drowsiness returned—and then she remembered: Puss had been locked outside!

She eased to a sitting position, reached out in the darkness, brushed against soft fur.

The cat snarled angrily, and she drew back with a gasp.

It was Willy’s black-and-white tom, the cat that had belonged to the woman who “was choked.”

Mary stared into the blackness, hardly breathing in her effort to hear any strange sound. A pulse drummed in her neck.

Was the front door opened? How could this cat have entered?

The sensible part of her mind told her to get up, check the door, and see if it had blown open.

Slowly, she swung her legs from under the covers, felt the braided rug under her bare feet.

Again the strange cat snarled, disturbed by her movement.

Her hand moved to the light over her bed, pulled back.

The only sound had been from the cat. If there was another—her mind hunted the word—another intruder, it would be better not to advertise that she was awake.

She felt a terrible exposure moving through darkness—wearing only a flannel nightgown. It was as if she walked toward danger instead of running from it.

A tiny orange light, flickering from an almost burned-out log in the fireplace, greeted her as she entered the living room.

Mary took a deep breath, crossed to the hearth, picked up a piece of firewood. With the makeshift weapon in her hand, she felt somewhat safer.

She could see the front door by the firelight. Tightly closed.

How had that black tom entered? Not down the chimney—the fire. Mary frowned. Could a window be open from the top? The wind—she’d have felt a cold draft.

She moved toward the lamp, reassuring herself with the round splintering feeling of the firewood in her hand. The lamp chain felt cold. She pulled it—click!—and sighed with relief as yellow light drove back the darkness.

A rattling and rolling sounded from the roof. She looked up, stifling a half scream.

“What was that?” she asked, forcing her voice into the silence.

It came again—a rumbling crash—followed by repeated knockings and rolling.

She’d tried to blame the squirrels the night before, but tonight it was much louder.

The thought of giant squirrels dropping oversized walnuts onto the roof brought a hysterical giggle into her throat.

Again the noise rattled and tumbled down the roof.

It could only be one thing. Someone must be throwing rocks onto the roof—a cruel joke.

Mary crossed to the front door, the firewood clenched in her hand. She held her face close to the tiny window in the door, flashed on the porch light, peered out.

Something moved out there. For just a moment, she saw a man, a shadow against shadows. Then he was gone, swallowed by night beyond the wisteria.

The half-second glimpse was enough. Willy!

Mary tried the doorknob, making sure it was locked.

With a swirl of her gown, she raced for the kitchen, double-checked the lock and bolt on the back door.

She turned on the light over the stove, crossed to the table, and sank into a chair. Willy! What could she do against that poor, confused mind?

She put the firewood on the table, stood up, and crossed to the telephone. The kitchen linoleum was cold against her feet. Her first thought was to call Ron, but he was three hours away in the city. Perhaps Brett? She nodded. He would know how to handle Willy.

She found the number, lifted the phone off the hook, put it to her ear.

Silence.

Not even a line hum.

The kitchen felt so cold, the night so dark and windy. She clicked the phone hook, knowing before she did it that it was useless. Someone had cut the wires.

For some terrible reason, Willy wanted her to be alone and frightened.

She swallowed hard—once, twice. At least he can’t get in.

Then she remembered the black–and-white tomcat. How had it entered?

Her glance strayed toward the kitchen window. The curtains barely stretched across the dark glass, with gaps at each side where anyone could look in.

She debated between the concealment of darkness and the reassurance of light. Darkness offered some security. She moved to the switch, plunged the kitchen into darkness, and hurried to the front room.

Again she glanced at the poorly covered windows, reached for the lamp, then gasped as it went out before her fingers touched the chain.

The main switch! It was just inside the cellar door. No way to get to it without leaving the safety of the cottage.

Again the hysterical laughter grew in her throat. Safety of the cottage!

As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she became aware again of the glow from the dying fire. For a moment a flame flickered brightly, then settled to a dull ember.

Mary stood barefoot in the center of the braided rug, head turned to catch any sound. Despite her flannel gown, she shivered, tensing every muscle against the chill and the fear.

She could almost touch the silence and the dark.

Three heavy blows struck the door. Mary felt each in her chest as if she had been hit.

Oh, God! There he is! She stared toward the dark-hidden door. The heavy knocks came again—then a voice.

“Hello, Mrs. Cloister! Are you home?”

With a gasp of relief, Mary recognized Brett’s voice. But what was the grocer doing outside her door at midnight?

She crept to the door, peered through the little window. Automatically she flicked the switch for the porch light before remembering she had no electric power.

“Yes?” she called. “What is it?”

“It’s me,” said the friendly voice. “Mr. Brett from the store. Are you all right?”

“My lights and phone are out,” Mary shouted through the door. “Can you call someone for me?” Dimly, she could make out the white shadow of his face—so like Willy—yet so importantly different, with the light of intelligence in his eyes.

“Can I come in?” he asked. “Maybe I can fix them up for you.”

She answered with a question: “What are you doing here?”

“Saw Willy coming this way. Thought I better check. You all right? Better let me come in and look around.”

Her hand moved toward the doorknob. She jerked it back. “I’m not dressed.”

“Better let me in,” Brett persisted. “I could check around for you.”

She didn’t like his insistence. “No—no, thank you. If you’d just phone someone for me, that would be enough.”

He rattled the knob, and she jumped away from the door.

“Open the door,” he said. “You shouldn’t be all alone and scared.”

“I’m all right,” she called.

Again the knob rattled. “Open up!” he demanded.

She gasped. “Please. Please go away.”

Then, incredibly, she heard the sound of a key being fitted into the lock.

She moved as quickly as she could in the darkness, felt her way into the bedroom, and eased the door closed.

The black–and-white cat mewed angrily as her foot hit against the bed.

“Hush!” she said sharply, straining for any sound from the living room. Yes. There it was. The slight creak of footsteps, then a crash as Brett ran into the rocking chair.

He cursed angrily, gave the chair an audible push.

Mary shuddered, furious with herself for not running for the kitchen with its back door.

She felt her way around the bed, shaking the black-and-white cat. He protested loudly.

Oh, damn that cat! She thought. The least disturbance sets him off.

A dim light showed under the bedroom door. He must be using a flashlight now, she thought.

She groped with trembling hands for her robe, slipped into it. She could hear him fumbling at the knob of the bedroom door.

He swung it open.

The flashlight beam blinded her; she blinked away from it.

Her voice sounded steadier than she expected. “What are you doing in my house?”

“I’m awful sorry to scare you, Mrs. Cloister,” Brett said in a soft voice. “But you shouldn’t be here all alone. That Willy can be dangerous.”

“You told me your brother was harmless,” she said, her mind racing. Keep him talking, she told herself.

Brett chuckled softly. “Willy takes spells,” he said.

She could just see the outlines of his face behind the light. “Why do you have a key to my house?” she demanded.

“Lady who was here gave it to me,” he said.

Fear rose in her throat like gall as she remembered Willy’s tale of the lady that was choked. “You said a man lived here.”

Brett shifted the light to his left hand, took a step into the bedroom. “Did I? Well, maybe before him, she was.”

Mary forced her voice steady. Don’t let him stop talking. “It was you who left the dog on the patio, wasn’t it? Why did you do it?”

Brett cleared his throat. “It was sort of a little lesson. Wanted to show you bad things can happen when a woman’s all alone.”

Suddenly he turned his head toward the darkness of the living room. She heard the sound that had distracted him: footsteps. Hope grew in her mind like a light.

“Who’s there?” he asked, his voice shrill.

“Just Willy,” said a deep voice from the darkness.

The hope died. She wanted to cry. Now there were two of them. How could she get around Brett and past his half-witted brother?

“You get out of here, Willy,” Brett said. “Go home.”

“I just want my cat,” Willy said. Then, as if suddenly noticing, he added, “Why’s it dark?”

Brett seized on this excuse. “Willy,” he said in a gentler voice. “You take this here flashlight and you go down cellar and turn on the lights. There’s a switchbox down there.”

“Willy, wait!” Mary cried. Anything was better than being left alone with Brett. “Wait, Willy! You have to help me.”

“Where’s my cat?” Willy persisted.

“Willy!” she said. “You have to help me. Your brother’s the one who killed that pretty little dog.”

“Where’s my cat?” Willy demanded.

“Damn it!” Brett snapped. “How do you expect to find your cat in the dark, you dummy?”

Willy moved close to his brother, another dark shape behind the flashlight. “Give me the light,” Willy said. He took it and moved away toward the door.

Brett followed swiftly, a gross shadow. The front door slammed, and she heard the lock snick closed.

In the deeper darkness after the light, Mary plunged toward the bedroom door.

But Brett was quicker. She rushed into him in the doorway, felt her arms seized in a strong grip.

He pulled her against him, released her left arm to embrace her. “There, there,” he said. “Don’t be scared. I’m right here.”

His face came closer. She smelled whiskey and tobacco. She tried to twist away, felt the wet touch of his lips against her cheek.

What can I do? She asked herself as she tried to push away and found herself ineffective against his rough strength. Her knees felt like rubber.

Do I dare hurt him? She wondered. If I kick or scratch, could I hide in the dark house? Or would it be better to play up to him—wait for my moment of escape? Or would that just make him angry and murderous?

She felt his hand move on her back up to her head, force her face toward his.

The living room lamp sprang on behind him, silhouetting them in the square of light from the doorway.

She could see his face, heavy lips wet with passion, the little blue eyes glittering. He blinked in the light and said, “Damn!” His grip relaxed.

In a burst of revulsion, she forced herself free, stumbled backward till the bed hit the back of her legs. “Get out of here!” She almost screamed the words. The black-and-white cat on the bed meowed in protest.

Brett arranged his face in what he must have thought a pleasant expression. “Now, what’s wrong with me?” he asked. “A widow needs a man now and then.”

“Get out!” She looked around for a weapon, regretted she had left the piece of firewood in the kitchen.

The black-and-white cat snarled angrily as she pressed backward around the bed. Her foot kicked a shoe. She wondered if she could distract Brett long enough to get her hands on the shoe—use its spike heel for a bludgeon.

He took a step toward her, and she spoke quickly. “What happened to the woman who lived here before I did?”

Brett shook his heavy head. “What’s wrong with me?” he asked. “Am I so ugly?”

With one toe, she moved the shoe from under the bed, kept her gaze on his little blue eyes. “No,” she lied, trying to smile. “I wouldn’t call you ugly.”

“She did,” he said, and moved closer. “A woman shouldn’t live alone. I told her that. But she called me ugly.”

He’s mad! Mary thought. God help me! She forced her voice steady. “So you had to get rid of her, didn’t you?” The shoe was by her right foot now. In a second she would dip down and grab for it.

“She called me ugly,” he said again. His voice carried honest bewilderment. “I told her to be quiet. I didn’t mean her to die. I just wanted her to be quiet—and not say things like that.” Incongruously, he chuckled. “She’s real quiet now.”

Mary was afraid she would faint. “What do you mean?”

“She’s sleeping like a top,” Brett said. “Right down in your cellar.” His tone went solemn. “It’s what she would have wanted. She loved this cottage.”

From the other room came an angry rattle of the outside door. “I want my cat!” Willy shouted.

Brett’s glance flickered over his shoulder; he began to turn slowly toward the disturbance.

Mary snatched for the shoe.

But her shoulder hit the bed. The cat protested with a furious yowl.

Brett whirled back to her as she raised the shoe to strike.

He caught her wrist, shook her arm till the shoe fell to the floor.

Now Willy was pounding on the living room window. “You give me my cat!” he demanded.

“Damn dummy!” Brett muttered. “Now he’s looking in the window. A man and woman like to be alone—without some damn dummy peeking in at them.”

Mary wanted to sob but didn’t dare give way. She forced a grotesque smile. “Why don’t you make him go away?” That stupid cat, she thought.

“I’ll just close the bedroom door,” Brett said, releasing her arm and turning back to the door.

Mary focused on the cat, desperation forcing her mind to work at a furious pace.

Brett had reached the doorway.

Mary scooped up the surprised cat, hurled it at the man’s back.

The cat screamed in fury and fright, dug angry claws into Brett’s shoulders.

With a startled curse, Brett whirled a grotesque dancing circle in the doorway. He clutched for the hissing, panicky cat. Its claws tore at his shoulders. A stumbling step carried them into the living room. Brett still grappled for a hold on the black-and-white fury.

A groan of pain escaped him as he ripped the animal from his shoulders. He flung it to the floor, kicked at it as it streaked under the couch.

Mary rushed past Brett, fumbled at the front door, tore it open, shrank back as Willy confronted her.

Willy filled the doorway, the hatchet from the cellar in his hand.

Brett grabbed her, whirled her toward him, his face contorted with pain and anger. “You damn bitch!” he snarled. “You dirty little—”

His hands were at her throat.

She kicked and fought, but his grip tightened. She could sense pain and approaching unconsciousness, but abruptly she was free. The hands released her throat. Brett jerked away.

Willy! The half-wit held his brother—his strong hands restraining the other’s strength as easily as Brett had managed Mary.

Gasping for air, Mary stumbled out the front door, fled through the garden into the road.

Headlights from a car climbing the hill blinded her. She waved her arms in a frantic signal. “Help!” she screamed. “Please help me!” Oh, God! She prayed. Please be a friend.

The car skidded to a stop on the gravel, bounced with the sudden braking. The driver jumped out.

“Mary!”

It was Ron’s voice. How could it be Ron? She wondered dazedly.

“For God’s sake, what happened?” he demanded.

“Ron! Oh, Ron!” She threw herself at him. “Oh, thank God!”

He held her close. “Take it easy. I’m right here.”

“Are you real?” she asked. “Where’d you come from?”

“I didn’t like the sound of that headless dog,” he said. “I decided I’d better come up tonight instead of tomorrow.

She began to sob. “We have to get out of here. He’s—he’s out of his mind.”

“Who?” Ron held her close.

“Mr. Brett.”

A voice spoke out of the darkness beyond the headlights, “He hurt a little dog.” Willy stepped into the light, carrying the black-and-white cat cradled in his left arm. There was blood on his hands.

Mary closed her eyes, pressed closer to Ron. She remembered the hatchet.

“Who are you?” Ron demanded.

“Just Willy,” the man said, stroking the black-and-white cat. He grinned. “My brother was mean to a poor little dog. I fixed him the same way he fixed the dog.”

Mary moaned in horror. She would have fallen if Ron hadn’t held her.

Willy shuffled out of the light, walked away down the road. “He hurt my cat, too,” he announced to the night.

The Yellow Coat

[This story recently appeared in Fiction River: Pulse Pounders, WMG Publishing, 2015.]

 

There was a separate type of fear in each of the three men running up the open hillside in the late summer evening. They paused for a moment beside a row of rotten poles that marked an old fence line, and the way each man rested exposed his fear.

The man in the yellow coat stopped a little ahead of the others and turned, watching his companions more than he did the back trail. He was out of place here—a city man with narrow shoulders padded out by the coat and with the thin face of a drugstore diet. Even his yellow coat from a walk-up store was out of place, a bit of cheap color amidst the rich gold of the dry grass.

And this city man’s fear was of his two companions and the hills around him, which had no street signs. He was Skeeter Ricco, and his type seldom live beyond the age of thirty.

Indian Karl Daggert sat on a fallen log facing the valley, where darkness already was gathering up the shadows of the day into one mass of blackness. Anyone watching him would have said he was completely relaxed, but there was an almost imperceptible twitch to a muscle on his high, tanned cheekbone. His nightshade eyes did not waver from the way they had come.

Karl Daggert feared those who followed, for this fleeing on foot was not part of his plan.

Little Rollo Eckstrom, fat and dumpy with heavy jowls, sat in the tall grass a little lower on the hillside. The look of fear upon his face was a natural part of him. Many had seen it there. It was the mark of cowardice, which is stamped on the child and never leaves the man.

And Rollo’s fear was centered on Indian, Karl. He had seen that twitching cheek muscle before. Karl was going to kill a man. Rollo feared that it would not be Skeeter Ricco of the yellow coat. It had always been the odd man before, but this time …

Ricco tensed. “Hear that?”

They listened. From far down in the valley, across the dimming silver of the river where they had abandoned the car, the sound of baying dogs floated up to them.

“They got dogs after us, Karl.”

“Yeah, Skeeter, I hear it.” Karl rose to his feet, unfolding in angular sections. “Bloodhounds.” He looked down at Rollo. “Come along, Rollo boy. Follow papa.”

He turned and picked up a bulging leather satchel that had rested beside Ricco. “Lead off, Skeeter. I’ll carry the bag a ways.”

The man in the yellow coat turned and led the way up the hill. After a few steps, he began to speak. “I s’pose you guys are blamin’ me for not pickin’ a car that’d ride those ruts.”

Karl spat in the grass.

Behind him, Rollo remained silent, his body cold with fear—of the law that followed and the killer ahead.

Ricco continued, “Well, I ain’t never been in this country before. You oughta blame Rollo. He was born here. He shoulda warned me.”

Karl shifted the satchel to his left hand without changing stride. “Shut up,” he said. Then, half turning his head added, “What’s on the other side of the ridge, Rollo?”

The little man swallowed the dryness in his throat. “Hedgehog Creek. Say, Karl! There’s a limestone cliff on the other side and some caves. Maybe we could …”

“Creek!” The tall one stopped just below the ridgetop and turned. The others stopped with him. “Use your head, fat boy. If that creek’s big enough, those dogs don’t mean a thing to us.” He listened a moment to the sound of the baying, seemingly louder now. “Come on! Let’s get to that water!”

They hurried over the crest.

Once below the ridgetop, shadows enveloped them. Fallen logs and thickets of salal and salmonberry became a dark mass through which they threaded their way. Halfway down the hill, they hit a trail slanting to the right. Through the open trees above them, a dusky half-light showed the pathway leading down into deeper darkness.

Rollo, in fear of Karl slowing his steps, was twenty feet behind the others when he reached the trail. He was just in time to see Karl whip a thin blade from his waistband, dart forward, and plunge it into the swaying yellow coat. Ricco pitched forward onto his face, quivered slightly, and was still.

An almost audible sigh of relief escaped Rollo’s lips. He waddled up, his hand on the .38 in his pocket.

Karl faced him, standing over the fallen man, the knife in his hand strangely devoid of any blood.

“He got us into this,” Karl was saying. “Now he can get us out. The dogs’ll wait here and hold up the men while we get away. Come along.”

Rollo waited, his fingers still damply clutching the gun.

“What you want?” Karl’s eyes were on the hand in Rollo’s pocket.

Rollo swallowed, dredged up a thin flag of courage that was held aloft by greed—a need to get something out of the ordeal they had already survived. But might not survive unless Rollo could maneuver through these dangerous waters. He moved his hand in the pocket, made sure the .38 was prominent.

“I want part of the money. Just my share,” he said, as if he needed to explain it.

Karl scowled. “And who decides your share?” As if the fat boy deserved half of what remained.

Rollo looked at the satchel, could not know how much they had actually stuffed in there during the frantic minutes of the robbery. “A thousand,” he said. A nice round number.

Anger flashed across Karl’s face, but the baying hounds made him change his mind. With a look of disgust, he opened the leather satchel. “A thousand?” He began hefting out stacks of bills, ten banded bundles like valuable decks of cards. “There, a thousand.”

Clearly not half of what the satchel contained, but that was the number Rollo had demanded. Karl snapped the satchel shut.

Rollo picked up the bills and held the jumble in his hands. Since they had to run, this was going to be a problem. “How am I supposed to carry this?”

“That’s not my problem,” Karl said, then glanced at the body of Skeeter Ricco in his bright but now bloodstained coat. “Use the yellow coat. Skeeter doesn’t need it anymore.”

Rollo felt sick. He held the bills in his hands, stared at the body, and Karl trudged off as the barking dogs came closer. Rollo didn’t want to leave the money behind. Finally, after too long a hesitation, he set the bills on the moist forest floor, knelt, and tugged the coat from the dead man’s limp torso, working the uncooperative arms out of the sleeves.

Karl was already hurrying down the path. Ricco tumbled the bills into the coat, then folded the waterproof fabric over them, folded again, and finally had a neat package that was possibly worth dying for. He grabbed it up and ran after his companion.

Karl was already almost to the creek, brooding. The thousand doesn’t matter, he thought. Let the little jerk have it. They’ll find Ricco’s body, and since he waited outside of town with the car, they’ve seen only two of us. Now they’ll think there’s only one left—a short, fat boy. At the creek I think we’ll split. It’ll be too bad if they find Rollo—too bad for Rollo.

Behind, Rollo’s fear had returned. What will Karl do now? He doesn’t need me. But the little man’s fear of those who followed was greater than his fear of Karl; so he stayed close, even knowing how murderous the man was.

Abruptly, Rollo heard Karl’s feet clatter on a log plank bridge, and from his childhood he remembered this place.

“That’s Watson’s Hole crossing,” he called, and hurried to catch up.

“Shut up and listen!” Karl whispered.

Above on the ridge, they heard the dogs, their barking now a frenzy of yapping and howling.

“They found ’im,” Karl said. “That’ll bring the men up on the run.” Then, “Here’s where we split up, Rollo boy. We’re going to confuse ’em. You head upstream and I’ll go down. When we’re clear, we’ll meet at the Lockton Hotel in Savannah. First one there registers under the name of Skeets. Got that?”

Fear had muted Rollo’s tongue. “Go it alone?” He gulped.

Karl hurried on. “Don’t take chances, but if you’re caught, clam up. Now good luck.”

Rollo heard a soft splash in the creek below the bridge. For a moment he waited, almost willing to brave Karl’s wrath and follow. But he thought better of it. He had a thousand dollars, and Karl was short tempered. It didn’t occur to him that he could have shot Karl in the back coming down the ridge and then taken all the money. One didn’t think things like that about Karl Daggert.

He turned and lowered himself clumsily over the opposite side. The water was marrow chilling, creeping up his pants legs. His teeth began to chatter. Slipping and clutching at limbs, he made his way upstream.

Downstream, Karl waited until Rollo’s progress could no longer be heard, then he began to follow, leaving subtle spoor along the banks—a hand print in the mud, a broken limb. He did this for perhaps a hundred yards, then turned and made his way back and under the bridge….

On the upstream side, Rollo hadn’t gone more than a quarter of a mile before he stumbled into a deep hole hollowed out by a low waterfall. He almost lost the yellow coat with its wrapper of bills and, when he had rescued it dripping from the creek, he turned and faced the falls. It was so dark he couldn’t see the water, but from the sound, he judged that it couldn’t be dropping more than three feet.

Suddenly, an inspiration hit the little man. This was limestone country, and sometimes behind a waterfall was a hollowed-out place deep enough for a man to hide. There wasn’t room to stand behind this fall, but if he sat in the water, there might be breathing space.

Above the noise of the water, Rollo heard the sudden confused yapping of the dogs at the bridge. It spurred him into action. He waded into the hole and ducked under the falling water. Clutching the waterlogged coat, he scrambled ahead and lifted his face from the stream. He emerged into damp air, abysmally dark. Falling water seemed to echo from the darkness ahead. A steady trickle ran down his neck and under his clothes.

Rollo sent an exploratory hand ahead and found no back wall. Feeling his way, he inched forward on his hands and knees. The cave floor went up slightly and then down. A shallow stream ran under him, its bed hard against his palms. Cautiously, he crawled farther and farther into the blackness. Maybe there’d be a dry spot ahead. And the farther he went into the hole, the safer he felt. There was a protective, secret air about the place that he seemed to remember from childhood caves.

Abruptly, he came to a turn, felt his way around it, and his exploring hand reached into nothingness beneath him. He could hear a stream gurgling over rocks ahead and below. The sound of the falls behind him was muted now. Slowly, in the cramped space, Rollo turned around and eased backwards down the wet incline.

Without warning, his feet slipped on the slimy rocks. He fell, clutching, sliding, and scrambling, down a slick wall, to be brought up with a splash standing at the bottom in about two inches of water. He held the yellow coat against his chest as though it offered protection. Around him, he could hear the deep rolling swish of much water passing over a smooth bed.

As his first fear receded, stories from his childhood came crowding back into Rollo’s mind—about dogs that ran into dark holes and were never seen again, the legend of an underground river running through the limestone and boiling to the surface near Boomer Island on Bell Lake. That had to be the answer.

All of this came back to him in the blackness, and then his position underground enveloped him. Fear returned with a sickening ball in his stomach, tightening his chest.

What if he should become lost down here—as had the dogs?

With one hand, he reached up and tried to climb back the way he had come. The slimy limestone gave no footing. Turning to his left, he moved ahead cautiously. Maybe there was another way out. His feet encountered a ledge. He leaned over and felt it with his hand. It went up about two feet. He stepped out of the water, lifting his head slowly for fear of hitting the ceiling.

Hesitantly, Rollo felt his way forward and encountered a smooth, slippery wall. He turned and leaned against it. Trapped! He tried to fight down the panic, but it overwhelmed him, and he slid to the ledge.

For a long time he sat shivering, tears running down his cheeks.

Finally, he gained new strength and began a frantic mental groping. His mind came to focus on one item: cigarette lighter. He reached under his coat and felt in a vest pocket. The lighter was still there. He brought it out, flipped open the lid, and spun the wheel. A tiny light flickered upward. It threw dancing shadows on the green-and-black walls.

Looking up and to his left, Rollo could make out the small underground waterfall down which he had fallen. Above it, the ceiling was rainbowed with icicle-like stalactites. The falls cataracted over a sheer face for more than fifteen feet. He could never make it back.

To his right, the ledge on which he sat extended in an undulating stalagmited path along the river, disappearing in the darkness. The oily black waters ahead of him gave off a faint, rippled gleam of light.

Rollo stood up and, looking downstream, came to a decision. Karl was down there on the surface somewhere. Maybe there was another exit. He snapped off the light and replaced it in his vest pocket.

With one hand on the wall, the other clutching the yellow coat, he made his way down the ledge for as far as he had been able to see it. Stopping where he guessed that spot to be, he brought out the lighter and peered ahead.

In this manner he made his way down the underground river. Sometimes he was forced to wade, and once he had to cross the stream to a ledge on the opposite side. Fear gripped him all the way, lest he lose his footing and be swept away into the oily darkness. Whenever he flicked on the lighter, he searched the ceiling for an opening. Several times he paused to explore small streams coming down the walls, always to no avail.

The farther down the river he went, the greater his fear became. Fear made his steps cautious, and this was what saved him when he came to the end of the ledge.

It was just a small sound, much like the noise an oar makes when dipped into the water. Stopping, Rollo took out the lighter. Its flame, smaller now, showed him the end of the ledge and a deep boiling hole where his next step would have been. In fright, he stepped back. Ahead, he saw what was making the noise. The river made a sudden descent, waves washing against a black wall. Under the wall, the water disappeared.

Flicking off the lighter, Rollo sat down. So this was the end. He placed the yellow coat beside him. Thought of the coat made him realize it was very cold in the cavern. His teeth began to chatter.

Almost idly, Rollo wondered if he’d have enough courage to take the easy way out—suicide. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the automatic Karl had given him for this job. He pointed the gun across the cavern and pulled the trigger. There was a dull click. Working the action, he pulled the trigger again. It was the same. And again. And again until the gun was empty. The ammunition was wet. He threw the gun into the blackness and heard it splash.

He took out the lighter and pressed the wheel. The flame flickered up. By its light Rollo watched the long wavering line where the river rolled under the wall. In a short while the flame died down farther and farther, ending in a tiny smoldering spark on the wick. Rollo threw the lighter after the gun. It made a smaller splash.

The sound of the lighter hitting the water and the mental picture of the dull metal object being swept in a slanting course to the bottom of the river brought a new thought to Rollo’s mind.

What if the river actually did come out in the lake? Then if a man went in here he could come out on the surface. It was a long chance, but there was nothing but death in the cavern—slow death at that. The other way would be faster and with the added spice of a chance—just a chance.

With that thought, Rollo stood up and began taking off his clothes. He folded them neatly and placed them one by one on the yellow coat with its bundles of money. Later, armed with a ladder and a flashlight, he could return for the money.

Lastly, he placed his shoes on the pile and stood up in his thin underwear. At this point he almost lost his nerve. Maybe there was another way. But he knew there wasn’t.

In a momentary surge of courage, he felt with his toes for the rim of the ledge and fell rather than dove off. The icy current gripped him immediately and sucked him downward. He felt a slimy wall brush his right hand, and then he was up in blackness with his head out of water. He imagined the cavern’s rough ceiling above him and gulped another lungful of air before the current sucked him under for a second time.

This time the waters took him downward—down, down, and down. He felt the pressure growing almost unbearable on his ears, and then it turned and swooped upward at an incredible speed. Once, his shoulder hit a wall, sending blinding pain through his body. Feebly, he tried to help. He moved his hands aimlessly upward. Breath! He had to have breath! Then he was on the surface, more dead than alive.

Listlessly, he paddled with his right hand while gasping for breaths that were half water. Somewhere in his mind, he realized that his left shoulder was broken. But it seemed to make no difference.

The magnitude of what he had done was enough to wipe out all the shame of all the cowardice of his past. Even if he were to die now. He felt exhilaration deep within him. He had done a brave thing—in desperation, yes, but on his own initiative.

With his good hand, he turned himself over and began to float. A current was taking him somewhere, and the waters had lost their first chill. He looked up and saw the moon low on the hills, highlighting a long line of thunderheads in silver.

Cloudbursters, they’d called that kind of thunderhead when he was a boy.

His bad shoulder grated on rocks, sending a flash of pain radiating through his body. Rollo realized that he had drifted onto a beach. Turning over to protect his shoulder, he found bottom with his knees and half scrambled, half climbed out. There was a darker mass of bushes ahead. The beach shone in the moonlight. He turned to the right and limped along the rocks.

It was hardly fifty feet from the spot where he emerged to the place where he caught the almost invisible gleam of firelight back in the trees.

O O O

Indian Karl Daggert had made short work of his trip to the lake. Holding to the deepest spots in the creek, he had scrambled downward, always careful not to touch anything that would hold scent.

At the lake he’d stripped off his clothes and tied them and the satchel with the remaining money into a neat bundle, using his belt as a rope. This bundle he’d rested on a log, which he’d pushed ahead of him across the lake to Boomer Island. It hadn’t taken long to find that he was alone there. On a low spot in the center he’d built a small fire and dried his clothes.

For a while he’d watched the lightning in the hills, thinking of Rollo up there. Several times he’d smiled at the thought of how easy it had been.

Karl was squatting beside the fire, thinking of how good it would be to have some food, when Rollo stepped out of the bushes across from him. For a moment the tall man’s mind refused to register on what his eyes saw. Rollo—it couldn’t be!

Then the pudgy man was beside him, sobbing in relief and babbling something about a cavern and a river.

For a moment, blind, killing rage seethed in Karl’s mind. The fool! He became frightened! So he followed me!

Then reason replaced the hate. So he followed me. Well, there’s nothing for it now but to think of some way to use him.

Aloud, he said, “Sit down by the fire.” For the first time, he noticed Rollo’s shoulder. “What’s wrong with your shoulder?”

“Broken,” Rollo said.

There was momentary surprise in Karl’s mind at the lack of servility in the fat man’s voice, but he passed over it. “Sit down. There’s nothing we can do for it now.”

Obediently, Rollo sat. The fire was warm on his face, but the chill air was cutting against his wet back. He thought of asking Karl for a coat but stifled the words. Somehow, the old begging and whining didn’t seem right now.

The sky began to grow light around them. Rollo could make out the shapes of trees beyond the firelight. A bird called in a thicket at the opposite end of the island. It was answered from somewhere behind him. He heard something wrong with the bird calls, but his weary mind refused to register what exactly was different.

In spite of the pain in his shoulder, in spite of the cold, Rollo leaned back, found soft moss beneath him, and went to sleep.

From the other side of the fire, Karl watched his companion. His mind picked up first one idea and then another, only to reject all. The little fool! Everything was perfect!

So intent was he on his thoughts that he failed to hear the soft rustle of bushes behind him until a voice barked, “Reach!”

Involuntarily, he started to raise his hands, then caught himself and dived across the fire toward the bushes. From his left, a rifle spoke once, dropping him into the flame.

Tall men stepped out of the trees and pulled Karl’s body from the fire, smothering the flames.

Rollo was leaning up on his good arm, trying to shake the sleep from his eyes, unable to understand what was happening. One of the tall men was standing over him, a rifle pointing at his chest.

“Okay, bud,” the man said. “How do you figure in this?”

Rollo looked across the fire at Karl’s body—Karl, dead?—and instinctively he knew the form this story should have—just as he’d always known how his stories should go.

“He held me hostage as a guide,” he said.

“Yeah?” The man’s gun was unwavering. “Who’re you that you know so much about this country?”

“My name’s Rollo Eckstrom. Why, man, I was born not more than two miles from here. This fellow and another guy got acquainted with me in a Louisville bar. They asked all kinds of questions about where I was from and was there many banks around. Said they was investment counsels or something like that. We went outside to go to another place and got in their car. First thing I know, the other guy has a gun on me—and here I am.”

Rollo paused for breath. The gun hadn’t moved.

“They fought over the money last night,” he went on. “This one killed the other. He was going to kill me, too. He broke my shoulder so I couldn’t swim and took my clothes. My name’s Rollo Eckstrom, man! I’m no bank robber.”

The gun was pointing away now. “Where’d they leave you when they robbed the bank?”

“They left me tied in a car just outside of town. My name’s …”

“Yeah, you’re Rollo Eckstrom all right. I’m Pete Jenkins—Sheriff Pete Jenkins. We went to school together, Rollo. Remember?”

Rollo looked into the other’s face. Through the adult flesh, he recognized the youthful features of a childhood friend, one of the few people he’d ever known who hadn’t called him “Rollo” in a patronizing way. “Pete Jenkins,” he said.

“Yeah.” The other’s voice was kindly now. He stooped and put an arm under Rollo. “Come along. We’ll get you to a hospital.”

On the island’s far shore, four rowboats were drawn up. Three of the deputies dumped Karl’s body into one of the boats. Rollo and the sheriff got into the stern seat of another.

In the early morning light, the voice of one of the deputies drifted across the mists rising from the lake surface. “Water’s high.”

Another voice answered. “Cloudburst at Haven Springs early this morning. Nobody killed, but it washed out half a dozen houses.”

The full boats shoved off, grating against the gravel beach. A deputy took up the oars in Rollo’s boat and headed it toward the dark line of trees on the opposite shore. The oars made misty circles in the black waters, and the rowing sound reminded Rollo of the cavern and the river disappearing beneath the ledge. Under the overcoat that had been thrown over his shoulders, Rollo shivered.

“He didn’t fool me a minute,” Sheriff Jenkins was saying. “He went upstream a ways, leaving marks, then doubled back. That was it, wasn’t it?”

Rollo nodded his head dumbly. Yes, that would have been Karl’s way.

“We didn’t see the fire on the island, but we drove around the lake, and one of my men smelled wood smoke. After that it was easy. We just …”

The sheriff broke off. “Hey! What’s that over there?” He pointed to an object floating in the lake to one side of their path and almost obscured by the mists.

The deputy at the oars changed his course, and the man in the bow picked it up. It was the yellow coat, arms still tied, but the ends open and its contents gone.

Dimly, Rollo imagined the swollen river picking his clothes off the ledge, the yellow coat with them, and swirling them up the same channel he had taken.

The deputy turned and threw the coat on the floor slats at the sheriff’s feet.

“Just an old coat,” the sheriff said. He picked up the limp cloth and dropped it over the side.

Rollo turned and watched the yellow splotch on the water for a moment, a kind of dull despondency settling over him.

Then he turned toward the sheriff and in a low voice began telling the whole story, the true story: his four years with Karl, the other jobs, then this bank robbery, the car getting stuck, the flight into the woods and the journey through the cavern, his dive into the underground river and passage to the lake surface.

Sheriff Jenkins heard him through in silence. The deputy facing them at the oars—his face seemed familiar somehow—smiled once or twice.

When Rollo finished, the sheriff began to chuckle, then to laugh coarsely. “Ho, ho, ho, ho! Rollo, you slaughter me! Same old Rollo, all right. You, a bank robber! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Rollo, you haven’t changed a bit!”

For the rest of the journey, Sheriff Jenkins chuckled intermittently.

When they reached shore, they told the story to the rest of the deputies. They looked at him often and laughed. Rollo ignored them, keeping his eyes downcast, his mind on the yellow coat waterlogged in the lake.

The Heat’s On

Arson squad Lieutenant Barnie Ellis strode across the fire-blackened hotel room in five angry steps, leaned out the window. He took a deep gulp of the early morning air.

It should have smelled sweet at 4:00 AM. It didn’t. When dirt burns, its stink is pervasive and unmistakable.

Four stories down, on the sidewalk, he saw Fire Captain Coddington talking to a slender man in a dark suit. “Captain!” Ellis bellowed.

The fat fire captain tipped his head back, shaded his eyes with one pudgy hand. “Yeah?”

“Where in the blithering hell is McCoy?” Ellis shouted. He put his arm on the charred windowsill, drew it back again.

“Up there,” called Coddington in a high, wheezy voice. “Or he damn well should be.”

Ellis spread his big hands in an empty gesture, shook his head. “Come on up!” he bawled, and pulled his head back into the room.

He strode across the blackened shell, stepped into the hall. “McCoy!” he yelled. “McCoy!” Where had that eager beaver got to?

Ellis had been jerked out of sleep by the telephone at 3:30 AM—McCoy with a “suspected arson.” That made three times in six months McCoy had suspected arson.

Ellis had dragged himself out of bed, hustled down here, and now—no McCoy.

He looked up and down the dingy hotel hall. Again, he yelled, “McCoy!”

Ellis thought he understood McCoy. The young man wanted to get on the arson squad; it was the reason McCoy had become a fireman in the first place. Ellis sighed. McCoy would find out fast it wasn’t all beer and Skittles.

Especially with eager beavers getting a man out of bed at 3:30 in the morning. Jesus!

Quick footsteps sounded on the stairway. Ellis turned toward the sound. About time. He waited for McCoy to emerge on the stairway.

Instead, a brown felt hat came into view, and then a familiar, lean face—Curt Onstott from the DA’s office.

Ellis met him at the top of the stairs. “Curt!” He knew the tall, thin lawyer well, had worked with him on several cases. “I didn’t know the DA’s office was in on this one.”

Onstott wrinkled his nose. “What’s that stench?”

Ellis swung back toward the fire scene. “A man died in the fire,” he said shortly. “Where’s Captain Coddington?”

Onstott jerked a thumb toward the stairs. “Coming,” he said. “About two flights behind.” The slender district attorney paused in the doorway, glanced around the blackened hole that had been a cheap hotel room. “Well, Barnie,” he asked, “was it set?”

“How the hell can I tell this quick? What’s your office doing on this?”

Onstott was a tall man, but he still had to look up to talk to the bulky Ellis. “We’ve lost two witnesses in fires this past month—witnesses on the same case.”

Ellis froze in midstep. “What case?”

“That damn Tonelli thing—numbers and bookmaking. The man who died here this morning—Yorty—was a key witness.”

Ellis moved farther into the fire room. Half of one wall—where the bed had stood—showed the charred, alligator-hide markings of intense heat. Deep charring reached toward the window. Below the sill lay the soggy, begrimed remnants of lace curtains. He flashed a quick look at the lean DA’s man. “If Yorty was so important, why wasn’t he guarded?”

Onstott had the sort of thin, mobile face that shows its feelings fast. Right now he looked disgusted. “Hell, if we put a guard on every witness, there’d be no one left to mind the store.”

Ellis gave the soggy curtains a kick, glanced out the window. Where the hell was McCoy? Below him in the street, he could see one fire engine—a pumper—pulled diagonally into the curb. Near it, two firemen poured streams of water from a hose onto a soggy mattress. The mattress had stopped steaming.

Ellis turned back to Onstott. “We’ll give the place a real going-over for you, Curt. But I can’t promise we’ll find anything. It looks pretty cut and dried.”

“No arson?”

Ellis grimaced. “I told you it was too early—”

Coddington came wheezing through the doorway of the fire room, paused to catch his breath. “Four flights!” the fat fire captain gasped. “Did I hear you say arson?”

“No sign of a setup,” Ellis said shortly. “Where the hell is McCoy?”

Coddington held up a pudgy hand, took a series of fast, deep breaths. “Wait till I can breathe.” He took several more breaths, then gasped a little as he spoke. “I ran into two of his team on the way up. They said McCoy pulled them off the overhauling and dashed off to the phone. That was the last they saw of him.”

Ellis stared. “You mean he just took off? That doesn’t sound like eager beaver McCoy.”

Coddington spread his hands wide. “That’s all I know.” He frowned thoughtfully. “Wait a minute. His wife’s pregnant—due any minute now. Maybe he got a rush call and took off.”

Ellis looked doubtful. “Maybe.”

“Who’s this McCoy?” Onstott asked.

“You met him in my office once,” Ellis said. “Skinny, blond kid.”

Captain Coddington wheezed a short laugh. “Just a young fireman who sees a pyro behind every smoke.” He turned to Ellis. “What set him off this time?”

“Something about a mark on the floor,” Ellis said slowly. He looked at the assistant district attorney. “What was that about two witnesses dying in fires, Curt?”

Onstott pulled a cigarette package from his pocket, hesitated, then shoved it out of sight again. “We lost the other witness in that Swinburne Hotel fire last month.”

Ellis nodded sharply. He had been sure that’s what Onstott would say. The Swinburne fire was the last time McCoy had suspected arson. Something about a ring mark on the floor, the same thing McCoy had said about this one.

Coddington crossed the room to the window, looked down on the activity below, and sighed. “Happens all the time,” he said. “Guy gets drunk, lights a cigarette, and passes out. The real miracle is when the whole building doesn’t burn out.”

Ellis took a careful look at the floor, pointed suddenly to a brown ring on the ash-stained yellow linoleum near Onstott. “What’s that?”

Onstott moved away from the ring, looked down. “What’s what?”

“That mark on the floor by your feet.” Ellis moved over for a closer look, took a metal tape measure from his coat pocket. Coddington moved in closer.

“What about it?” Onstott asked.

Ellis knelt for a closer look, ran his thick forefinger across the mark. Hardly an indentation. Still, there’d been a mark just like it on the floor of the death room at the Swinburne. He measured the diameter. “Fourteen and a quarter inches.”

Coddington bent closer. “Could have been there for months,” he said. “Doesn’t have to mean anything.”

Ellis straightened, slipped the tape into his pocket. “I’d sure as hell like to talk to McCoy,” he said. “I wonder if he saw anything else.”

Onstott drew his black eyebrows into a worried V. “If you find anything, be sure to keep us posted. I don’t know who the hell we’re going to get to testify against Tonelli now.”

“Witnesses smoke in bed too,” wheezed Coddington. He moved impatiently toward the door. “Let’s get the hell out of here and get some air.”

Ellis glanced again at the ring on the floor, then met the worried look on the face of the assistant district attorney. “I’ve got my men on the way over,” he said. “If there’s anything to find, they’ll find it.”

Onstott stepped around the ring, walked over to the blackened doorway. “Arson isn’t usually a syndicate crime,” he said. “Bullets are more in their line.”

“They can buy talent,” Ellis said.

With a grimace, Onstott moved toward the stairs. Coddington had already started down. Onstott paused. “I’m going to grab some breakfast before I report. Can you get away?”

Ellis nodded. “Maybe by the time I get back, McCoy will have shown up.”

But McCoy wasn’t there when he got back. A call to the firehouse told Ellis that McCoy was off shift. Four calls to McCoy’s house went unanswered.

By lunchtime, Ellis was bone tired. He’d worked late the night before. Today was Saturday—his day off—when he’d promised to take Jane and the kids on a picnic. He felt he should at least go by his home, try to make peace with Jane.

But first—what about McCoy? What else could the young fireman have seen? It would only take a minute to stop by McCoy’s house on his way home. If Mrs. McCoy had gone to the hospital to have her baby, the neighbors would know it.

Nobody answered the front-door chime at McCoy’s tract house. Ellis pushed the bell, waited. Rang again. He turned to go back down the stairs, paused.

What was that sound in the house? It sounded like running water.

Ellis froze, listening, turned, and punched the door chime again. The sound inside stopped.

Ellis was sure there was someone inside. He didn’t like getting the runaround from the young fireman—especially when this was the guy who’d dragged him out of bed in the middle of the night.

Even the street was quiet now. Two boys sat on a curb in the afternoon sunshine, talking in low voices. A dog wandered silently across the lawns.

Ellis muttered his favorite short oath, went down the two steps, and followed the cement sidewalk to the back of the house.

Here, the steps were steeper, led directly to a tiny open porch and kitchen door. In two big steps he was at the back door, looking through the window into the kitchen.

Inside, he could see the back of Mrs. McCoy—a mop in one hand and bucket in the other, peering around the doorway toward the front of the house. Must think she’s hiding from a bill collector, thought Ellis with a grin. He pounded on the door.

She almost dropped the bucket at the sound behind her. From the back, she had looked like a schoolgirl, her brown coil of hair caught in a blue ribbon—but from the front, her smock barely covered her advanced pregnancy.

She spotted Ellis through the window, put down bucket and mop, and walked across the wet floor, heedless of the marks her moccasins made. She opened the door a crack, then wider. “Lieutenant Ellis,” she breathed. “What are you doing at the back door?”

Ellis smiled. “I rang the bell. I guess you didn’t hear me.”

“Come in,” she said in a tiny voice. Her eyes were wide.

Frightened? wondered Ellis. He glanced past her. “Shall I step on your clean floor?”

She looked down. “Oh. No, better come around to the front.”

But Ellis had seen something that interested him—a ring on the fresh-mopped floor. He pointed. “What made that mark, Mrs. McCoy?”

She turned, startled. “What mark? That ring?”

“Yes. What made it?”

She managed a tiny smile. “The bottom of the mop bucket. The water was too hot, and it made a mark in the wax. It’ll fade. Why do you ask?”

“Just wondered.” Ellis pulled his gaze from the ring. Smaller, but the same sort of mark. He met Mrs. McCoy’s puzzled look. “Is your husband here?”

She looked over her shoulder quickly, then back. “No, Chris isn’t here.”

Ellis knew she was lying. “I think he is,” he said flatly.

She bit her lip, looked up at Ellis. “You’re right,” she said. Her voice was barely audible. “Lieutenant, can I talk to you?”

He nodded.

She came out on the tiny porch with him, pulled the door almost shut behind her. “Lieutenant, I’m worried sick. Chris has been hurt, and he won’t let me call a doctor.”

Ellis felt his hands close into fists. “Hurt how?”

“I don’t know. Maybe in the fire he was on last night. But he was—was being sick in the bathroom most of the morning. When I asked him about it, he said he had the flu.”

“Maybe he has,” Ellis said.

She shook her head so violently that the brown coil of hair flipped from one side to the other. “No. There’s a big bruise on his stomach. I saw it.” She looked down. “And he won’t let me answer the phone—” She blushed. “Or the door.”

Ellis stared over her head, thinking. So someone had gotten to McCoy and he had chickened out. “Where is your husband now?”

“In the bathroom, I think.”

“Can he hear us?”

She shook her head again. “No. Not from here.”

Ellis nodded. “Okay. I’ll go around to the front again and ring the bell. This time let me in. You can always say I saw you through the front window and you had to open the door.”

She nodded, threw him a grateful look.

At the front door, she opened it wide, beckoned him in. “Lieutenant Ellis,” she said in a high clear voice. “What a surprise! I’ll tell Chris you’re here. Sit down.” She waved toward a lumpy armchair, then left Ellis alone.

Ellis lowered his big frame into the chair, hoping she wouldn’t overdo the surprised bit. In another room, he could hear a murmur of voices, and then McCoy appeared in the doorway.

“Hello, Lieutenant,” McCoy said. His smile was tight. What Ellis thought of as McCoy’s puppy friendliness was entirely missing. “Would you—would you like a beer?”

Ellis could sense McCoy hoping he’d say “no” and leave. He obliged. “No, thanks. I just stopped by on my way to make out my report. I wanted to get a few points cleared up.”

McCoy perched tentatively on the arm of the couch as Ellis studied him carefully. If he hadn’t been watching, he would have missed the twitch of pain that crossed the blond fireman’s face.

McCoy forced a smile. “I’m sorry about that goof, Lieutenant, getting you out of bed and all. I don’t think I can help you very much. I … well, your squad must have the whole picture by now.”

Ellis took a deep breath. McCoy was scared. He could almost smell it. “What made you think of arson in the first place?” he asked carefully.

McCoy looked over Ellis’ head. “The—the speed of the fire, I think. But then I found that can of lighter fluid. I guess your sergeant told you about it. It probably spilled and spread the fire.”

Ellis wrinkled his forehead, looked down at the rug. “You mentioned a ring—a mark on the floor—like the one in the Swinburne Hotel fire. What about it?”

“It was just a funny coincidence, I guess,” McCoy said.

Ellis narrowed his eyes. They’d sure put the wind up with McCoy, he thought. The kid was as white as a ghost. “You don’t look well,” Ellis said.

“Flu,” said McCoy. “Hit me suddenly. That’s—that’s why I didn’t wait for you this morning.”

Ellis decided abruptly not to challenge McCoy right now. Hell, he thought, there’s even an outside chance he’s telling the truth—but I doubt it. Ellis wanted more facts, and this scared boy wasn’t going to give them to him. Mentally, Ellis crossed off any chance of seeing Jane that afternoon. He wanted to get back to that hotel.

“Well …” McCoy said awkwardly.

Ellis pulled himself to his feet. “Anything else you’d like to say?”

McCoy stood up, followed Ellis to the door. “No. That’s about it.” His voice sounded easier now that Ellis was obviously leaving. “Are you sure you won’t have that can of beer?”

Ellis was tempted to say “yes” just to watch the effect. But he wanted to get out almost as much as his host seemed to want him to leave. Scared witless, he thought. Good thing to find out early about a man.

It left a bad taste in Ellis’s mouth. He pulled the car away from the curb with an angry jerk of the wheel. The one virtue a good fireman needed was courage. He would have said McCoy was a natural. And here he was—someone pushed, and he went into a yellow funk. They’d have to find out who was pushing, of course.

Ellis pulled the mic from under the dash, called his squad, and arranged for a tail on McCoy.

He headed toward the hotel where the morning’s fire had been. One thing was clear in Ellis’s mind—this had to be arson. No evidence at all. But too damn much smoke.

In the afternoon light, the Sander’s Hotel looked more uninviting than it had that morning. Ellis saw no official cars; the street was back to normal. The signs of fire had been cleared away, except for a few burned chunks of mattress kicked into the gutter.

Ellis parked several car lengths away. A man named Yorty had died this morning on a mattress. This afternoon, the mattress was just a few charred chunks of cotton in the street. Ellis felt there was a moral here, but he couldn’t frame it in words.

He slammed the car door, started away, then turned back to check the lock. This was a ratty neighborhood; no sense leaving anything for quick fingers.

Ellis stared at the car door a moment, thinking—then came to a quick decision. He unlocked the door, reached into the glove compartment, and took out the .38 police special he kept there. With a careful look to be sure he wasn’t watched, he dropped the gun into his coat pocket.

He picked up the mic again—let headquarters know where he was going. No sense in foolish chances; the game was getting rough.

The smell was gone from the air, but the musty aftermath of the fire greeted him the moment he pushed open the glass door and stepped into the green-painted lobby.

On one side, a small man sat reading the pink sports section of the newspaper. Ellis recognized yesterday’s baseball results in a headline.

The small man lowered the paper to gaze at Ellis, shifted his position slightly, and again raised the paper against the world.

Ellis stepped up to the worn desk, spoke to a tired-looking elderly man who smoked a stub of a cigar. “You the manager?”

“Yeah.” The man’s eyes were bloodshot, the eyelids drooped. “You a cop?”

They can always sense the uniform, even when you’re not wearing it, Ellis thought. He shook his head. “Fire department.”

“Fire’s out,” said the man.

Ellis fingered his wallet from his inside coat pocket, flipped it open to show his credentials. “I’m Barnhard Ellis, Arson Squad,” he said. “What’s your name?”

“Dittman,” said the man. “Al Dittman.”

No questions, nothing volunteered, Ellis thought. He pushed his wallet back into the pocket, feeling a bit awkward under the tired stare of the old man. “I have a few questions,” Ellis said, “about your cleaning routine.”

The old man slid off his stool, raised himself slowly to full height.

Ellis stared. The man stood even taller than his own six feet, two inches, but was so thin he waved like a blade of dry grass. “Cleaning!” exclaimed the man in his first sign of life. He put the cigar carefully on a blackened ashtray. “We run a good hotel. Got a certificate from the city. We can’t help it if some bum smokes in bed. What’s cleaning got to do with it?”

Ellis shifted his weight. “I’m not here to put in a complaint, Dittman.” His eyes moved to the staircase and a small pile of trash near the foot of it. “Though maybe I should.”

A guffaw sounded behind Ellis, and he whirled in surprise toward the small man trying to hide laughter behind his pink newspaper. “He’s got you there, Al,” laughed the man. “He’s got you there. Living here is like living in the city dump.”

“Shut up!” said Dittman, and the laugh ended as sharply as a clicked-off radio. Dittman turned back to Ellis. “What about our cleaning?”

Ellis kept his gaze on the tall, thin man—wishing he would return to the stool. Ellis wasn’t used to looking up when he talked. “I’d like to see your …” He hesitated, reluctant to say “mop bucket.” “I’d like to see your cleaning equipment.”

Dittman sank back onto his stool, picked up the cigar. “There ain’t none,” he said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Ellis asked.

“We use a service.”

“What kind of service?”

Dittman sighed. “I can’t see what this—”

Ellis cut him off. “It isn’t up to you to see. What kind of service?”

“One of those outfits you pay to come in at night and clean up. They bid for the job.”

Bid, Ellis thought. There was a gratuitous offering. As though that relieved this creep from responsibility. “And what’s the name of this efficient service?” Ellis asked, glancing again toward the rubbish near the steps.

The man behind the paper chortled briefly, broke off.

Dittman turned, still on the stool, to bend close to a card tacked on a wall near the mail boxes. “Cellini and O’Grady,” he read aloud. “They’re lousy.”

Ellis pulled out a notebook, jotted down the name. “Phone number?”

Dittman read it off, then asked, “Anything else?”

“Yes. Who reported the fire?”

“Mulligan in 437,” said Dittman.

“Can I talk to him?” Ellis asked.

“Can I stop you?”

Ellis bit at his lip to hide his irritation. “I mean, is he in his room now?”

The thin hotel manager shrugged. “Search me. Climb up and see.”

Ellis nodded sharply, turned to the stairs, and reluctantly began the four-flight climb. Christ, what a dump, he thought. And what a way to live.

On the fourth floor, Ellis stopped to catch his breath. He thought about the people who lived in this class of hotel—derelicts, men living on alcohol and dead hopes—and older people with pensions that wouldn’t stretch for a better address.

How did they manage these stairs? A less athletic group than the tenants of one of these old hotels would be hard to imagine.

Still breathing deeply, Ellis looked down the poorly lit fourth floor hall. Directly ahead of him was the room where the witness had died.

The musty hall angled to the right, revealing several doors in need of paint. The burned room was 425. He went down the hall the few doors to 437, raised his big fist, and rapped on the door.

Quick motion stirred in the room, then stumbling footsteps. The door opened quickly, and a pudgy man gazed blearily at him, supporting his wavering weight on the doorknob. “Whadja want?” the man managed.

Ellis caught the sweet-sour smell of wine on the man’s breath, moved back a pace. “Mulligan?” he asked.

“Who wants to know?”

“Ellis, fire department. You the one turned in the alarm last night?”

Mulligan blinked at him, clung to the door. His once-white shirt was open at the throat, revealing a thick bush of red hair. “’Zat a crime?”

Ellis took a deep breath and, step by step, led Mulligan through a description of coming home. “I was dead sober,” Mulligan complained, “at 2:30 in the morning.” He had smelled smoke and phoned from the pay phone in the hall.

Mulligan indicated the phone by a wide wave of his arm.

“Did you see anyone?” Ellis asked.

“Jussa cleaning lady,” Mulligan said.

Ellis sucked in a quick breath of air. “Here? On this floor? What was she doing?”

Mulligan raised a hairy-backed hand to support himself against one side of the doorjamb, leaned toward Ellis in an exhalation of sour breath. “What was she supposed to be doing, y’ dumb fireman? She was mopping the floor.”

Ellis glanced at the threadbare rug of the hall. “Mopping the carpet?”

“Christ, no!” Mulligan said. “I saw her on the stairs. She was carrying her mop and pail down to the lobby.” He leered at Ellis. “You got a thing for cleaning ladies, Mac?”

Ellis ignored the man, reassembled his thoughts. He wanted to see the inside of Mulligan’s room, find out the normal layout of one of these rooms. And it was high time he called the department. He decided to try for both. “Can I use your phone?” he asked.

Mulligan grinned. “Only phone’s that pay phone in the hall.”

Ellis nodded. “Okay. Was anyone else around—besides the cleaning woman?”

“No,” said Mulligan. “And goodnight.” He closed the door firmly.

Ellis was caught by surprise, decided to make the best of it. He had got all he was going to get here. He fumbled in his pocket for a dime, went over to the pay phone.

By this time they should have the word on how Yorty had died. He decided to call Captain Coddington instead of the sergeant. It was Coddington’s fire, and if there was anything funny about it, the captain would be the first to know. He’d also have the grapevine report, the unofficial view from the top.

But Coddington was out. “He just happened to go to the Meadows,” explained the fireman on the board.

Despite his disappointment at finding the fat fire captain out, Ellis had to smile. The Meadows was the local racetrack, and everyone in the department knew the captain’s passion for the ponies.

The joke was the way Coddington always acted as if his visits to the track were infrequent impulses.

Ellis fumbled for another dime, dialed the DA’s office. This time he was lucky. Onstott was in and had the coroner’s report in front of him.

The thin assistant DA sounded disgusted. “Yorty died in the fire, all right—loaded with carbon monoxide. So there goes our homicide right out the window.”

Ellis leaned close to the phone so his voice wouldn’t carry into the hall. “Any question on identification of the victim?”

“No, it was Yorty, all right. It was the smoke that got him. The body’s blistered but in pretty good condition, all things considered.”

Ellis put that picture firmly out of his mind. “I’m at the Sander’s Hotel right now. Thought I’d have a look around.”

Onstott cleared his throat, sounded a bit apologetic. “Look, Barnie, isn’t this police business now? You haven’t an arson case, and—”

Ellis interrupted. “I can’t argue that, Curt. But this whole mess doesn’t feel right. You know that. It’s full of things that don’t add up?”

“Such as?”

“Let me poke around a little, and maybe I can answer that. Will you be in your office all afternoon?”

Again, Onstott cleared his throat. “As far as I know now.” He hesitated. “Look, take it easy. Those boys don’t fool around.”

“Okay,” said Ellis. “I’ll finish up here and then check in with you again.”

Ellis hung up the phone, then turned to look slowly up and down the narrow hall, not sure where he wanted to begin.

For one thing, he knew he wanted a talk with the other denizens of this fourth floor—and then there was that cleaning service. He glanced at his watch—4:15. They might close at 5:00, if they were there on Saturday at all.

He couldn’t get the idea out of his head that the ring on the floor could have been caused by a mop bucket. He grinned to himself. It was the first time he’d ever heard of using mop water to start a fire.

Behind one of the doors, a phone rang, and Ellis paused in surprise. In this hotel, a private phone was a sound of affluence.

All the doors Ellis could see had numbers except the one directly opposite the pay phone. He found himself staring at its paint-chipped surface.

Supply closet? Probably locked. He tried the knob. To his surprise, it turned. The door opened with a loud creak of hinges.

One look and he turned away. It had been a broom closet once; now it was a hiding place for garbage. And from the smell, an occasional comfort station.

He pushed the door shut—but then another odor made him pause. Stale smoke?

Again Ellis creaked the door open, then took out his penlight and flashed it around. The smoke smell was very faint. Perhaps trapped in here from the morning’s fire?

His light picked up a mark on the floor. Ellis bent closer, saw a clearly marked yellowish-brown ring.

He took out his tape, knelt quickly, oblivious now to the stench of the place. He nodded to himself as he read the tape. Exactly fourteen and one-quarter inches.

Behind him, a door opened and closed. But when he stood up to look down the hall, he couldn’t tell which door it had been.

Was Mulligan watching from 437?

Ellis closed the door quietly.

An ugly silence hung over the hall. Ellis glanced at the pay phone. Another call to Onstott was indicated—but he suddenly felt that phone was too public. Besides, he wanted out of here.

A tiny red light glowed over a door at the opposite end of the hall from the front stairs. Fire exit? Service stairs? He’d better have a look.

Ellis headed for the red light, wondered why Mulligan’s cleaning woman hadn’t gone down this way.

When he opened the door, he saw why. Christ! Did every corner of this hotel harbor a pile of rubbish? The residents must empty their wastebaskets down these stairs. He made a mental note to call the fire inspectors but knew it would have small effect. They were understaffed and under pressure. Not their fault that these dumps existed on political geetus.

Ellis picked his way down the filthy stairs, still puzzling about the cleaning woman. More and more, Ellis was convinced that no professional cleaners ever came near this joint. They probably had a contract with a “service” all right, but the whole setup smelled of a kickback.

And what in the hell was a woman with a mop doing walking down carpeted stairs at 2:30 in the morning?

Ellis was pleased, though, by the way two things dovetailed. When he had seen that ring on the floor of McCoy’s kitchen, he had wondered if a cleaning bucket had left the mark in the fire room. Now, first crack out of the bat, his questions had turned up a scrubwoman.

Above him on the steep stairs, he heard a door open. He turned to see the blocky outline of a man against the dim lighting from a dirty skylight.

Ellis walked a bit faster. Just one more flight to the ground level. He could feel the desire for fresh air welling up in him.

“Wait a moment,” called the man above him in a gruff voice. “Your name Ellis?”

Ellis stopped on the landing where the steps right-angled between the first and second floor, glanced up. “Yeah. What is it?”

“I got a message for you.” The man broke into an awkward run down the steps. “From your office.”

From the office? Ellis wondered. How the hell would the office reach me through this punk, whoever he was?

A sound below him, from down the stairs, caught Ellis’s attention. He glanced left, saw another man—this one mounting the stairs. The second figure could have been a brother to the first—ring-scarred, the eyes with that stare of secret ferocities.

Ellis didn’t like his position here on the stairs. Back stairs, he corrected himself. Who ever used the back stairs?

The man from above stopped one step up, almost level with him on the landing. Ugly-looking pug. Neck thicker than his head. Fighter’s shoulders with that bunched-up shape to them. His body was thick all the way down; it made his head look even smaller and rounder than it was.

“What’s this message?” Ellis asked. He retreated to make room for the man, but it also put his back into the corner.

“Yeah, message,” the man said. He was obviously waiting for his companion coming up from below.

Through Ellis’s mind flashed the arithmetic of street fighting. This first pug was about five-ten. I’ve got the reach on him, Ellis thought. But the man outweighed him by at least twenty pounds—and here was his companion now—almost a mate in weight and empty stare. The companion stopped one step down.

“This is the bird,” the one from below said.

Ellis could feel the menace. No doubt of it now. He had almost decided to punch first and apologize later when he saw the gun in the hand of the one who had come up from below.

Ellis knew the gun in his own pocket might as well still be in the car for all the good it could do him now. Better not reach for it and telegraph that he was armed. Later on, he might get a chance to use the .38. He watched the gun in the pug’s hand, weighing his chances.

The armed man saw the direction of Ellis’s stare and said, “Yeah, friend, that’s right.”

The other one stretched his mouth in a shallow grin that kept his teeth covered and said, “Like I said, Ellis, I got a message for you.”

Ellis suddenly remembered young McCoy. Without needing the complete details, Ellis knew McCoy had met this pair—or their twins. They had syndicate written all over them. Deadly punks. Ellis fought against a sick feeling in his stomach. He had been through the police academy, but that was years back … and besides, the first thing they told you was, “Try reasoning first.”

“I think I get the message,” Ellis said. “But I don’t think your boss would like it if you got the department mad at you.”

“Department,” the man chuckled. Again his mouth stretched into that tight grin, and then he laughed shortly. Ellis saw a brief exposure of yellowed stumps and understood the tight grin, the concealing mannerism.

“You sure as hell can’t make me look like a fire accident,” Ellis said.

The moment he had spoken, Ellis knew the words were a mistake. He pressed back into the corner, wishing for more room, as the men exchanged a knowing look.

“You ain’t got the message yet,” said the one from the top. “We want you should remember this message. When you wake up—if you wake up—you remember it good. There’s a kind of a postscript, friend. You stay nosy, and your wife, your Jane, she’s gonna get the same message. You remember that, huh? And if she don’t understand the message, then we’ll deliver it to your kids.”

Ellis felt sick fear spread through his muscles. So that’s how they got to McCoy, he thought.

The man from below lifted the gun.

Ellis faced it, saw too late that was what they wanted. He sensed the blur of motion from above, felt the blazing drum-crash of a blow on his head.

Blackjack, he thought. Then there was darkness and stairs and falling all mixed up with a sound of breaking and a pain in his leg—and in his side. He sensed distant blows, knew somehow he was at the foot of the rubbish-strewn stairs.

The emptiness enclosed him.

O O O

Someone was groaning. With a feeling of unfamiliar detachment, Ellis realized it was himself.

Somewhere in the darkness he felt a sharp prick in his arm. Something rustled around him. There was a smell of disinfectant—a glare of light.

Again, this stranger—this distant self—groaned, and the emptiness returned.

There was a whistling sound, unmusical and unpleasant. Ellis grew aware that it was his own breathing past some kind of obstruction. A tube of some kind. He could feel it against his cheek.

A gurney rattled through the emptiness. Ellis had heard the sound many times—you couldn’t come through the department’s ranks without growing overly familiar with hospitals—and death.

But I’m not dead, he thought. By God, I’m not dead!

Voices talked, but too far away to be understood.

From the bottom of a long, deep, dark hole, Ellis felt consciousness return. With it came the pain. He floated back to wakefulness, aware of a bone-deep ache in his right leg—and a sharp stab each time he breathed deeply.

Carefully, slowly, he opened his eyes to a white-and-chrome hospital room. Outlines were fuzzy, but they steadied rapidly. He heard his own voice ask, “What time is it?”

A cheerful female voice: “2:00 AM.”

“What day?” he asked.

“Sunday,” the cheerful voice told him.

Nine hours I’ve been out, he thought. Unless I missed a whole week! But he knew he hadn’t. The pain was too new.

“How do we feel?” asked the cheerful female.

“We feel like hell,” Ellis said. He moved his head gently; it felt all there. “When can I leave?”

“When your leg gets out of traction,” said the bright voice. She came around the foot of the bed, all white and fresh and starched.

Pretty little thing, thought Ellis, if you like them sterile. “Who’re you?”

“Miss Birch.”

“Why is my leg in traction?” asked Ellis, focusing on the contraption of metal and wire hung over the foot of the bed.

“I believe it’s broken,” Miss Birch said.

“Don’t you know?” Ellis tried to sit up, couldn’t. He turned his head to take stock of the room. Dresser. Armchair. Straight chair. Two closed doors—closet and bath? Extension-type table by the bed.

He glanced at the table, was relieved to see a telephone. But who was it he should call? His mind still fuzzed—whether from the blow or from drugs he wasn’t sure.

Jane! The name washed into his mind on a cold splash of awareness. Jane and the kids! That thug had threatened Jane and the kids. He reached for the phone, but it was just beyond his grasp.

“Give me the phone,” he said brusquely.

Miss Birch smiled brightly. “But it is two o’clock in the morning. You make your calls tomorrow.”

“Goddamit, give me that phone!”

The smile vanished. “Now, now. Don’t you want to see your poor wife? She’s been so worried.”

“Jane! Where is she?”

“Right out in the hall. And a very jumpy young man is waiting to see you too. Says he’s an assistant district attorney.”

Onstott, Ellis thought. “Tell him to wait. Tell him I’m delirious or something—and send in my wife.”

“Doctor Greenleaf will be here very soon,” said Miss Birch. “Mrs. Ellis can only stay a few minutes.”

Ellis set his jaw. “Then get her in here right away.”

Miss Birch frowned, swished away, then returned in a moment, followed by Jane.

Ellis tried to sit up, cursed the contraption on his leg that kept him in one position. “Jane! Where are the kids?”

“Home, of course. It’s two o’clock in the morning.”

Ellis waited till the nurse left. Jane showed signs of hasty dressing—a sports coat over slacks—but she looked terrific to him. “Are the kids alone?”

“Yes. Why not? They’re old enough to take care of themselves.” She smiled. “The important thing right now is you. How do you feel?” She crossed the room to the armchair by the window, started to sit down.

“Jane!”

She paused, arrested by the alarm in his voice. “What is it?”

“Close the door.”

She crossed quickly, shut it, came over to the bed. “What is it, Barnie?”

“Listen carefully,” Ellis said. “I don’t have time to go into detail.” Briefly, he outlined as much as he felt she should know of what his attacker had said. He wanted to scare her; to be sure she’d act without delay. When he mentioned the children, he knew he had succeeded.

She straightened, took a quick step back. Her voice was steady, but he could see the fear in her eyes. “Barnie, what should we do?”

“Exactly what I say. Call your brother. Have him pick you up right away at the hospital. Go get the kids and get out to your mother’s place in Fairfield as fast as you can. Don’t tell anyone but your parents and brother what’s happened.” He squeezed her hand, looked up at her. “Two things to remember: move fast and be careful. And for God’s sake, phone me when you’re safely there.”

“But—I hate to just leave you—”

“Jane, believe me, it’ll be much worse if I have you and the kids to worry about too. Promise me you’ll do as I say. I’ll have police guards out there as soon as I can. Your mother’s place is safer, more open—keep your brother with you. I’ll call Bill Torrance at the sheriff’s office in Fairfield. We were at school together. He’ll know what to do.”

Ellis puased. “Would you hand me my coat from that closet?”

“Of course. Why?” She opened the closet door, took out his suit coat, brought it to him. “It’s heavy.”

“I thought you might need some money,” he said, taking the coat and removing his wallet from the inside pocket. He touched the outer pocket. Good, the .38 was still there.

“Is there a briefcase in the closet?” he asked, inventing the briefcase to take her attention away from him long enough for him to slip the gun from the pocket, put it beneath his pillow.

“I don’t see one.” She took the coat, hung it up, turned back. “Barnie—”

The door interrupted her.

An older man in a dark suit came in, followed by Nurse Birch.

“Well, well,” said the man. “I see our patient feels well enough to have a charming guest. How do you do? I am Dr. Greenleaf.”

“The charming guest is just leaving,” Ellis said.

Jane hesitated, then said, “The children—”

“Of course,” the doctor said. “Why don’t you drop by this afternoon?”

Jane bent, kissed Ellis’s cheek. “I’ll call you,” she said. She hurried out.

Ellis faced the doctor. “How long am I stuck here?”

“Several weeks, I’d say,” said Dr. Greenleaf. “You do have a broken leg, you know.”

“What’s this pain in my side?” Ellis asked, then listened to a dissertation on broken and cracked ribs, thinking how well the pugs had done their job. Professionals. The anger mounted in him, and he suddenly remembered the one who had chuckled, the rasping voice, the way he said “Department.” Could they have a fix in the department? Ellis asked himself. Oh, Jesus!

“Miss Birch will give you something for the pain,” the doctor said. “Don’t worry about a thing. We’ll take the best care of you, won’t we, Miss Birch?” He beamed at her.

“We certainly will, Doctor,” she chirruped.

Dr. Greenleaf patted his stethoscope, nodded briskly, and turned to the door. “Tell that assistant district attorney he can only stay ten minutes.” He marched out, closing the door firmly behind him.

Miss Birch stood at crisp attention till the doctor was gone, turned back to the bed. As she bent over him, the door opened suddenly and Onstott stepped in.

“I have to talk to this man, nurse,” he said briskly. “Police business.”

Miss Birch smoothed the bedspread, moved the water glass and its crooked straw within Ellis’ reach. “Very well,” she said, “But please limit your visit to ten minutes.”

A white-toothed grin lit Onstott’s face. “Okay, honey,” he said. He held the door open while she swished out. He clicked the door shut. “Nice,” he said.

“If you like them crisp,” said Ellis. He nodded toward the straight chair. “Park it.”

Onstott jerked the chair close to the bed, pulled a small notebook from his side pocket. “I’ve kept the dogs off you so far,” he said. “But now we need a statement. Did you lose much?”

Ellis tipped his head quizzically. “Lose much what?”

“Money. Cash. Green stuff. You were mugged in that lousy hotel, weren’t you?”

Ellis stared at him. “No. This was a message from the syndicate, Curt. A warning to stop poking my nose into your damn bookie case.” Ellis thought of the gun under his head. The professional pair had missed that—too confident. Let them try me now—in here, he thought.

“Brief me,” Onstott said, his voice suddenly cold.

Ellis sketched in the details of the fight on the stairs and described the matched pair of thugs.

“Would you know them again?” Onstott asked.

“You’re damn right I would!” Ellis said.

At the mention of the threat to Jane and the kids, Onstott paused in his notetaking, started to break in.

“I got them out of town,” Ellis said. “That part’s covered.” He explained about the friend in the sheriff’s office in Fairfield.

“That’s Schaffer County,” Onstott said. “I’ll get on the horn as soon as I leave here. Don’t worry about her. I have friends there too.”

“Okay, let’s get to work,” Ellis said.

Onstott nodded, glanced over his notes. “Who knew you were in the hotel?”

“The desk clerk and some little guy in the lobby. And I talked to a drunk named Mulligan—the one who reported the fire.”

“He’s the one who found you and called an ambulance,” Onstott said.

Ellis chewed his lower lip. “That probably clears Mulligan.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. You could read it either way.”

Again, Onstott glanced over his notes. “You’d almost think two different people were thinking up things to do.”

Ellis reached over the table, got a cigarette, and lit it. “I’ve had the same feeling. Somebody very clever thought up the homicide-by-arson scheme. Someone a lot dumber is sending hoods around with threatening messages.”

“I’ve a hunch the smart one may have a message for the dumb one before long,” Onstott said. “And some messages are more effective than others.” He looked at the traction arrangement over the bed.

Ellis grimaced as he tried to move his leg and failed. Onstott didn’t look too good to him either. There were fatigue lines on the lean face.

“Is your case against Tonelli dead?” Ellis asked.

“As dead as the witnesses,” Onstott glanced at the door, lowered his voice. “I had a reason for coming here myself. You’d better know what’s on the grapevine.”

Ellis shifted a little in a vain attempt to find a comfortable position. He stubbed out his cigarette, watched Onstott. “Yes?”

Onstott slipped his notebook into his side pocket, kept his voice down. “The word is clear and simple: there’s a fireman mixed up in this. Tonelli is supposed to have made some crack about it. According to our tipster, he said, ‘Why buy a cop when you can have your own pet fireman?’”

Ellis felt suddenly cold. Again he remembered the pug, the way the man had said, “Department.”

The door opened, and Miss Birch put her head in. “Time to leave, Mr. Onstott,” she caroled.

He swiveled toward her. “Almost finished,” he said.

“Give us fifteen minutes—”

“Oh, I couldn’t—” she began.

Onstott held up one forefinger, shook it in schoolteacherly fashion. “You know, I bet you could …” He let the sentence trail off.

She laughed suddenly, withdrew her head from the door.

Ellis hardly noticed the exchange. He was thinking. An abrupt idea had struck him—McCoy! Maybe the bruise and the fright were a blind …

Onstott narrowed his eyes, watching Ellis. “You have someone in mind?”

“Maybe yes, maybe no. But I do have an idea how those convenient fires were set.” He held up his hand as Onstott started to speak. “Hold it. I’ve some more checking first. If it checks, I’ll brief you.”

Again Onstott glanced at the traction apparatus over the bed, stared pointedly at the tape showing at the neck of Ellis’ hospital gown. “You’re in a swell spot to be doing some checking.”

Ellis frowned. “Okay, so I’m a turkey ready to be roasted,” he said. “How many people know which room I’m in?”

“It’s no secret,” said Onstott, “But I’ve got a cop posted in the hall.”

Ellis nodded. “Good enough.”

“I’ll have a little talk with him,” Onstott said. There was a hint of anger in his eyes, but he looked thoughtful, too. “Be right back.” He turned to go, almost ran into Captain Coddington in the doorway.

Coddington was in uniform, and walked as erect as his chubby shape would permit. He nodded to Onstott, came over to the bed. “Hello. Hello. How do you feel, Barnie?”

“I could use a day’s rest, Captain,” Ellis said. “Do you suppose I could have tomorrow off?” In his mind, Ellis rejected the idea of telling Coddington that the syndicate had bought themselves a fireman. No sense in having the captain stir things up, muddying the water.

Coddington laughed and wheezed as he sat down in the armchair by the window. “Hell, Barnie—you never lose the old sense of humor, do you?”

“Ha!” said Ellis grimly. “You hear me laughing?”

Coddington’s face sobered. “They said you were mugged,” Coddington said. “First time that’s ever happened to one of my boys, and I want you to know that whoever did it is going to pay.”

“Yeah,” said Ellis. “But this was no mugging.” He sketched in the encounter on the stairs.

Coddington frowned. “Son of a bitch,” he said.

Ellis noted the jaw muscle working on the captain’s face, the angry pallor.

“I lived through it, Captain,” Ellis said. “I’ve been hurt worse than this. Not by intention, sure, but—”

“This is—police business!” Coddington blurted. “No place for a fireman around this kind of violence.”

Onstott came back in the room, nodded to Coddington in the armchair. “Attended any good fires lately, Captain?”

Coddington emitted his wheezing laugh. “We’re trying to put out the fires for your office,” he said. “Look what you let happen to one of my best men.” He waved a pudgy hand toward Ellis. “I hope you’re going to take better care of him now.”

“We are,” said Onstott shortly.

Coddington clutched the arms of his chair, kneading them with his fingers. “Do you really think someone tried to kill you?” he asked Ellis.

“No,” said Ellis. “They were trying not to. This one was to tell me to keep my nose out. The next time may not be as gentle.”

“What do you mean, ‘next time’?” Coddington demanded. “You aren’t poking any more fingers in this pie. It’s police business.”

Ellis sank back into the pillow, stared up at the ceiling. “As a matter of fact, it’s my business,” he said. “They made it that when they sent those thugs after me.” He raised his head, looked at Onstott. “Give me a little time, and I’ll tell you exactly how your witnesses died.”

“Tell me now,” Onstott said.

“I said, give me time. I haven’t got it quite clear, but it’s coming.”

“For Christ sakes—” Onstott began.

“Get off my back!” Ellis snapped. He felt queasy. The pain in his leg and chest took second place to a sick worry.

Onstott took a step toward the bed. “It’s my business to ask questions,” he said in an overcontrolled voice.

Coddington interrupted. “Time enough for questions when Barnie feels stronger.” He turned to Ellis. “Right now, the important thing is to get you back on your feet.”

“Okay, okay,” said Onstott. “But tomorrow, we talk.” He glanced at his watch. “I mean, later today.”

Ellis nodded. “Fair enough.”

Coddington lifted his bulk back to his feet. “Look, Barnie, this is a rotten business. Anything you need, you say the word. I’m going to ask for a meeting with the commissioner this afternoon. We’re going to get to the bottom of this.”

Onstott nodded soberly, turned toward the door. “Right now,” Coddington said, “I want you to see about a guard being put on Barnie’s room. If he’s in danger—”

“It’s all taken care of,” Onstott said. He closed thumb and forefinger for Ellis to see. “Come on, Captain. He looks tired.”

They left side by side, an incongruous Mutt and Jeff pair—the tall assistant DA and the short, fat fire captain.

Ellis smiled, feeling better after their visit despite his moment of anger. The wheels were turning.

Miss Birch came in as soon as they were gone. From somewhere—Midair? wondered Ellis—she produced a tiny, white paper cup.

“And now for your sleeping pill,” she said.

“Not yet,” Ellis said. “I have some thinking to do.”

“Oh, you’ll have weeks and weeks to think,” said Miss Birch. She handed him the cup with the capsule. “Down the hatch!”

Ellis glared at her, put the cup on the table. “Put that phone where I can reach it.”

“But it’s three o’clock in the morning!”

“Tell the switchboard my wife will call. When she does, put her right through—no matter what time it is.”

“I don’t know—”

“Just put the phone where I can get it,” Ellis snapped. Goddamit! His ribs ached when he barked like that. “If you really want me to get some rest, give the switchboard that message.”

Reluctantly, she nodded, moved the phone closer.

“Now, please crank my bed up as far as you can,” said Ellis. “And leave the door open when you go.”

Miss Birch’s voice was tightly disapproving. “You are not going to be cranked way up. Doctor’s orders. And you should take your pill. You need rest and quiet.”

He waited for her to leave. She fought it, but the habits of obedience were too strong, and Ellis was a man used to giving orders. Disapproval was apparent, though, in the stiff set of her shoulders as she marched out.

Ellis was more aware of his leg than he wanted to be. The sleeping pill was a temptation. But first he had to hear from Jane—and that would take at least an hour, probably nearer two.

He reached for the phone, managed to get through to Bill Torrance in Fairfield.

“I’ll be there when Jane arrives,” the burly deputy sheriff promised. “And I’ll stick with them till I hear from you.”

Ellis cradled the phone. He felt better with Torrance on the job—but he was still uneasy.

Now he understood McCoy’s fear. Ellis shook his head angrily, thinking of the bruise Mrs. McCoy had seen on her husband’s stomach. He could imagine those thugs threatening to do the same thing to McCoy’s pregnant wife. A blow on the stomach—a message. Those low, crawly scum!

Ellis clutched the sheet in his fists, glared at the open doorway, picturing the tiny Mrs. Christian McCoy. So like a child—yet nine months pregnant.

Ellis muttered several of his favorite swear words, tried to shift position, and swore again at the jab of pain in his chest.

A light doze closed his eyes. He woke up sharply when the phone rang. Jane! He took a deep breath of relief as he heard her voice on the phone. He glanced at his watch as he talked to her. 4:00 AM. She’d made good time. The children were safely in bed.

Ellis reached for the sleeping pill, stopped at a familiar sound in the hall. He watched the open doorway, waiting.

In a moment, he saw what he’d waited for: a scrubwoman in a white uniform pushed a mop down the hall. He waited as she plodded back out of sight, then returned, pushing a low cart loaded with a bucket of steaming water and a rack of brooms and mops, stopped in front of his door, and dunked her mop.

A sharp tang of soap and disinfectant filled his nose.

Ellis stared at the mop bucket, thinking. It was almost twice the size of the one Mrs. McCoy had used. And hanging on its side was a heavy lid.

“Hey!” he called in a low voice. “Hey!”

The woman glanced through the door.

Ellis beckoned. “Come here a minute.”

The woman glanced up and down the hospital hall, hesitating, mop in hand. She shook her head slowly. “If it’s booze you want, mister, I’m temperance. You’ll have to get someone else.”

“No,” said Ellis. “Nothing like that.” He pointed at the cleaning cart with the bucket. “Could you wheel that a little closer?”

“You nuts?”

“What have you got to lose?” Ellis asked.

The woman shrugged, pushed the steaming cart half into the room.

Ellis took a long look at the cleaning bucket with its tight lid, nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Thanks.”

The woman shook her head. “Takes all kinds,” she muttered as she wheeled the cart out the door, worked on down the hall.

Ellis leaned back in bed—feeling that there were a lot of pieces, but finally he was beginning to sense a shape. It had been a break, seeing that lid on the mop bucket. That answered a big question.

He began assembling his thoughts, lining up procedure in his methodical way, getting everything in order for when he saw Onstott in the morning.

In the middle of a thought, he dozed off.

He woke up suddenly at an odd noise in the hall—footsteps that didn’t sound right. Someone had paused where he couldn’t be seen, just beside the open door. If it had been a nurse or an aide, they’d have barged right in.

Ellis froze, watching the doorway. He reached under his pillow, shifted the .38 down beside him under the covers. Come in, he thought. I’ve got a score to settle with you.

With one quick motion, the young fireman, McCoy, darted into the room, closed the door behind him.

Ellis waited, all senses alert, hand on the .38. Was this it?

McCoy moved quietly toward the bed, spoke softly. “You awake, Lieutenant?”

Ellis took a deep breath. “I’m awake now. What’re you doing here?”

McCoy smiled and it lit up his thin face. “Everything’s okay now, Lieutenant. Marianne just gave birth to a nine-pound boy.”

Ellis relaxed his grip on the gun at his side, permitted himself a slight smile. “Congratulations, McCoy. That’s wonderful.” Then he stiffened again. “How did you know where to find me?”

McCoy stared. “Is it a secret? Captain Coddington told me. I ran into him in the lobby, and he told me what had happened.”

Some protection this room has, Ellis thought in disgust. “Is there a police guard in the hall?” he asked.

“Not right outside your room.” McCoy swallowed. “But there’s a cop talking to a nurse near the elevators.”

“That figures,” Ellis said. “You got any special reason for seeing me, McCoy?”

McCoy gulped, started to speak, then swallowed his words.

Ellis took a long, careful look at the man. So damned young and eager. Was McCoy the rotten apple in the barrel? He’d be a perfect one. Who’d suspect that ingenuous face—that open, puppy look?

McCoy cleared his throat nervously. “I’m sorry, Lieutenant, if you didn’t want visitors. I—I feel responsible. I had to just let you walk into a mess without—”

“I’m over twenty-one,” Ellis barked. “I walk into any mess I choose.” He stared up at the ungainly traction apparatus over the bed, sorting out his thoughts. Who could you really trust when the syndicate was involved? Onstott? Maybe. McCoy? Probably not. Coddington? Ellis swore to himself. The whole damn fire department was suspect till they got this cleared up.

Ellis focused again on McCoy. The kid looked like he’d lost his last friend. Ellis nodded toward the straight chair. “Sit down,” he said.

McCoy swung the chair into position with its back to the bed, sat down straddling it. “I’m really sorry. I—”

Ellis took a deep breath. “How’d they get to you?”

McCoy gripped the back of the chair, looked down at his hands. “It was Marianne,” he said. “They threatened—”

“Who did?” Ellis asked sharply.

“A couple of guys in the hotel. They beat me up bad, said they’d do the same to Marianne if I didn’t lay off. I’ve never been beaten up like that before.” In the light from the table, Ellis noted McCoy’s face was flushed. “Christ, Lieutenant—the baby and all—I just—”

Ellis remembered his own fear for Jane. “I know,” he said grimly. “Who were they?”

“I never saw them before,” McCoy said. “There were two of them. I went down the hall to that pay phone, and a big guy grabbed me from behind and pulled me into a room. A big, blocky guy—he looked like an ex-fighter. There was another guy there—same type, but less of him. He held the gun while the big guy worked me over.”

Ellis nodded, recognizing the description of the two men.

McCoy took a deep breath. “I didn’t dare tell you yesterday. You don’t know how glad I am to have Marianne safe in the hospital. With her here, I can …” He broke off as the phone rang.

Ellis’s glance darted to his watch. 4:45 AM. What the hell? He picked up the receiver. “Yes?”

The voice was muffled. “You were told to lay off—have you forgotten the message?”

Ellis stiffened, the phone suddenly heavy in his hand. “Who—”

“I said—have you forgotten the message?”

McCoy stared at Ellis’s face, then stood up suddenly, made a futile snatch at the phone. “What is it?” he asked in a loud voice.

Ellis shook his head, but it was too late. “Is McCoy with you?” the muffled voice asked. “Too bad.” The phone was hung up with a click.

Ellis returned it slowly to the cradle, then grabbed it up, dialed the operator. “This is Ellis in 330,” he said. “Where’d that call come from?”

“There was no call through the board, Mr. Ellis. It must have been an inside call.”

Ellis cradled the phone, stared at McCoy. So the young fireman thought his Marianne was safe in the hospital. That was a joke.

“What the hell was that call?” McCoy asked. “You looked sick.”

“This hospital is about as safe as a gas truck in a forest fire,” Ellis said. “It’s wide open. Look how easy you got in here.”

McCoy got to his feet. “Do they know I’m here with you? Those thugs said if I talked to you, they’d get Marianne.”

“Better go to her,” Ellis said. “They know you’re here. That was one of their playmates on the phone. He knew your voice—or he saw you duck in here.”

McCoy started for the door.

“Hold on,” Ellis said. “You’d better know what I think they’re doing.”

McCoy paused, his hand on the doorknob.

“When a man dies in a fire,” Ellis said, “the coroner can tell it from the amount of carbon monoxide in the body. He can tell if the man was already dead—or he could tell if he was drugged or drunk.”

“So?” McCoy’s voice was impatient.

“So in this case, they knocked their victims out with smoke—just as it would happen if it were a natural fire. Remember those rings you spotted on the floor?”

McCoy nodded.

“They’re scorch marks. I think the killers are using empty cleaning buckets—the big commercial kind with a tight lid. They fill them with charcoal or something to produce a dense, heavy smoke. This bucket goes just inside the door of a victim’s room. If he’s asleep, and especially if he’s drunk, the smoke knocks him out. When he’s out, they cover the bucket—maybe douse it first with water—stage a fire in the mattress with a cigarette, pick up the bucket, and beat it.”

“Sounds too tricky,” McCoy said. “Someone would be sure to spot a guy carrying a big bucket.”

Ellis shook his head. “Not if the guy was a cleaning woman. Or a man disguised as a cleaning woman. What would be a more natural thing to see late at night in a public building or a hotel than a cleaning woman with a bucket and mop?”

McCoy’s eyes widened. “For Christ sakes!”

“I may even have found where they hid the bucket after using it in the Sander’s Hotel,” Ellis said. “There’s a scorch ring on the floor of an old supply closet on the fourth floor.”

“Yeah,” McCoy said. “The bucket would have to be full of hot coals. It would leave a burned mark like the ones we found.”

“Better get to your wife,” Ellis said. “Call the local precinct and identify yourself. Ask for a guard. Tell them to call me if there’s any question about it.”

“What about you?” McCoy asked.

“I’ll tell the nurse to send that pet cop of hers in here.”

McCoy nodded, stepped away quickly as the door behind him opened.

His way out was blocked by a very angry Nurse Birch.

She glared at McCoy. “Visiting hours end at nine!” she snapped. She turned on Ellis. “Why haven’t you taken your sleeping pill?”

With a quick motion, McCoy slipped around her, murmuring as he left, “I was just leaving.”

Ellis pushed the gun against his thigh. The last thing he wanted tonight was a sleeping pill. “I’ll take it right away,” he lied.

She crossed to the bed, loomed over him. Her uniform stretched angrily across her superstructure. “I’ll wait right here while you take it,” she said.

Ellis knew her type. This was the sort of female who ran offices, marriages, and hospital wards—would allow nothing to thwart her. “I’m quite tired,” he said in as calm a voice as he could manage. “I don’t believe I’ll need a pill tonight.”

The nurse sniffed. “You didn’t take your pill when you said you would, and it’s almost dawn. Dr. Greenleaf left strict orders.” She picked up the paper cup with its capsule, thrust it at Ellis. “Now!”

He sighed. Wasn’t there enough trouble without having to fight this martinet? “I’m sorry,” he said, “but I can’t take your pill right now. It’s important that I stay awake.”

“It’s more important you get your rest,” she said.

He shook his head, feeling oddly like a recalcitrant child refusing his cod-liver oil. “Look, at least let me talk to that policeman in the hall first.”

“No more visitors,” she snapped. Then she turned on her heel and left the room.

Ellis suspected victory about the sleeping pill was not to be that easy; knew he was right when she returned almost immediately, followed by an orderly.

She stepped close to the bed, and with one swift motion, pulled Ellis’s arm up, produced a hypodermic, and gave him a shot.

Ellis fought to sit up, found it impossible with his leg in traction. Fury filled him. “You stupid bitch! What did you shoot into me?”

The orderly moved closer. “There’s no call—”

“I checked with the doctor,” the nurse interrupted smoothly. “That was just a mild sedative to help you relax.” She reached over, switched off the light.

“Wait a minute,” said Ellis. “I gotta talk to that cop. It’s vital.”

“The patrolman has gone for a cup of coffee,” she said. “I told him I’d keep an eye on you, and that’s just what I’m doing.” She wheeled table, light, and telephone beyond Ellis’s reach. “Good night,” she said and left, flanked by the orderly.

“Wait,” Ellis called, but the door closed firmly behind them.

The only light in the room came from a tiny night-light near the bathroom door. By its dim glow, Ellis could barely see the closed white door to the hall. Beyond the window, there was the faintest suggestion of dawn to come.

Anger made him feel like yelling and fuming; he didn’t dare fall asleep! He glared at the shadowy traction sling overhead that froze him in one position. He could ring; but all he would get would be that same martinet.

He still felt wide awake, but he didn’t know how long the drug gave him.

The extension table with its unreachable light and telephone were silhouetted against the window.

No matter how he stretched, the phone was too far to reach.

Ellis forced himself to take several deep breaths to calm his anger. Just exactly where did he stand? The cop was no good to him—neither was the nurse.

And no use kidding himself that they couldn’t find him. Whoever had rung this phone knew exactly where Ellis was—and would put his own construction on a council of war with McCoy at this predawn hour.

If only McCoy would come back before the drug took hold. Damn that nurse!

And yet—could he be sure of McCoy? Onstott said the gangsters were working with a fireman. But Christ! He couldn’t suspect everyone!

But this whole arson scheme smelled of professional know-how. Smoke in the victim’s lungs. Smoking in bed. The dirty old routine so common it seldom got a second look.

So goddam simple. The only flammable they added seemed to be lighter fluid—and that could be present in any room. Most arsonists got too complicated—and it was their complicated devices that revealed them.

This clever bastard hadn’t made that error.

Ellis yawned.

He couldn’t help it. Sleep moved across his mind like a cloud of grey feathers, fogged his thoughts.

Christ, he thought, how can I stay awake when I’m full of drugs and fastened in this one position? Damn that nurse!

He tensed his muscles, felt them relax against his will.

Why would a fireman help a bookie? The answer floated drowsily in his mind, just out of reach.

He shook his head, was overtaken by a yawn so deep it hurt his chest near the broken rib.

For a moment pain cleared his thoughts.

Coddington! he thought. Captain Coddington!

Ellis pushed the idea away, but it came back to his drowsy mind with the force of pure logic.

Coddington played the horses; could easily be involved with Tonelli.

Coddington had tried to call Ellis off the case.

Coddington had the know-how to plan the arson- homicides.

Coddington knew McCoy was in the hospital.

“Oh, Christ!” Ellis said aloud. His tongue felt thick. Coddington. He didn’t want it to be true. He turned the thought around as carefully as if he had a year to think about it.

There was a loose piece—something that didn’t fit.

Thoughts swirled by like dreams.

A fireman, he thought.

McCoy or Coddington—one or the other. They were the only ones close enough to all that had happened. Take your choice—McCoy or Coddington. It was like a song.

It had to be a fireman. Onstott said so.

The thought turned over.

Why did it have to be a fireman? Because Onstott said so.

Was he the only one who said so?

Then Ellis remembered the missing piece—the piece that didn’t fit. Coddington couldn’t have ordered the attack because Coddington didn’t know Ellis was in the old hotel. Coddington was out of the office at the race track.

But Onstott knew. And Onstott certainly had more than enough knowledge to plan the arsons.

Now I can go to sleep, thought Ellis drunkenly. All solved. Now I can relax.

He knew he shouldn’t sleep, but he couldn’t remember why. He forced his eyes half-open—

Had that door moved—or was it a trick of his doped mind?

No. It was definitely opening, a little at a time.

Panic flooded Ellis’s brain, clearing away the drug haze. He fumbled for the gun beside him. It eluded his grasp. There, there it was! He held it, hidden by the blanket.

The door opened long enough for a white figure to slip in, closed again. Nurse? No, a doctor.

A tall doctor—much taller than Dr. Greenleaf.

Ellis’ mind went torpid again. There was something he should do; he couldn’t think what it was. Why did that doctor look so familiar—even in the half-light of the room? He clenched for the gun, but it slipped out of his fingers.

Horror filled his mind. He knew just what was happening, and he couldn’t move a muscle.

The white figure crossed to the bed, reached for the bell-push, and placed it behind the bed, out of reach.

Ellis fought to move his hand and failed.

There was danger, his mind told him, terrible danger. But it was like playing with ideas of panic. His muscles would do nothing about it.

All he could see of the man was a white blur of face and uniform near his bed. Ellis tried to call out—no sound came.

The man crossed to the table, picked up something Ellis couldn’t see. He heard a match strike and the sound of a cigarette being lit.

Ellis smelled cigarette smoke and something like gasoline. Lighter fluid?

The tall figure bent over the bed and said clearly, “You stupid jerk. I tried to warn you.”

Ellis knew that voice. Onstott!

A quick glow from the cigarette lit Onstott’s face, ridiculous yet evil over the white doctor’s coat. Onstott bent down, placed the cigarette carefully just beyond the reach of Ellis’ hand—as though the damn thing had rolled there—beside his suspended leg.

I’ve had it, Ellis thought. He’s setting fire to the bed—and there’s nothing I can do! He willed his hand to move toward the gun. Nothing happened.

Ellis wondered how close the glowing coal was to the lighter fluid he smelled.

Onstott expelled a contemptuous puff of smoke in one gulp. Ellis felt it sear his lungs. He heard Onstott move across the room toward the door.

With a racking, choking gasp, Ellis coughed. The pain of his broken rib scorched his mind.

Pain jerked him awake, drove back the drug for a precious instant.

Ellis’s hand clutched at the gun, lifted it across his stomach. He fired toward the door. Once, twice. Then sank back—plummeted into unconsciousness by the drug.

A voice was saying, “Coddington.” He heard the name distinctly, over and over. What did it mean? “Coddington. Coddington. Coddington.”

Ellis laughed sleepily. It was his own voice. His eyes opened, and he saw McCoy standing beside his bed. God, that sunlight was bright, streaming through the window. His eyelids closed. Sunlight? Carefully, he opened his eyes again. “Where’s Captain Coddington?” he asked.

“Right here, Barnie,” Coddington said from the chair by the window.

Ellis smiled drowsily. He’d made it through the night. He came suddenly awake. “Is—is Onstott dead?”

“No, but he might as well be. He’s in jail and singing like a bird. I understand he said enough to hang himself and get Tonelli, too. With a murder rap facing him, Onstott got real talkative.”

Ellis pulled himself up as far as he could. “Jane? Where’s Jane?”

“Safe at her mother’s with your kids,” said Coddington. He pulled his bulk out of the chair and crossed slowly to the bed. Ellis noted fatigue lines creasing the captain’s face. “The police will keep an eye on them till Tonelli’s trial—but there’s no real danger. The whole mess is out in the open now.”

Ellis took a deep breath, was sorry when the pain from his broken rib pierced him. “Did I hit Onstott when I shot?”

Coddington wheezed his short laugh. “All you hit was that traction device over the bed. It’s a wonder you didn’t shoot your own toe off.”

“Then how—” Ellis began.

Codding waved a pudgy hand toward the young fireman. McCoy flushed. “You’ll have to thank McCoy here. He spotted Onstott in his doctor getup.”

“It took me too long to catch on,” McCoy said. “I passed Onstott as I went down the back stairway to the maternity floor, but he was partly turned away, and I just got a glimpse of his face. I knew that doctor looked familiar, but I didn’t think of Onstott right away. I expected trouble to look like a scrubwoman—not a doctor.”

Ellis nodded. “Yet it’s the same gimmick. A scrubwoman is a common sight in a public building late at night, but in a hospital, a doctor’s even better. And with that shot in me, they didn’t need a bucketful of smoke.”

“After I made sure Marianne was okay,” McCoy said, “I got to thinking about that doctor—wondering where I’d seen him before. It took me a long time to realize the last time I’d seen him was in your office, and that you’d introduced him as an assistant DA.”

Coddington chuckled. “McCoy ran up from the second floor. He got here just as Onstott was leaving your room. Your shots blasted out. It caused quite a sensation when McCoy came sprinting down the hall and tackled a doctor.”

McCoy grinned. “That bossy nurse was sure she was next on my list.”

“I wish she had been,” Ellis said, remembering the hypo.

McCoy nodded. “About that time, the cops I’d called came galloping up. Onstott almost managed to talk his way out of it until smoke started curling up from your bed!”

“That cop guarding me was as useful as a rubber crutch,” Ellis said. “When I really needed him, the stupid jerk was on a coffee break.”

McCoy said, “Onstott told him to play it cool. That you had demanded protection but there wasn’t much danger in the hospital.”

“Christ!” said Ellis. “Onstott sure had me going. What did the hoods have on the poor SOB? Gambling debts?”

“Hell, no,” wheezed Coddington. “It was out-and-out greed. He was the syndicate’s man from way back.” He cleared his throat. “If gambling debts were all that scum needed …” His voice trailed off.

McCoy noticed Coddington’s embarrassment, broke in. “They owned Onstott lock, stock, and legal decree. He originated the arson trick, of course.”

Ellis looked up at McCoy. “You were right from the beginning,” he said. “You spotted arson when the rest of us might have missed it.” Then Ellis remembered why McCoy had come to the hospital in the first place. “How’s your wife—and the new baby?”

“A boy?” Coddington asked.

McCoy grinned. “A nine-pound, day-old fireman,” he said.

Ellis faked a groan. “Will you do me a big favor, McCoy?”

“Sure. What?”

“Tell your kid never to phone me before ten in the morning,” Ellis said.

The Little Window

The sense of danger came over Angelo Serafim while he was levering his stiff old legs down the seven concrete steps from the sidewalk to his shoe repair shop. One moment he was savoring the spring day—still a taste of lunch on his tongue, a chill nip to the air, woodsmoke grey of concrete around him, grit underfoot—a distant door slam and hurrying feet.

Then … this touch to the heart that he knew must come from something seen but not noticed.

He looked back up—past the impatient face of his nephew, Paul—saw that a black sedan had rolled to the curb beyond the iron rail. On the near side sat a fat man who stared at him across dumpling cheeks, eyes glaring like two spots of black lava.

“Come on, Uncle, unlock the door,” said Paul. The young man moved down a step, one hand up, absently picking his teeth.

Angelo pulled himself around, but he still saw those eyes. He fumbled with the key in the lock. Those eyes! Here or in the old country—the same: Killer! Why does killer look at me?

All the fresh feeling of rebirth had gone out of the spring day.

Lock tumblers clicked. Creaking hinges echoed in the concrete stairwell. Angelo sniffed at the pungency of new leather stirred up by the door’s motion.

Could it be thieves? he wondered. He wanted to look back, found his muscles unwilling. Those eyes! Something is wrong …

Paul pushed past, shoving the door with a sullen hunch of shoulders. The young man skirted the front counter, and his sleeve brushed its dusty linoleum top. He went to the bench in the rear corner, beneath the shallow window that looked out at the feet of people passing on the side street.

Angelo clocked the switch beside the door. Yellow light from four metal-shaded bulbs filled the shop. He straightened a chair beside the window, still afraid to look outside. A bank of cubbyhole shelves extended along the left wall behind the counter. Angelo stared at them, saw the rows of paper-wrapped shoes as lumpy, brown creatures crouched in their lairs. The shop oozed menace. He sensed peril even in the way Paul walked—soft on the balls of the feet, holding something in like a cat stalking its prey.

“Did you finish those shoes for Mrs. Krantz?” asked Paul.

Angelo cleared his throat. He caught himself listening for a car door, for steps. “Yes,” he said. “I finish. She say come today.”

The old man’s chest pained him—not the heart pain, but something more basic. He asked himself, What if killer is here for Paul? What if Paul is in some trouble with that no-good Carlos? How do I know what Paul does when he says he goes to night school?

Paul made a clattering noise at the bench. “We still have lots of work here,” he called. “Better get started.”

Angelo nodded, not answering, not consciously hearing, but concentrating on the way Paul walked. You can tell much from how people walk, he told himself. The young man’s stride had been getting tighter and tighter these past few weeks. And Paul was only four months out of uniform. He still should move with that long pack-on-the-back swing.

Sounds of a car motor flared outside, faded. Angelo closed the door, darted a glance out the dusty front windows and up the stairwell. The car and its shark-eyed occupant were gone. Maybe I am wrong, he thought. But he still could feel tension. Automatically, he flipped the “Out to Lunch” sign on the door.

Paul dropped a hammer.

Angelo whirled, then: “You getting clumsy, Pavlos?”

The young man’s face darkened. “Uncle, I’ve asked you not to call me that! Over here my name’s Paul.”

Angelo lapsed into Greek: “What is wrong with the name Pavlos? It is a good Greek name.”

Paul thought, Here we go again! And he answered in English, “But we’re in America now.”

Angelo shrugged. “Hokay. But you speak Greek. You want to be lawyer. Fine. You be lawyer for Greek people in America.”

Paul threw down an awl. “No! I’ll be a lawyer for anyone who needs a lawyer!”

“Sometimes I don’t understand you, Pavlos,” said Angelo.

“Paul!”

“I’m sorry,” said Angelo. “But I got big empty in head where I forget.”

Paul ran a hand through his curly black hair, went back to work.

Seeing the gesture reminded Angelo of the way his own hair had looked before it had turned white and brittle. There was much of the Serafims in his sister’s boy—the sharp nose, dark eyes under thick brows and high forehead. Even the clear wedge shape of the face spoke of endless Serafims descended from Serafims. It was the mouth that had come from the Heropolis boy, the father—full and firm, almost grim.

Angelo looked down, patted his paunch, and thought of his own youth gone to fat and a skin as leathery as the hides hanging from a side wall of the shop. He shook his head.

“Ah, well …” he said.

“It’s Wednesday,” said Paul. “We have to finish this stuff early. I have extra classes tonight, you know.” He snapped on the buffer, bent over it. The humming racket filled the shop.

Does he really go to classes? Angelo wondered. He raised his voice. “Every week it comes all over Wednesday for extra classes. Is that what you do? You really go to classes?”

The sound of the buffer stopped in midsentence, and the shouting of his own voice momentarily shocked Angelo.

Paul glared at him. “What do you mean by that?”

“I just wonder,” said Angelo. “You in some kind of trouble?”

And Paul thought, Uncle Angie all day! Prof Emory on contract law for half the night! It’s too much! He threw a boot at the bench. “Yeah! I’m in trouble! I’ve got to listen to your crazy yak all day! Then I’ve got to study half the night! Isn’t that trouble enough?”

“You don’t like to hear what your own uncle say, hokay.” Angelo wiped an eye.

“And you’re sure taking a long time getting back to work,” snapped Paul. “It’s after one.”

“That is right,” said Angelo. He scratched his head, took off his coat, put on an apron. He saw that Paul was back at the bench, working on the half Wellingtons for Mr. Filmore. “First I grab middle of my day,” Angelo called. “Don’t get good grab on middle—back end get away.” He advanced into the shop.

Footsteps could be heard coming along the sidewalk from the south—a familiar dragging hesitancy. That would be Mr. Mullhausen, Angelo knew. Everyone who passed here regularly, he knew them by the sound of their feet and the look of their shoes through the little window above the bench. For many, he knew names because they were customers. But they seldom became faces—just familiar feet.

A chipped yellow clock with a cracked crystal sat on the end of the bench. Angelo set the alarm, saw that Paul was attacking the work with concentrated fury.

“I ask you like they ask in this country,” said Angelo. He brushed leather chips off the end of the bench. “What is bugging you, man?”

Paul shrugged without breaking the rhythm of his work. And he thought, That damn accent! Why does he have to make everybody think he’s just the ignorant foreigner? Wearing that pose like a mask! Over here more than thirty years and still talking like a fresh-off-the-boat vlakas! Not even a good Greek accent! I might accept that.

“You know what wrong with you?” asked Angelo. “You need wife. Get good wife, two-three kids. Nice little apartment. Then you don’t go reaching out all time for things too big for you.”

“Nothing’s too big for me!” snapped Paul.

“Lots of room for good Greek lawyer over here,” said Angelo. “Fix contract. Write will. Sometimes somebody get in trouble …” He nodded. “Be important man. People come to you. Lots friends.”

Paul sniffed, thinking as he had many times since arriving in America six years before, that Angelo had no real friends—only acquaintances and customers. Sure! Lots of friends! Won’t even put in a telephone! Why? Who would call?

Angelo took down the English-style brogans he had made two years before for Mr. Levy, the garment manufacturer. They needed new soles and heels, but the uppers still were in sound condition. He glanced at Paul, tried another approach. “Why does that Carlos hang around you all time?”

“How do I know?”

“He is no good,” said Angelo. “Why all time he comes in here for see you?”

“Maybe he’s lonesome!” snapped Paul. “My God! The guy lives in the same building with us!”

“I wish he moves,” said Angelo. “No good! In jail two-three times.”

“So he’s a punk,” said Paul. “I don’t encourage him, but I’m not going to be nasty, either.”

Angelo put a hand in one of the brogans, felt the stitching—no breaks.

Paul worked furiously, silent.

Angelo misinterpreted Paul’s stillness. “You are twenty-two, time you stop acting like little boy,” he snapped. “Why you think I bring you this country?” He rapped a knuckle on the bench. “Six years ago I bring! What you think? I want for cheap helper? You should inherit business when I am gone, hah?”

Paul said: “Look, Uncle, I appreciate every—”

“Appreciate! You think is what I want?”

“Oh, skip it!”

“Hah!” Angelo went back to the brogan in his hand. “You talk good English.” Two strokes of his knife slashed away old stitching from a sole. He pulled back the worn leather. “Me, I just learn from school in old country and what I stuff in head here. But you study hard. Fine. Now you want be lawyer. Fine. Before my sister die, when she say you should come this country for—”

“What do you want me to say, Uncle?” Paul put down his work, glared at Angelo.

“Say anything you like—or don’t say it. That’s what it is in this country!” Angelo nodded. “Freedom from speech!”

“Oh, brother,” breathed Paul. He went back to his work.

“I got forty-three more years from you,” said Angelo. “Next June I got sixty-seven years. Old man—that’s me.”

“And when you’re gone, you want me to have the money from the business,” intoned Paul. “You’ve told me!”

Angelo glanced at his nephew, shrugged. “That is right. You take money, let rest die with me. Fine. I what they should say: ‘They don’t make shoes anymore like they make when old Angelo is alive.’ But you should be lawyer. Fine. Lawyer is better from shoemaker.”

Paul put down the boot, spoke without turning. “Please stop the lecture, Uncle.”

“Lecture?”

Paul faced Angelo. “All I said last night was I’d like to ditch the school sometimes, get out with people my own age, have a good time. Make friends. That’s all I said. It won’t hurt to miss a few classes.”

Angelo’s hands trembled. “Does it hurt if you miss few nails or few stitches in boot?”

“It’s not the same!”

“We got full life,” said Angelo.

Paul’s eyes opened wide. “You call your life full?”

“Sure. Got work, got nice apartment, got teevee.” He nodded. “Got good radio. Got good books.”

“But no telephone,” said Paul.

“Telephone?” Angelo frowned. “I tell you we don’t need telephone. Costs money. Anyway, who calls us?”

“That’s just it,” said Paul. And for a moment, he had the sensation that he could feel his youth slipping away from him, that he was growing suddenly as old as Angelo. It was like awakening on a roller coaster to find the cold wind blowing in his face. He took a trembling breath, said, “It’s not just that you don’t have a telephone. It’s what that means with you. You have no friends—nobody to call and ask you out for an evening.”

Angelo’s face darkened. He spoke through tight lips: “And who you want go out with? That no-good … Carlos!”

Paul sighed, returned to the boot. “It isn’t that I want to go out with Carlos. It’s … Oh, hell! It doesn’t matter who it is. You always get just as mad.”

“Ask little respect for your olders,” muttered Angelo. And he thought: Who need friend like that Carlos? He lapsed into Greek, mumbling.

“Oh, speak English!” snapped Paul.

“Why don’t I speak my own language?” demanded Angelo. “My own language I got born with?”

“You’re an American citizen now,” said Paul. “That’s the whole idea.”

“You got hole in your idea!” growled Angelo. He blinked, swallowed. Silence stretched between them—then, “Pavl … Paul, let’s don’t fight, hah?”

Paul took a deep breath. “Okay, Uncle. Drop it.”

“If you leave all this work to me,” ventured Angelo. “Go school in day so you got more time for study your …”

“Let’s drop it!” snapped Paul.

Angelo frowned, sighed. Such a stubborn, proud boy, he thought. Won’t let me work for him. Proud, just like all Serafims. Then, because he couldn’t avoid it, he asked himself, But does he go to night school? Is it classes, or does he run around with Carlos and young hoodlums?

He studied Paul covertly while taking down a blank of hard-cured steer hide to cut new soles.

“Shoe get scuffed,” said Angelo. “But if is good shoe inside, it lasts and lasts and …”

“What’s wrong with my going out, making friends?” asked Paul. “With Carlos or anyone else? So he’s a little wild, okay. I can take care of myself. Work and study! What do I see of the world?”

“You already see army! You just home four months!”

“Yeah, the army. One barracks after another.” Paul gestured with his hammer toward the shallow window at eye level above them. In contrast with the dusty glass at the stairwell, this window shone. “See the world from a barracks!” he barked. “The narrow view—like that!” He pounded a nail into the boot with extra vehemence.

A staccato of feminine heels went by on the walk outside. Through the window above the bench, Angelo caught a glimpse of slim ankles, brown alligator pumps. She went to the mailbox on the corner. It clanged. Presently, she returned. Angelo grinned as he saw Paul’s gaze following the ankles.

The rhythm of her walk felt good to Angelo’s ears—pert, alive. That is a nice girl. Secretary in law offices down Seventh Street. No pushing, man-posing in her walk as it is with so many women nowadays. A feminine woman.

Above the sound of Paul’s hammering, Angelo said, “You think my little window’s not much of world, hah? You be surprised … what I know from my little window. Thirty-one years I watch from here. God give man senses. Man should use what God give wherever he is. I know everybody walks regular by my window. I know more about those people than they think. They look down here, see old man working, they think he doesn’t know much. They be surprised.”

“Sure,” said Paul. “You read minds.”

Angelo smiled, nodded. “You take young woman just now. She is secretary. With lawyer. Mr. Carter. Down street there.” He gestured with his head. “Name is Miss Lovett. Jean. Nice name. She support mother, but mother die. Now she is very lonely girl. Work from when she is sixteen. Never have boyfriend time.” He shrugged. “Now … how does girl learn new tricks from old dogs?”

“If you’ve just seen her through your window, how do you know so much about her?” asked Paul. He put aside one of the boots, took up the other.

“Well …” Again, Angelo smiled to himself. “I know name because she is customer. Yes. Got shoes right over there in work pile. I bring for her.”

“Sure, but all that other …”

“I tell you! Don’t jump on gun.” Angelo’s smile became a grin. “When I fix my will at lawyer office. Before she is customer even. I hear walk. Same girl. Look at feet. Same girl. I ask Mr. Carter. A jewel he calls her, like she is diamond! He tells me. About mother. About work. And she got nice voice, too. And pretty. Like they say: a stacked dish.”

It was too much. Paul grinned. “Uncle, what’re you doing—running a marriage bureau like in the old country?”

“Good thing,” said Angelo. His face suddenly sobered. “When I am young jerk in old country, no papa or mama to do for me. Only sister younger from me. Maybe things be different.” He sighed, shrugged. “But they could use in America fine honorable proxenetes. So many people lonely. Need proxenetes to fix marriage. Nice man people trust.”

“Like you?” asked Paul.

“Why not?”

“And you’ve got the girl all picked out for me,” said Paul.

“You need good woman,” said Angelo. “And this girl—secretary! In law office! She know all about your work.”

At the end of the bench, the ticking of the yellow clock was drowned abruptly by its alarm.

“So soon,” said Angelo. He slipped off his apron, gestured toward the brogans. “I promise Mr. Levy he gets shoes tonight. When you finish boots, you work on these, hah? I be back one hour.”

Paul turned a puzzled frown on Angelo. “Where do you go every Wednesday, Uncle? Before I went away in the army, you never …”

“Don’t ask! How many times I tell you don’t ask?” Angelo scowled, put a hand to his chest, coughed. “I be back in one hour.” He turned away, exchanged his apron for the coat on the hook, slipped into the coat with stiff movements, and left the shop.

As he labored up the steps, Angelo thought, Why don’t I tell Pavlos where I go? So I go to a doctor. Do I hide this from everyone? No … I just try to hide it from myself. I tell Pavlos sometime. Then he was in the street, and again he thought of the fat man with killer eyes. Is it really a killer? Who could he want? He shook his head. I am an old fool. I see ghosts.

Through the dusty front windows, Paul had watched his uncle’s progress up the steps. Presently, Angelo’s feet moved across the little window above the bench. He was wearing shoes he had made for himself: low oxfords in two tones of brown and with ornate floral patterns punched into the toes. They were a young man’s shoes, but the shoes of a European young man. They shuffled out of view to the left.

Paul returned to his work, thinking, Where does he go?

And now he found his attention caught by the view through the shallow window. A fireplug stood at the curb across the sidewalk. Marks from wrench jaws scarred the square metal heads of the outlets. An old brownstone with outcurving front steps dominated the view across the street. As Paul watched, an armored car pulled up below the steps. Two uniformed men wearing sidearms emerged, took a pair of canvas bags up the steps, returned empty-handed, and drove off.

The wind blew a scrap of paper like a dancing white insect from left to right along the sidewalk. And people walked past just outside the window.

The look of the moving feet caught Paul’s mind. Their rhythm … or lack of it. There was something disquieting in this view of people: cut off (most of them) around the calf. They were like disembodied pieces of marionettes dancing past for his benefit alone. It was like an unguarded view into the soul. Here, down at ground level, lay a thin strip where human inhibitions did not extend.

Paul thought of his uncle—thirty-one years staring out at people as though they were nude! He felt sudden rage at the window, thinking, Without this window, Uncle Angie would have been forced to go outside, see people face to face, make friends. How can you make friends with bodiless feet?

A man’s feet came from the left—dark blue pants with knife-edge creases, black shoes shined to a hard gloss. They sauntered slowly past, full of elaborate casualness compounded by something furtive: a hesitant pause on the balls of the feet.

Paul thought of a beast walking in its jungle. Imagination conjured up a swarthy face, glittering eyes. The feet paused, still in the frame of the window, turned back the way they had come, and passed out of view. Paul found himself feeling deeply uneasy, as though he had witnessed a crime that he had been powerless to prevent.

He shook his head to drive away the imagery. Nonsense! It’s just a game Uncle Angie plays. This is the kind of thinking that traps people in basements!

“Damn Uncle Angie and his window game!” he muttered.

Feminine heel taps clattered along the walk—alligator pumps, slim ankles, and sleek silk stockings. It was the young woman his uncle said worked in the law offices. Same shoes. Same walk.

Uncle Angie, matchmaker! thought Paul.

She passed out of sight, headed for the corner. He expected to hear the mailbox clang, waited for it. But the staccato of her heels stopped at the head of the stairwell, clap-clap-clapped into the echoing concrete hole at the front of the shop.

Paul turned, saw through the grimed front windows as she descended: the alligator pumps, shapely legs, a tailored green skirt, then a matching suit jacket of reserved and classic cut that swelled unreservedly over a full figure.

What had his uncle said—“A stacked dish!” Paul grinned.

The front door creaked open. She was redheaded, her face spattered with freckles. It was an alive face—generous lips, stubborn chin, a nose that turned up ever so slightly, and level, grey-green eyes.

“You must be Paul Herro,” she said. Her voice was a sparkling contralto. She swung the door closed, advanced to the counter, and plopped an alligator bag on the linoleum top.

Paul crossed to stand opposite her, the counter between them. What had Angelo said her name was? He found that the name was important. Jean! Jean Lovett! He smiled at a sudden urge, said: “What can I do for you, Miss Jean Lovett?”

The grey-green eyes opened wide—a level, examining stare followed immediately by a flickering of long lashes, a shy downward glance. “We’ve met?” Her gaze flicked up, down. “No … I’ve never been in here be …” She looked directly at him. “Your uncle told you my name!”

Laughter bubbled in Paul. He explained about the window. At his urging, she came around to see the view for herself. Four boys ran past playing stickball. An old man with a cane followed. The cane had a brass tip that glistened in the spring sunlight, catching the eye.

“It’s like … it’s like those one-way mirrors,” she said. “You know—where you can see the person on the other side, but he can’t see you. Imagine that funny old man standing here every day, looking right through people from his little window!”

Paul’s mouth went thin. A nerve twitched along his jaw. Funny old man! He had a sudden image of this girl and her lawyer-boss laughing at Angelo.

“I’m glad the funny old man amuses you,” he grated. “His accent’s hilarious and he uses all kinds of words wrong and he talks too much and he repeats him—”

“Just a minute!” She took a backward step. The freckles stood out like spattered brown paint against her suddenly pale face. “I was …”

“I know what you were doing.” He closed the gap between them. “But that funny old man has been mother and father to me since I was sixteen. No smart-mouth dame is—”

“That’s quite enough!” she flared. “I meant no disrespect.” She whirled, strode back to the counter, retrieved her purse, and snapped it open. Sharp, jerking motions emphasized each word as she spoke. “And I’m only here now as a favor to him, to deliver this!” She threw an envelope onto the counter, started toward the door.

“Wait!” Paul ran to the counter. The anger was gone, leaving him feeling drained, foolish.

She paused, glared back at him. Moisture glistened in her eyes.

His lips quirked upward in a rueful smile. “The name’s Pavlos Heropolis,” he said. “Jerk. A Greek jerk with a short temper. I’m sorry.”

As suddenly as it had come, the anger melted from her face. “Well … perhaps I should’ve chosen my words more carefully. I only meant that I like your uncle—that he amuses me because he tries to amuse me … to make me laugh.” She matched his smile. “I’m always opening my mouth and putting my foot in it.”

He looked down. “And a nice foot, too.”

“And there’s nothing wrong with your accent,” she said.

Suddenly they were both laughing.

Paul shook his head. “And if you only knew some of the things I was thinking about Uncle Angie just a little while ago.”

“That’s the way it is,” she said. “We say anything we like to people we love. But just let some outsider step in and be the least bit critical. When my mother …” She stopped, a sudden stillness coming over her features, then continued, “Sometimes I forget she’s gone.”

Into the silence, Paul said, “I was all primed to blow up this afternoon, too. Uncle Angie’s been riding me because I …” He broke off, thinking, Old Angie, matchmaker. He sent this girl down here so that …

“He’s been picking on you?” she said. She smiled encouragement.

He continued rather lamely, “Because I’ve been getting kind of tired of nothing but work work work—school and here. You know how it is.

She spoke softly. “Yes.”

And he thought, She is a stacked dish. At least Uncle Angie has a good eye.

“Your uncle told me you’re studying law,” she said.

“Yeah. I’m in night school. I just got out of the army a few months ago.”

“My father was in the army,” she said. “He died when I was sixteen.” She looked down, long lashes flickering, a disconcertingly feminine motion accented by its complete unconsciousness. “I work in a law office now.”

He nodded. “Uncle Angie told me.”

She glanced around the shop, then at Paul’s hands on the counter. “This must be hard work. Your Uncle’s hands always look so … rough.”

“He’s done this work all his life,” said Paul.

She shook her head. “And he still works every day.”

“Yeah.” Paul took a deep breath. “And if I’d let him, he’d have me attending school during the day and not helping at all here in the shop.”

“He’s such a nice old man,” she said. “Mr. Carter—that’s my boss—he always says it brightens up his day whenever Mr. Serafim comes in.”

Paul had a sudden image of his uncle as a succession of masks: one for the shop, one for the apartment, one for Mr. Carter’s office—and he wondered if he actually knew what was beneath his uncle’s masks, the real face they hid.

To fill the silence, he said, “Uncle Angie’s worked hard all his life. That’s all he knows—work.”

“And you’re the independent type,” she said. “That’s what he told me.”

“Well, why should I sponge off him? The government pays my tuition. I earn my own keep.” Her words had touched another small spark to his anger, and he thought, Independent type! And he’s working on that, too. A nice little wife, two-three kids!

“He’s told me a lot of things about you,” she said.

“I’ll bet! Like I’m always reaching too high. What a fine husband I’d make. He thinks he’s a matchmaker just like they have in the old country.”

Her eyes looked round and deep. “Old people are like that in every country. You have to … well, discount it.”

“It was kind of obvious, wasn’t it?” he asked. “Giving me the big buildup with you? Then asking you to bring this …” He touched the envelope. “When he could just as well bring it himself.”

A dark flush spread from her neck up across her face. “But I …”

“Not that I’m really objecting,” said Paul.

She spoke shortly. “No. I can see that.” She gestured toward the envelope. “So we’ve met, and there’s your envelope.”

“Look …”

“I’ve looked.” She glared at him.

“Now who’s got a foot in the mouth?” he asked.

She didn’t rise to his banter. “I really must be going. I have my own keep to earn.”

“I guess I’m not the only independent type,” he said.

The grey-green eyes remained level and aloof. “Of that you can be sure.”

“May I see you again?”

She shrugged. “Why don’t you consult your uncle on it?”

“Oooof!” He ducked his head, started to reply, but she was already letting herself out. He watched her climb the stairs—a last flash of slim ankles and alligator pumps.

“So much for Uncle Angie, matchmaker,” he muttered.

Presently, he turned back to the bench. It was lonely and empty in the shop. He saw how dirty the place was: cobwebs in the corners, leather dust in every crack, stains on the floor, decrepit chairs beside the front windows.

He kicked the buffer stand.

Footsteps sounded in the stairwell. He whirled, hoping she was coming back. But it was a man. The door opened. Paul recognized him: Carlos Besera, the Carlos whom Uncle Angie did not like. He was a pale-skinned young man with a sharp, beaked nose dominating a narrow face. His raven’s wing of black pompadour always appeared too neat, and the close-set dark eyes carried a look of thinly veiled panic.

“Well, look who’s watching the till,” he said. He closed the door behind him with a curious sealing-off motion, darted a glance around the shop.

For no reason he could explain, Paul felt anger at the intrusion. He spoke curtly. “What do you want, Carlos?”

“Do I have to want something?” Carlos crossed to the counter, slipped around it, bending like a dancer. “Maybe I just come for friendly visit.”

Paul shrugged. “I have lots of work to do. Besides, Uncle Angie’ll be back pretty soon. He doesn’t like you hanging around here all the time.”

“Now, you’re not being very friendly,” said Carlos. “Nowhere near as friendly as I bet you were with that doll who just left.”

“I don’t feel friendly!” snapped Paul. The other man’s tone rasped on him: the way he spoke, as though saying one thing but meaning something different.

“But man, the company you keep!” said Carlos. He moved past Paul in a soft, springy stride, headed for the workbench.

Paul turned. “Where’re you going? Uncle Angie’ll flip if he finds you behind the counter.”

Afraid I’ll dip into the till?” Carlos sneered. “Fat chance in this dump!” He stopped at the bench, peered out the shallow window. “I’m just admiring the view.”

Involuntarily, Paul glanced down at Carlos’s feet, saw dark blue pants with knife-edge creases, black shoes polished to a high gloss. He had seen those pants and shoes recently—walking past the little window. The same feeling of disquiet returned to Paul. He said, “Have you been hanging around outside there?”

Carlos whirled. For an instant, there was a savage cast to his face. Then he relaxed, smiled—feral and toothy. “What makes you ask that?”

Paul shrugged.

“You see something that interested you?” asked Carlos.

“Just your feet,” said Paul.

“My … feet?” Carlos exploded into laughter.

“What do you want?” demanded Paul. He felt uneasy, sensing an undercurrent in the other’s actions and words.

Carlos assumed a confidential manner. “While you’re away in the army, something interesting happens around here.” He nodded toward the window over the bench. “That old rat trap across the street—a factory moves in. Real sweet kind of a factory. Makes jewelry. You know: ice, gold—all kinds of real nice goodies.”

Abruptly, Paul recalled the armored car, the armed guards.

Carlos said, “Now, just to look at a place like that, you wouldn’t think it was much. Old dump like that. Unless you happen to have a little inside leak, kind of, that says there’s going to be half a million bucks in ice shipped in there this afternoon. Yes, sir. Half a million. About three thirty, four o’clock. Maybe a little earlier.”

Paul swallowed past a lump in his throat. He felt sudden menace, thought, A robbery? This small-time punk? He said, “So what?”

“‘So what?’ he asks!” Carlos shook his head sadly. “Man, you just don’t fit. Strictly a square.”

Paul glanced at the yellow alarm clock on the bench—2:25. Uncle Angie would be coming back soon.

And again, he thought, A robbery? But this punk’s the car-thief type—shoplifting, snatch and grab. Then: But even punks dream of the big time. And if he’s moved in with some gang …

Carlos glanced back out the window, then returned to his smirking observation of Paul. “They got guards on the truck,” he said, “but they’ll be easy to handle. No sweat. The real problem’s an old character sits at an upstairs window with a shotgun every time there’s a big shipment. You can see him real easy from down here. Every time.”

Paul frowned. “You’re planning on robbing …”

“You don’t get a business opportunity like this every day,” said Carlos. “Uh-uh!”

“But …”

“Strictly a square,” said Carlos. Again, that flicking glance out the window, then back to Paul. “That guard in the window. Man stands down here with a rifle—blowie! And everything gets real simple.”

Paul took a step forward. “Murder?”

“Business necessity, call it,” said Carlos. “Like you got competition, maybe.”

Paul shook his head as though to clear it. “You can’t just …”

“Is that right?” Carlos straightened, and his right hand dipped into his suitcoat pocket. “Why not?”

Paul pointed to the window. “You think we’d just let you shoot some …”

“Aw, shut up!” rapped Carlos. He leaned forward. “You think because you’re studying this law bit, that makes you a lawyer? You ain’t arguing in no court, man. Besides …” He displayed a wolfish grin. “… you ain’t heard my whole case yet.”

“I know what to …”

“You don’t know nothing! Look, little man—have you thought what could happen if your uncle gets too excited?” Left hand up, he snapped his fingers. “His ticker. Just like that!”

Paul stared at him. “His ticker?”

Carlos looked surprised. “Yeah. His ticker. His heart. The beat-beat-beat machine. You mean you ain’t with it?”

“I …”

“You mean like you don’t know he goes to the sawbones up the street here every Wednesday? The heart fixer? Don’t you know your dear old uncle had a couple attacks while you’re off doing the army bit?”

Paul shook his head. “I didn’t …”

“Well, then!” said Carlos. “You see how it is. We got to keep Uncle Angie from getting too excited.”

Paul glanced at the envelope on the counter. From the lawyer’s office. Uncle Angie’s will?

“We got this figured real close,” said Carlos. “You got no phone here. You ain’t going no place. And even if you thought about trying to get the word to somebody … well, me and my friends could always get poor old Uncle Angie all excited …” Again, he snapped his fingers. “See how it goes?”

“You wouldn’t …”

“Like I tell you,” said Carlos. “Business necessity.” He lifted a small automatic from his pocket far enough for Paul to see it. “And like any good business, we got insurance. You learn about these in the army, don’t you? Guns? They use ’em to kill people.”

Paul’s chest felt tight, breathing difficult. He thought, My God! He’s serious! He said, “But what …”

“Now, all you gotta do is stay out of the way and act natural,” said Carlos. “Then, nothing happens to Uncle Angie.”

Paul just stared at him.

“I told my friends you’d be sensible,” said Carlos. “You wouldn’t want to make me out a liar, would you?”

And Paul thought, Just give me one customer I can get to call the cops!

“You don’t get many customers in the middle of the week,” said Carlos.

Paul took a quick, short breath.

Carlos laughed. “You think we ain’t got all the angles figured?” He hefted the gun in his pocket. “Don’t make no mistakes, Pauly boy. I’m gonna be right here with you until it’s all over. If you get any customers, you just act natural. All business, see?”

Paul nodded, thought, But Uncle Angie’s going to blow up when he sees this punk here again. And when they come in with the rifle!

“Kinda makes you squirm, don’t it?” asked Carlos. “You keep wondering what you can do. Just make up your mind, little man—you can’t do nothing! Just take it!”

He’s getting his kicks out of telling me all this! thought Paul. The punk! He said, “What if Uncle Angie objects to you being here?”

“Oh, we can handle Uncle Angie, can’t we?” asked Carlos. “It’ll just be for an hour or so.”

And Paul thought, I could take this punk right now, gun or no gun. What chance would a yuk like him have against someone trained in combat judo? Look at him! Wide open! He inched forward, glanced out the window, hoping Carlos would turn to look.

“I mean, like we got to keep everything real natural in here,” said Carlos. “We don’t want nothing to happen to dear old Uncle Angie.”

Talk away, punk! thought Paul. Another two feet and I can rush you before you know what’s happening!

Abruptly, Carlos slid away along the bench, glanced up and out the window, back to Paul. It was done swiftly—no time to close the gap. Now he stared narrowly at Paul. “What you coming over here for?”

“I have to work.” Paul gestured toward the bench.

Suspicious, tense, Carlos backed away to the left. “Yeah? So get to work then.”

Paul hesitated. The ticking of the alarm clock beat loudly in his ears. He saw the feet of a small boy run past the little window, heard the gear clashing of a truck turning the corner.

“I mean like now!” snapped Carlos. “Natural! Remember?”

Footsteps echoed in the stairwell. Paul whirled.

Angelo was making his painful descent—slow, stiff-legged. He opened the door, shuffled into the shop, closed the door. “Got lots of business while I am gone?” He began removing his coat, saw Carlos, and froze.

Carlos moved out of the rear of the shop. “Hello, Mr. Serafim.”

“What you want?” demanded Angelo. He finished removing his coat, glanced at Paul, back to Carlos, and thought, The minute I get out of sight, this no good shows up!

“Just having a friendly visit with your nephew,” said Carlos. He crossed to the front windows, leaned over a chair to peer out and up, pushed back to stare at Angelo.

Paul raged to himself, Why’d he have to come back just then? Another couple of minutes!

“Visit is over now,” said Angelo. “You go. Is time for work. Don’t you got work?”

“I got a real good business going,” said Carlos. He sank into one of the wooden chairs beside the front windows.

“I say you go!” snapped Angelo.

“Oh, now, Mr. Serafim. I thought I’d read one of your magazines.” He picked up a magazine from the seat of the next chair.

Paul slipped around the end of the counter, stood behind and to one side of Angelo. He felt frustrated, impotent. Uncle Angie’s getting too excited!

Angelo’s face darkened. “You go now,” he repeated.

Carlos gestured with the magazine. “But I was just …”

Angelo snatched the magazine from his hand. “These for customer! You are not customer!”

Paul saw Carlos’s hand slip into the gun pocket. He moved closer, wet his lips with his tongue. There was a pinched look of rage on Carlos’s face.

Angelo stepped back, pointed toward the door. There were little flecks of spittle on his lips. “You get out! You no good! You stay away from my Pavlos!”

Uncle Angie’s too worked up! thought Paul. He felt desperate, inched closer, ready to dart in at the first hint of a wrong move from Carlos.

Carlos stood up, spoke through tight lips. “What you jerks think? I’m just gonna …” He broke off, stared at Angelo.

Paul turned to his uncle in an instant of white panic, thinking, His heart?

Angelo had stepped backward, gaze fixed on the stairwell. He looked terror-stricken, mouth working soundlessly—then a whisper escaped him: “Dolofone!”

Paul translated it unconsciously, thought, Killer? He looked through the front windows.

A short, round-faced fat man was coming down the stairs. The man let himself in the door, closed it. His actions were precise, steady—like the movements of a heavy machine. Then Paul focused on the eyes shaded under the brim of a brown hat: eyes of a dark, wash blue—empty and deadly. The man wore a lumpy brown overcoat buttoned to the neck. A dead cigar jutted from his thick, wet lips, and bits of dark cigar leaf—chewed and damp—trailed down the front of the coat.

The man rolled the cigar from one side of his mouth to the other, said, “Good afternoon, Carlos.” Flat, empty voice—like the eyes.

“You come just in time, Finch,” said Carlos.

“Oh?” The shark eyes seemed to see everything without looking at any single object. “They are not cooperating?” He shook his head. “Sad.”

Paul heard his uncle muttering in Greek, realized that Angelo was praying. The sound grated on Paul’s nerves as he tried to think. Two of them. How can I handle two of them?

“Be quiet, old man,” said Finch.

“Please!” said Angelo. It was almost a shriek. “We not anything to you! Please!”

“Oh, this will never do,” said Finch. He glanced at Carlos. “A customer comes in, sees him like that? Oh, no.”

Carlos said, “Maybe we better …” He shrugged. “Hang up the sign saying they’re closed.”

“Considered and rejected,” said Finch. “The one across the street there, in the window—we know him to be very observant. It is possible he counts the number of persons who come and go from this shop. Especially on a day such as today. If the shop is closed with several people still inside, that could arouse his suspicions. We do not seek to arouse his suspicions.”

Carlos nodded toward Angelo, who was backed against the counter, eyes closed, praying in Greek. “Sure, but …”

Paul stepped forward. “Look, let me—”

“You will be quiet,” said Finch in a flat, conversational tone.

“Let me take him somewhere out of this,” urged Paul.

“Did I not ask for quiet?” said Finch. The shark eyes turned toward Paul, seemed to pin him without focusing. “You do not want trouble with me, lad. Really you don’t.”

The very casualness of the statement coupled to the cold stare chilled Paul. Now he began to see the thing that Angelo’s more experienced eyes had detected immediately in this man.

Finch turned back to Carlos. “You will take the old man up to the truck. It is around the corner, out of sight of the one across the street. You will appear to be helping the old man. Put him in the back of the truck.”

Carlos said, “How …”

“Patience,” said Finch. “There is a large roll of surgical tape in the back of the truck. Merely be certain that no one sees you taking the old man in there. Close and lock the doors when you come back out.”

“He’s an old man,” said Paul. “He’s sick.”

“Patience,” repeated Finch. “We will only detain him there for his own good. And if you behave, the old man may live to grow even older.”

Paul looked at Carlos, at the way he was staring at Angelo. Paul had seen that expression on the faces of boys tormenting a cat. He trembled.

“Old man!” snapped Finch.

Angelo opened his eyes and mouth, stared mutely.

“You will go now with Carlos,” said Finch. “Go quietly, attract no attention, and the young lad here will remain unharmed. It is only for a little while.” He glanced at his wristwatch. “Less than an hour now.”

“Don’t hurt my Pavlos!” begged Angelo. He looked at Paul, eyes glazed. “Don’t do something, Pavlos. They get mad! Don’t do something.”

Paul stared at his uncle, wanting desperately to help him but menaced now by two men. And he could hear Angelo’s words ringing in his ears: “Don’t do something.”

“You must remain calm,” said Finch. “Hear me, old man?”

Angelo gulped, nodded. He thought, Killer stays here with Pavlos … He looked up. “What you do? Please!”

Carlos said, “What if we get up there on the sidewalk and he—”

“He’s an old man,” said Finch. “They know this around here. He’s ill. You’re helping him. Traffic is very light just now. You’ll have no trouble once you get him around the corner.”

“Please,” mumbled Angelo.

Carlos took Angelo’s coat from the hook, tossed it to him. “Gotta look natural. Put this on.”

Finch produced a pistol with silencer from his coat pocket, held it on Paul, and opened the door. “No heroics, eh?”

Paul swung his gaze from the gun to his uncle, watched Angelo slip into the coat and shuffle out the door. Carlos held Angelo’s arm. A cobweb smear marked Carlos’s sleeve.

The door hid the smear as Finch closed it, gesturing with his pistol. “Now you have a reason to cooperate, eh?”

Paul tried to swallow a lump in his throat. “You won’t let that punk hurt my uncle?”

“Punk?” Finch rolled the cigar to the opposite corner of his mouth, smiled. It transformed his face into a roly-poly image of good humor—all but the eyes. “You are correct—he is a punk.” Finch nodded. “But as long as you remain reasonable, I will hold the punk in check. All right?”

Paul looked away, saw the clock on the bench—3:00 PM. If delivery time is three thirty … He turned back to Finch with the abrupt certainty that the man meant to kill him and Angelo. This kind won’t leave anyone alive who can positively identify them. What are two more murders to men who’d plan the cold-blooded killing of that guard across the street?

“You must have work to do,” said Finch. He slipped the hand with the gun back into his pocket. “Everything must appear natural. We would not want to excite the suspicion of a chance customer, eh?”

Paul’s mouth felt dry, his throat raw. He turned, headed for the bench, thinking, Could I slip notes in some of the shoes that’ll be picked up today? But we only have a half hour, maybe!

Finch slipped past him, moving swiftly for such a fat man, glanced out the window above the bench, back to Paul, examined the area around the bench, again looked at Paul. “I will wait up front, young man. You will not try anything foolish, eh? You will remember the old uncle outside there with the punk?”

“Sure,” grated Paul.

“Good.” Again, Finch took on the image of roly-poly good humor. “Then I will assume the pose of the patient customer waiting for shoes.” He returned to the front.

And Paul stood at the bench, thinking, I just let Carlos walk out of here with Uncle Angie. How do I know what that punk will do to him? He felt sudden desperation. And all I can do is stand here thinking about notes in shoes! He turned, glared at Finch, who stood by the front windows.

“Natural, remember?” said Finch. “Do your work.” He glanced up the stairwell. “Ah-hah!”

Carlos came down the steps, let himself in, and closed the door. He appeared out of breath, perspiration dotting his forehead. The cobweb was gone from his sleeve.

“No problems?” asked Finch.

“He’s all tucked away,” said Carlos. He brushed a sleeve, straightened his tie, and shot a glance at Paul.

“And you did the old man no harm?” persisted Finch.

“Harm? Oh … no. Of course not. Just taped him up like you said.”

“Good!” Finch produced his smile. “You see, the young lad back there worries about his uncle. But as long as he remains reasonable, he has no cause to worry, eh?”

And Paul thought hysterically, Yeah! No cause!

“We have a few details to take care of,” said Finch. He pulled something from his left pocket, handed it to Carlos. “The silencer for the rifle.”

“Yeah.” Carlos looked at Finch’s coat. “You got the rifle under that?”

Finch glanced out the front, then back to Carlos. “Stand here and keep watch. We must be sure that no one sees this.” He moved behind the counter, unbuttoning his overcoat.

Carlos stared up the stairwell. “All clear.”

Finch turned his back on Paul, fumbled under the overcoat. Something clicked. He pulled a rifle from beneath the coat, pushed it back on the long shelf beneath the counter.

Paul looked at the rifle. An M-1!

“What about the ammo?” asked Carlos.

“You have a full clip,” said Finch. He turned around, faced Paul. “Needless to say, young man, it is required that you stay away from this counter unless you are waiting on a customer. And then, you must remember: if you think of becoming heroic, Carlos—whose chief characteristic we both recognize—will be forced to shoot both the customer and yourself, using the small automatic he carries for such purpose. And then …” Finch shook his head sadly. “… the nice old man, too. You understand?”

Paul found it difficult to control the trembling in his chest. He nodded.

“Good. Good!” Finch returned to Carlos, glanced at the stairwell, and shot his left cuff to look at a wristwatch. “It is now 3:05.”

Carlos looked at his own wristwatch. “Yeah.”

“The latest word on the delivery time is that it will be very close to ten minutes to four. That gives us forty-five minutes.”

And Paul thought, Maybe I could get a note into a shoe!

Carlos said, “You going out now?”

“Yes.” Again, Finch glanced up the stairwell. “I’ll return as soon as I have everything set.”

Carlos rubbed at his neck. “Okay.”

“You know what to do?” asked Finch.

“You can trust me, Finch,” said Carlos.

“I am trusting you,” said Finch. “Now, take no chances. If you believe a customer is suspicious, detain him. I’ll be back in plenty of time to help you get set. You’re not nervous, now?”

Carlos swallowed, wet his lips with his tongue. “Me?”

“Yes,” murmured Finch. “Well …” He patted Carlos’s arm. “… just remember how nice it’ll be in Mexico City this time of year, eh?”

“Sure, Finch.”

“And take no chances with the lad back there. He is nervous.” Finch let himself out, moved out of sight up the stairs.

Presently, Paul saw the feet go past the little window—comfortable brown shoes, the kind worn by a man who pampers his body, heels slightly run over. Then he looked up to the brownstone across the street, saw a curtain fluttering at an open window, a man standing there, just into the light. Is that the one they mean to kill? he wondered.

“Go on, get to work,” said Carlos.

Paul glanced around, saw Carlos leaning on the counter. The look of panic that Paul had detected in Carlos’s eyes lay close to the surface, and Paul thought, He’s scared! The punk’s as scared as I am!

“You heard Finch say you’re to act natural,” said Carlos.

“Okay,” said Paul. He found himself suddenly heartened by the realization of Carlos’s fear. He turned his back on Carlos, pulled one of Mr. Levy’s brogans against his apron, and began rubbing the leather.

“I can’t see what you’re doing there,” said Carlos. “What’re you doing?”

Paul lifted the brogan. “You want me to work? I’m working.”

“See that you do!” snapped Carlos.

Paul listened to Carlos’s restless pacing at the front of the shop, thought, The little punk’s scared! He palmed the pencil stub out of his apron pocket, leaned over a scrap of wrapping paper on the bench. His heart was suddenly pounding. I mustn’t look back, he thought. It might make him suspicious. I can hear him. Quickly, he scribbled:

“Mr. Levy, call police. Man with me is criminal, dangerous. Name Carlos Besera. Other name Finch. Help.”

He stuffed the note into the toe of the brogan, pushed the pencil back into his apron pocket.

“What a dump!” muttered Carlos.

Heel taps on the sidewalk. Paul thought he recognized them even before they came into view—the same alligator pumps. She stopped at the corner, clattered down the stairwell.

“It’s your girlfriend!” hissed Carlos. “Get rid of her! And act natural, see?”

She came into the shop, flicked a glance across Carlos, advanced to the counter, and gave Paul a hesitant smile. There was an ink smudge along one freckled cheek. Her red hair was windblown.

Paul stood rooted at the bench, heart hammering. His mouth tasted dry, fuzzy.

“When I was here earlier …” she said. She hesitated. “Well, I forgot something. Your uncle has a pair of my shoes. He brought them down himself about a week ago. They needed …” She broke off. “Do you know if they’re finished?”

Paul tried to still the trembling in his legs. He saw Carlos leering at Jean. Carlos nodded, dropped a broad wink at Paul. And suddenly Paul thought, Mr. Levy’s shoes! The note! If I give her the wrong shoes … will she suspect something, look in them?

“I’ll have them for you in just a minute,” said Paul.

“I’m just on my coffee break,” she said. “Will it be long?”

“No.” Paul shook his head. He turned his back on them, concealing his actions with his body. A length of used wrapping paper from under the bench … Uncle Angie never threw away anything! He swathed Mr. Levy’s brogans in brown paper, took them to the counter, reached down.

Carlos tensed, relaxed when Paul lifted a length of fresh paper.

“I’ll just take them like that,” said Jean.

“Paper’s a little dirty,” said Paul. “Liable to get it on your clothes.”

“These old things?” she said.

But Paul already had the new paper around the package. He tied the bundle with string, broke the string.

“There you are.” He pushed the package across the counter.

She said, “Lucky thing you didn’t need the number. I forgot it. Your uncle didn’t have a tag at the office, and he gave me a number.”

“He told me which shoes were yours this morning,” said Paul.

“About the bill,” she said. “I don’t know what your uncle was going to charge.”

“You can catch it next time you’re in,” said Paul. And he thought, Just get out of here! Please! Just get out!

Behind Jean’s back, Carlos was frowning, nodding toward the door.

Jean lifted the package, glanced back at Carlos, returned her attention to Paul. “About … when I was here earlier … I’m sorry I flew off the handle. I just …” She stopped, lifted the package, balanced it in her hands. “Are you sure these are my shoes?” Again, she hefted the package. “They don’t feel … well, they’re so heavy.”

Paul felt a choking sensation.

Carlos moved up beside Jean, kept his right hand in the gun pocket, pushed the package down to the counter with his left hand. The arm in the gun pocket looked steel taut.

Jean released her hold on the package, stepped back, stared from Carlos to Paul.

“Maybe Paul’s made a mistake,” said Carlos. He kept his attention on Paul. “Let’s open up and see.” He smiled at Paul. “Anybody can make a mistake, eh?”

Now Jean sensed the tension in the room. “I really don’t want to cause any trouble,” she said.

Carlos used his left hand to tear the paper off the shoes, glanced down, back at Paul. “Imagine! Shoes like that for such dainty feet!”

Jean spoke to Paul. “It was just that the package felt so heavy. Maybe I’d better come back when your uncle’s here.”

“You just wait,” said Carlos. He fumbled in one of the shoes then the other, pulled up the note, shook it out, glanced at it. “Notes yet!”

Jean’s attention suddenly riveted on Carlos’s right hand in the gun pocket. She lifted a wide-eyed stare to Paul—grey-green eyes full of question marks.

“Maybe you had better come back when Uncle Angie’s here,” said Paul.

“Well, I am just on my coffee break,” she said. She turned as though to leave.

“I said wait!” snapped Carlos.

She turned slowly, looked down at Carlos’s hand in his pocket.

“That’s right, honey,” said Carlos. “It’s a gun.”

Freckles stood out along her cheeks as she paled. She looked at Paul.

Carlos spoke to Paul. “Now, why did you have to complicate things by making her suspicious? You know what Finch said.”

“You can’t kill everybody who comes in the shop!” rasped Paul.

“Who said anything about killing?” asked Carlos. He leered at Jean. “My motto is you never throw away good merchandise.”

She opened her mouth, closed it silently, and shot a frightened glance at Paul. And Paul felt an abrupt surge of anger at her. Why couldn’t you have just walked out with the package? Why make a fuss about it? Of all the … He realized suddenly that Carlos was speaking.

“I said everybody in the back of the shop,” repeated Carlos. “Move!” He herded Jean ahead of him around the counter.

“What is this?” whispered Jean.

Paul backed toward the bench. “Look, Carlos, why can’t you just let her go?”

“Now?” Carlos shook his head. “What a square!”

“Put her out in the truck with Uncle Angie, then.”

“You know better than that,” said Carlos. “Now, don’t you? You called her attention to me. She got a good look. Tomorrow, the cops have her downtown looking at pictures, and she makes me.” He shook his head. “And not at all the way I want.” Carlos stopped halfway between counter and bench. Jean stood at his left, attention fixed on Carlos.

And Paul was thinking, So I was right! They do intend to kill anyone who can positively identify them!

“What is this?” repeated Jean.

“Just keep it quiet, honey,” said Carlos. “Like you’ll get the picture in time.”

Paul pushed himself away from the bench, eyes on Carlos.

Instantly, Carlos was alert, menacing with the gun in his pocket. “Let’s keep our distance, chum!”

Paul stopped, swallowed. If I can only get within reach of him …

Jean said, “What’s all this talk of killing and … Please, won’t someone tell me?”

Carlos looked at Jean. “Now, there’s no real reason you have to get hurt, honey.” He smiled. “This time tomorrow, I’m on my way to Mexico City with a bag full of hot ice. One hundred grand! My share. How’d you like to come down with me, help spend it?”

She said, “Spend …”

“Sure! Nice-looking doll like you, what do you see in a square like him?” He nodded toward Paul.

She stared at him, backed away along the counter. Carlos had to turn farther away from Paul to watch her. His eyes were focused hungrily on her body. “Now, me,” he said, “I can show you a real good time.”

Jean backed away another step.

“No need to be scared, honey,” said Carlos.

“I’m …” She shook her head. “… not.”

“Good!”

She took a deep, trembling breath, backed away another step, and turned to face the front of the shop. “Did you say you’d have one hundred thousand dollars?”

“Sure, honey. There’s five of us. We split half a million five ways.”

Jean looked down at the corner of the counter. “What if I say yes?”

And Paul, who had been watching her feet, thought, My God! She’s deliberately taking his attention off me! That narrow little line where inhibitions did not extend, the marionette feet just as they were framed by the shallow window over the bench: cautious, controlled—stepping only far enough to keep Carlos from growing suspicious!

Carlos was grinning. “Why, then I buy two tickets on that plane!”

She turned, faced Carlos, seemed to be looking for something in his expression.

Carlos swallowed. “I’m leveling, honey.”

She nodded. “Okay.”

Again the grin stretched Carlos’s mouth.

Paul acted. One quick step forward, his left hand grabbed Carlos’s gun arm just above the wrist, his right hand swung in a vicious chop that caught Carlos full on the throat. All the pent-up desperation of this day went into the blow.

The gun exploded as Carlos dragged his arm upward. Paul ducked a wild, gouging, left-handed clutch at his eyes, broke the gun arm with a single motion of knee and downward pressure of hands. The gun clattered against concrete, skidded across the floor.

Gurgling sounds came from Carlos’s mouth.

Paul swung him around, sent a knee to the groin, another chop to the side of the neck, and yet another to the back of the neck.

Carlos pitched forward.

From the corner of his eye, Paul saw a glint of metal outside the shallow window. He acted without thinking, dove across Carlos as glass exploded inward. There was a whining ricochet against the concrete floor.

Jean shouted something, but the words were lost to him. He scrambled for the wall at the end of the counter, yelling at her, “Get behind the counter!”

A popping sound—like a cork being pulled from a bottle. Another bullet screamed off the floor.

Finch! Thought Paul. He’s back early! Why? Frantically, Paul groped under the counter for the rifle, kept his attention on the window above him. His fingers closed on the M-1 as though it were an old friend. He slid it out, levered a cartridge into the chamber, saw Jean scramble around the end of the counter toward him.

“He’s coming down the front!” she hissed.

“Keep your head down,” he said.

Glass shattered at the front of the shop. A bullet splatted into the face of the counter.

“Is somebody shooting?” whispered Jean. “I can’t hear the gun.”

“Silencer,” said Paul. He reached under the bench for a shoe to throw, hoping Finch would shoot at it, leaving an opening for counterfire.

Finch’s voice echoed from the stairwell. “All right! I told you what’d happen! The old man gets it!”

Paul threw the shoe, leaped up and sideways, snapping off a shot that thundered in the narrow length of the shop.

But Finch was gone.

Running feet pounded along the sidewalk at the corner. Paul whirled, swept the rifle muzzle against the window. Glass showered onto the bench, on the sidewalk.

Finch was slanting across the street toward a large green-and-white van parked to the left of the brownstone. He ran bent over, fat legs pumping, the overcoat billowing out behind. He had lost hat and cigar. A woman with a shopping basket stopped on the sidewalk to the right, stared.

Paul slapped the rifle against his shoulder, elbow out, the forestock smooth and familiar under his left hand. He could almost hear the sergeant at the Fort Ord infiltration range hissing in his ear, “Lead him a little! Lead him!”

The rifle bucked—a roaring explosion that reverberated in the shop. Finch slammed forward onto his face, rolled over, and lay without moving. His right hand clutched a long, bulge-snouted revolver.

The cab door of the truck banged open. A skinny, hard-faced man in white coveralls leaped out, lifted a sawed-off shotgun toward the shop window.

Paul aimed low, slammed a bullet into the man’s legs, and saw him pitch sideways, the shotgun skidding from his hands and under the truck.

The woman on the sidewalk had dropped her shopping basket, and was screaming, hands up to her face. Paul heard brakes screech to the right, saw the armored car lurch to a stop against the curb. He thought, The delivery! It’s early! That’s why Finch came back so soon!

An abrupt roaring explosion filled the street. Paul jerked his gaze upward, saw a man standing at a second-floor window of the brownstone, holding an automatic shotgun pointed down toward the far side of the truck. The guard they were going to kill! thought Paul. He got somebody getting out the other side of the truck!

“What’s happening?” demanded Jean. She arose from behind the counter, her red hair disarrayed, and stared at him.

But Paul was thinking, Uncle Angie’s in that truck!

He almost knocked Jean over rushing past her, out of the shop, and up the stairs.

“Where’re you going?” she shouted after him.

He ignored her, raced for the corner. Part of his mind registered faces framed in windows above him, querulous voices, distant wailing of a siren. Then he was at the corner, skidding to a stop as the guard in the second-floor window of the brownstone shouted, “You down there! Drop that rifle!”

Paul looked up, saw the shotgun centered on him. “My uncle!” he called. “They’ve got him in that truck!”

“You the one shot that guy in the street?” shouted the guard.

“Yes! I tell you they’ve got my uncle in that truck!”

“Then relax, son! That truck’s not going anywhere! I just …”

Sirens filled the street, drowning his voice. Police cars roared down the street from both ends, skidded to stops. Uniformed men leaped from them, pistols ready. The banshee wailing droned away to silence.

Paul’s gaze went to Finch’s body in the street near the rear wheels of the truck. A dark stain spread along the overcoat beneath one arm, and a rivulet wandered off toward the gutter. One of Finch’s run-over brown shoes had slipped off, exposing a hole in the heel of his sock.

Abrupt reaction hit Paul. He felt that if he moved, his muscles would collapse. He saw the frightened eyes of the woman with the shopping basket peering from behind steps down the street, police hurrying toward him, the guard still staring down from the upper window of the brownstone.

Revulsion swept over Paul. He thought, I’ve killed a man! The rifle dragged at his arm. He wanted to drop it but could not will his fingers to release their grip.

A policeman with sharp features stepped warily up beside him, slipped the weapon from his hand. “All right, mister,” said the policeman. “You mind telling us what’s going on here?”

In a dry, shallow voice, Paul told him, beginning with Carlos’s visit. Presently, it seemed that he drew back from his own voice, listened to it droning on and on and on and on …

There was a brief interruption when the ambulance came to take away a pale but still breathing Uncle Angie and the wounded bandit from the street. A police car drove away with an ashen, stumbling Carlos Besera after the ambulance attendant immobilized the broken arm and gave him a shot.

And later—after all the questions, the avid faces, the flaring flashbulbs—Paul stood at the corner in the gathering dusk. Police technicians still worked around the big truck across the street, but the only reminder of Finch was a chalked outline on the pavement and a dark, irregular stain growing dim in the twilight.

Small boys crowded around the barricades blocking off the street. Uniformed officers with nightsticks patrolled in front of them.

One boy pointed at Paul, spoke shrilly to a newcomer: “That’s the guy shot ’im.”

Paul looked away, shivered.

A plainclothes lieutenant came up beside Paul, touched lighter flame to a cigarette. The man had a craggy, rocklike face under a grey hat brim. He studied Paul with hard, cynical eyes. “Thought you’d like to know,” he said. “Carlos talked. We got the fifth member of this mob while he was waiting in the getaway car.” He shook his head. “When I think how close this one was …”

“When can I go over to the hospital to see my uncle?” asked Paul. “I’ve told you everything I know.”

“Soon as I can spare a car and driver,” said the lieutenant. “But you heard what the ambulance doc said—your uncle will probably outlive all of us. Those old guys surprise you sometimes.”

“I know, but …”

“Now, don’t you worry,” said the lieutenant. “Last we heard, your uncle was resting easy. They’ll tell us if there’s a change.”

Paul took a deep breath, turned away. He felt restless, uncertain.

The lieutenant inhaled a deep drag of the cigarette, blew smoke across the darkening air. “I saw that Carlos,” he said. “Man, you really worked him over. Took guts to go up against a guy with a gun like that.”

Paul shook his head. “I just knew I had to do it.”

“You ever want a job on the force, let me know,” said the lieutenant. He glanced back at the stairwell. “Don’t worry about boarding up your shop tonight. We’ll have two men patrolling.”

“They can come and cart the place away for all I care,” said Paul.

The lieutenant flicked his cigarette into the gutter. “Well … we’ll be through here pretty soon. We just have to make sure we got all the prints off that van across there. Could have been some others in this that Carlos didn’t know about.”

Paul nodded, his mind veering to a memory of Angelo waiting on the stretcher here in the street while the ambulance doctor prepared a hypodermic. The old man’s face had looked pale, strained, with raw red marks where the tape had covered his mouth. Paul had been forced to bend close to hear his uncle’s low voice.

Angelo spoke in Greek: “When that Carlos took me outside, I looked down through my little window. It was as though I had never looked through there before. Such a little place. So dirty. It was like looking inside myself.”

Paul slipped into his mother tongue. “Uncle, please save your strength.”

It was as though Angelo had not heard. The dark old lips moved slowly, fumbling for words. “Pavlos … I keep thinking—thirty-one years! Is that what thirty-one years is like … inside? No wife. No kids. No friends. Just a dirty little shop with one window … squinting at me!”

Paul glanced at the ambulance doctor, wishing he would hurry. “Uncle, we can talk later.”

The doctor bent over, pulled Angelo’s coat off one arm, ripped away the shirt. He nodded to Paul. “Could you hold his arm like this, please?”

Angelo ignored the intrusion. “I have seen your letters from friends in the army. I thought they were taking you away from me. I wanted to keep you all to myself. Instead, I drove you toward someone like Carlos.”

“No, Uncle!”

“I have been an old fool, Pavlos.” He winced at the bite of the needle. “Don’t be like me. Don’t crouch in a little dirty place … inside … afraid of everything.”

The doctor tucked a blanket around Angelo’s neck. “We’ll leave him just a minute until that takes effect.”

Angelo gulped, took a trembling breath. “In that truck … in the dark … I thought many things. How smart I believed I was—watching people through my window, learning things about them. But—you know, Pavlos—never once did I do a good thing with what I learned.”

Angelo blinked, stared up into the anxious young face, the features so much like his own had been. His vision blurred, faded. Muddiness washed across his mind. He brought up a last reserve of consciousness. “Maybe one good thing that I did, Pavlos. That nice girl—she is the right girl for you.” He closed his eyes.

Paul stood up as the ambulance attendants lifted the stretcher. “Yes, Uncle.”

He watched them slide the stretcher into the ambulance, drive away.

And now it was full dark on the corner. The lieutenant had joined the technicians across the street. The officers at the barricades paced through yellow patches from streetlights. Only a few children remained.

Abruptly, someone started the motor of the van.

Paul sensed rather than saw a figure come up beside him. He smelled perfume, looked down. Jean Lovett stared up at him, the grey-green eyes reflecting specks of light. He saw that she had straightened her hair, removed the ink smudge from her cheek.

She turned away, spoke without looking at him. “I haven’t had a chance to thank you.”

“Well, I got you into that trouble,” said Paul. He shrugged. “Besides, if you hadn’t taken Carlos’s attention off me …”

“I knew you’d do something. I don’t know how I knew it, but I did.” She turned back, facing him. “When you go to the hospital to see your uncle … may I go with you?”

“You don’t owe us anything,” he said.

She glanced down, long lashes flickering. “There’s something you should know that …” She hesitated.

And Paul noted how the yellow streetlight almost faded out her freckles. He decided that he liked her better with freckles.

“I asked your uncle to let me deliver that envelope,” she said. Her glance came up, down. “Wasn’t that brazen of me? I wanted to meet this paragon he described. But I was afraid …” She stopped, looked up at him. “You won’t get mad?”

“I’m through getting mad.”

“I was afraid you’d be like him …” She plunged ahead. “… I mean, bent over, afraid … just like my mother.” She smiled—shy, tentative. “But you weren’t.”

Paul matched her smile. He felt suddenly lighthearted.

Jean stepped closer.

It felt natural to put his arms around her—she stepped so easily into them. He rested his cheek against her hair, smelled the wonderful, soft pungency of it. There was a kind of weary humor in the thought that flitted through his mind: Uncle Angie—matchmaker! And then the bitter aftertaste: Imagine building a whole life around “Don’t do something!”

Jean stirred, pushed away, patted his cheek. It was an intimate, possessive gesture that made him feel warm and sure of the future.

“I called my boss,” she said. “Mr. Carter. He and his wife want me to bring you to their home … later. They want us to spend the night. I think maybe it’s a good idea. I don’t want to be alone tonight.”

“Never again,” said Paul.

He heard the van driving away, saw the lieutenant approaching. The lieutenant looked breezy, happy—his cragginess broken by a smile.

“Well, let’s go, kids,” he said. “Guess I’ll have to take you over to the hospital myself. Then, whatsay we get all the routine business out of the way and let me buy you a dinner on the expense account? I guess the city owes you that much, anyway.” He took Jean’s arm, pulled them into motion.

They rounded the corner three abreast.

As they passed the little window, Paul felt glass grind under his feet. He glanced down into the dark eye of the shop, kicked at the pieces of the shattered window. God! he thought. Thirty-one years!

The Waters of Kan-E

The voice of the old woman drifted up to us on the veranda. She was seated cross-legged at the bole of a fara tree on Makatea’s north shore, the fattest woman I have ever seen. She was a round hillock of flesh heaped upon the sand, a faded lavaru only half covering her. Five dark-skinned children danced and laughed around her as she clapped and sang for them.

The woman’s skin was what attracted my particular attention. It was a pattern of the conventional dark brown broken by blotches of dead gray. And yet she didn’t appear to be ill or in any discomfort.

Off and on, all morning, I had been watching the old woman and the children, wanting to ask Paul Sargeant beside me about the peculiar skin but afraid to show my ignorance.

As I watched, the woman gestured with her right hand. The children stopped their dancing and sank to the sand around her, looking up expectantly. The woman bent forward, and her voice seemed to lift out of the background of hissing surf, a tone plaintive, low, and so sad it crept into my breast and cried.

“A harres ta fow,

“A toro ta farraro,

“A now ta tararta.”

Paul looked up from the six-week-old copy of the Melbourne Times he was reading. “Right out of Melville,” he said.

“The palm tree shall grow,

“The coral shall spread,

“But man shall cease.”

He put aside the paper and took his pipe from the table before us. “That’s Grandma Pu-pu,” he said. “She doesn’t believe that herself about man going the way of the dinosaur.” He put a match to his pipe. “Although that old chant may be closer to home than we think, what with atom bombs and hydrogen bombs.” He took the pipe from his mouth and gestured toward the paper on the table. “Grandma Pu-pu could teach them a lesson.”

“How’s that?” I asked.

“Take a good look at that old woman,” Paul said. “Look at her skin. There is a real, honest-to-God living legend. She’s famous from here to Hawaii. There are chants about her. Not as good chants as the old ones, I’ll grant you, because the old manner seems to have been lost, but those chants about Grandma will live long after she’s gone.”

I turned back toward the beach. The children were still watching, and the old woman was half talking, half chanting to them. Her arms moved in a graceful rhythm, which shrugged off the heavy flesh and said that here was still a woman. It was only a caricature of a woman, though. A ridiculous wattle of fat beneath her chin swayed and undulated with her chant.

Now she swayed back and again forward. I caught the word “mo-o-o-o-o,” long and drawn-out.

“She’s telling them about Au-ke-le, the seeker,” Paul said. “It’s the legend of the Polynesian hero who sought the waters of Kan-e, the source of everlasting life.”

Paul’s wide-set eyes stared fixedly at the beach, and his brows drew down in mirrored T crosses above his thin nose. “I dare say Grandma Pu-pu knows more about that particular legend than any other living human,” he said. “You see, she found the waters of Kan-e.”

“Oh, come now,” I said. “I know the Polynesian fountain of youth story. That nice old grandmother down there doesn’t look like any Ponce de Leon.”

Paul’s wide mouth split in a grin. “No,” he said. “But where the Spaniard failed, she succeeded.”

I leaned back. “Spill it,” I said.

“Spill it?” Paul looked at me questioningly. “Oh, you mean tell you the story.” He chuckled. “Spill it. I thought you meant the sacred waters.”

He paused to get his pipe going. The tobacco glowed red. Then he looked down at Grandma Pu-pu on the beach with eyes that peered through her and beyond into the distant years.

“It was 1924,” he said. “Grandma is a Raratonga woman. She was married to Pete Mahi, a quarter-breed French and Polynesian shell buyer. Pete traded the lower archipelago in his schooner, the Auroheva. They’d been married seventeen years and had four sons, the oldest, Pete Junior, being eighteen.”

Paul’s voice began to blend with the more remote chanting of Grandma Pu-pu and took on some of her rhythm.

“It was the end of the pearling season. They were Papeete-bound from Fakarova with a full load of shell and some fair pearls. The Auroheva was an old schooner, twenty-two tons and with the long, sour smell in her hold of the shell there. There was a holiday feeling aboard her, though.

“Grandma Pu-pu was just as fat then as you see her now. She always went with Pete on the trade tour, and her boys with her. It was a queer custom to the Polynesians, who leave their women at home, but then Pete was one-fourth ‘Papaa.’ The whites were notoriously strange in the head. In addition to young Pete, the boys were Paalo, Wim, and Joe. They had seven natives in the crew and two divers with their families.

“They were twenty-nine souls on the Auroheva, the old schooner standing west of Faaite, course west-southwest. Every person aboard was urging the ship to a few more knots; they were that anxious to start the holiday. Then it happened.”

Paul knocked out his pipe on the veranda rail.

“Hurricane?” I asked.

Paul smiled distantly.

“We live with hurricanes down here,” he said. “You have to understand that completely to know what the people on the Auroheva were thinking and what they did. Not only had they lived with hurricanes, but so had their ancestors back to the earliest legends. Hurricane is a god, a capricious god, who comes to smite the evil in men to stillness. I do not know if those aboard the schooner completely believed this, but certainly it was so close to their lives that they could not entirely disbelieve it.

“Yes, it was a hurricane.

“First, the glass began to drop. It went down from 29.90 to 29.80 in the first hour and then plummeted as though the mercury was being siphoned out. They knew what it meant, but they had both ancient and modern lore with which to meet it. They were seafaring people with confidence in themselves and their ship, which had ridden out a full six such storms before.

“Pete tried running for it on the port tack, the standard move here below the equator. When he saw he wouldn’t make it, he still wasn’t afraid. He ordered all sail off, and they lashed down every movable object. Then they put over the beg kedge anchor with one hundred fathoms of line as a drag. It’s an old hurricane trick.

“The full weight of the storm struck about midmorning. The wind swept across the water like a black wall, actually flattening the seas before it.

“Then came the hurricane waves—‘Long Wave and Short Wave,’ the Polynesians call them. You must see them to believe them. They advance like mountains until even an ocean liner is a puny mite before them. They are accompanied by the sting of driven water, which you cannot face and breathe, and the banshee of the wind, which seems to still the voice of life within you.

“The Auroheva was a fluff of gull down on those waves. Her rigging whined in protest. Strange music was strummed from the stays. The masts waved barren against the steel sky.

“Pete and the eldest were on deck with the seven crewmen. The others were below, with the hatches battened above them. What happened on that deck isn’t clear. Some think the line to the drogue parted. Others believe the old Auroheva just gave up after twenty-five years of deep-water passages and hurricanes—the proverbial last straw.

“The way Grandma Pu-pu tells it, she was wedged in a corner of the galley, slicing bread for sandwiches with the shark knife she wore on a line around her neck. Suddenly the schooner lurched and heeled over. There was a roar like a thousand surfs. Grandma found herself sitting in the water, still clutching the knife, and the schooner was nowhere to be seen. That isn’t remarkable because she couldn’t see six feet in any direction through the spume. Her dress had been torn off, and she floundered there, stark naked, with the knife in one hand.

“There is a clue to the nature of these people in the fact that this scene provokes laughter when Grandma tells it now.

“For a time, she wasn’t certain which was the sea and which the air. But she was a born swimmer, and, too, she was padded with buoyant fat. In the midst of this melee of spray and wind, she thrashed around, and her hands encountered a rope. It was a line to a cargo sling full of coconuts, which had been on the Auroheva’s deck. And on such a chance hangs this legend.

“Grandma had no idea how long the storm lasted. She missed the center, so it probably was six or eight hours. The wind passed, though, and it was night. She clung to the net all through those dark hours. The sea shook her. It bruised her against the coconuts. It offered forgetfulness and tore at her grip on the line. She held fast to the rope and prayed to Kau-hu-hu, the shark god, for protection from his people.”

“Shark god?” I asked. “I know you didn’t say so, but somehow, I got the impression she was a Christian.”

“Oh, she is,” Paul said. “But who would deny her a shark god in the middle of the ocean?

“The sun came up hot that first morning. When Grandma tells it, she says she called out Ma-ui to shield her from A-hele-a-ka-la, the rays of the sun. And her listeners nod. They know of Ma-ui. He is part of another legend. It is right that legends intertwine.

“The seas had become long, rolling swells by that time. They moved in from the southwest. Once it was full daylight, she tried to climb upon the net of coconuts. The net shifted each time, and the coconuts rolled, tumbling her back into the ocean. She gave it up at last and worried out a nut, cracked it with her shark knife, drank the milk, and ate some of the meat.

“About noon, she noticed a flock of seabirds to the east, screaming and diving down onto the water. Some circled her but flew back to their companions without alighting. Grandma pushed herself out of the water as far as she could. The crest of a wave lifted her. She glimpsed something dark on the water beneath the birds. It wasn’t far. She pushed away from the net and swam toward the birds. She was almost upon them before she realized they were at a body. She swam up, scattered the birds with a fistful of water, and rolled the body over. It was Pete Junior. He was tangled up in a line and a broken spar.

“I think many people would have given up to grief right there—probably drowned. But Grandma Pu-pu came to a decision. She knew there was nothing she could do for her firstborn, so she turned away and swam back to the net.

“She was about halfway back when she saw the fin. It was like a knifeblade in the seas, circling her. She paddled slower, pausing to put her face in the water and watch for the attack. The shark is a coward, and this one took a long time to make its first rush. Grandma saw it and met the shark with the flat of her hand on its snout. The force of the rush pushed her half out of the water.

“She had no thought of using her knife. Blood would have brought other sharks. Besides, she was still praying to Kau-hu-hu, the shark god, and didn’t want to offend him.

“She swam on, keeping an eye on the shark as it circled her.

“She says this was Kai-ale-ale, the king of the sharks. Her listeners know Kai-ale-ale. He is part of another legend.

“This king of sharks waited longer before making the second rush. Again she met it with a hand on its snout. Twice more she met the attacks with the flat of her hand. Kai-ale-ale gave up and went back to his palace in the bottom of the sea. There were no more sharks that day. Grandma gained the net and prepared for another night. The pull of the waves swayed her body and made the coconuts knock against each other. She could still hear the gulls. Salt needles stabbed at a score of scratches she had suffered in the breakup of the Auroheva. And in her heart, Grandma Pu-pu was certain that all of the others had met death, but she had no time for grief.

“Survival came first.”

“What about the waters of Kan-e?” I asked.

“In due time,” Paul said. He smiled toward the beach, where Grandma Pu-pu was chanting a new story for the children.

“Before the dark came on that day, she broke out another nut and drank the milk,” he said. “The pain of grief hovered about her like a man-o’-war bird. She clung tightly to a small thought given her by Noana, the sea, and held away the grief.

“Grandma catnapped that night, her arms laced through the netting, never dozing for more than a few seconds at a time. The water was warm and caressing. It comforted her.

“The next day, the birds began to bother her. They were ha-lu-lu, she thought—birds of evil. She felt that she was near death, and she didn’t want the birds to have her. When they alighted on the netting, she shooed them away. When they circled overhead, she screamed at them. At last the circling birds made it impossible for her to forget her loss. She opened her mouth and let the death chant pour out, shouting it to the ha-lu-lu and the lapping sea. In the middle of the chant, she improvised new verses to tell of her husband and her sons and their friends.

“For the better part of that day, she wailed her chant of grief. I have heard it just once, and I will never be the same again. ‘The breath of my life has gone out beneath the shroud—the black shroud—of the sea,’ she chants. ‘Bones of my ancestors, gather up softly these I love. Carry them up the rainbow, oh Hina-in-the-sky.’ When she chants them, all the listening people are still. They hear in Grandma Pu-pu’s chant a part of their past, and they mourn as much for the loss of that as for Grandma’s loss.

“Again the following night she dozed, and again the sharks did not come. ‘Kau-hu-hu answered my prayers,’ she says. Well, who is to say to her, ‘nay’?

“On the third morning, she began to take more careful stock of her situation. A land bird rested for a while on her net. She knew she wasn’t more than fifty miles from Faaite, but the current set away from the island, toward Rangiros and Makates there. Both were more than sixty miles distant. She drank the milk from two more coconuts. They gave her strength, and she thought. She knew the current, unaided, would set her south of these islands into the interisland channel. That would not do.

“Alternating with a period of rest and a period of work, she began swimming northward, towing the net of coconuts with a line across her shoulder. All that day she struggled, pausing only to eat of a nut when she found the need. That night, she wedged her face between a stack of nuts and the netting and slept until the shifting cargo made her change position. She had gained perhaps four knots the whole day.

“Again the next day she took up her work.

“On her seventh day in the water, she saw a steamer’s smoke in the south, but not the steamer. It was the President Cleveland limping into Papeete, taking more water into her holds than her pumps could handle. The storm had caught the ship near Flint Island, and it had been all that time coming south. Grandma watched the steamer’s smoke disappear below the horizon. It was like a last touch with the world of humans.

“Another day passed, and another. She was still a mountain of a woman, floating high, but her skin had begun to loosen, and there was a chafing sore on her shoulder where she swam against the line of the cargo net. Around her was nothing but the ocean, the sky, and an occasional seabird. She says that her skin began to get numb and she couldn’t feel the water or any pain.

“She already had been alive in the water longer than doctors say is possible for a human.

“On the fourteenth day, Kau-hu-hu sent another shark—or perhaps it was Kai-ale-ale again come to test this woman and her prayers. Grandma, a woman whose flesh was puckered and ridged from the long immersion, swam out to meet the attack. She caught the first rush with the flat of her hand on the shark’s snout. Seven passes that shark made before abandoning the fight. Grandma swam back to the net and clung to it. Her left arm had been torn from wrist to elbow by the shark’s sandpaper side as it brushed against her, but she swears her wound did not bleed.

“‘It was a sign from Kau-hu-hu,’ she says.

“From that point on, Grandma isn’t too clear as to how many days passed between incidents. Somewhere in that period, her strength ebbed to the point where she could no longer tow the cargo net and its coconuts. The nut supply had gone down to less than half of the original load. She no longer felt as much like eating, though. And as her strength diminished, so did her flesh.

“We know the date the Auroheva broke up, and we know the day Grandma was found. Therefore, we know it was the night before her twenty-third day in the water when she heard the surf on the barrier here at Makatea. She said another prayer to Kau-hu-hu.

“In the first dawn light, she saw the reef and beyond it, in the lagoon, a canoe with two fishermen. They were too far away, she knew, to hear a shout. She saved her strength. The coconut net floated nearer and nearer the reef. With her last strength, Grandma maneuvered the net between herself and the sharp coral of the barrier. She was so intent on the task that she failed to see the final shark Kau-hu-hu sent against her. The shark was a big fellow, a mala-ke-nas that had feasted on human flesh before. It circled behind her and dived down deep, deep—a milky-gray shadow beside the rainbow colors of the reef.

“As the wave which Grandma hoped would carry her over the reef lifted under her, the shark made its run. She sensed her peril—‘Kau-hu-hu warned me,’ she chants—and put her head in the water in time to see the monster rushing up at her. She rolled sideways, and the shark came up alongside her. Its hide rasped the skin from her stomach, the inside of her left arm, which held the cargo net, and the left side of her face. It was that close. Then the wave deposited both of them on the reef.

“Coral spines gouged into her. The flailing shark struck her a glancing blow, which broke her leg. And the following sea came onto the reef and washed both into the lagoon. The shark was gone in the instant, but Grandma was bleeding now in a dozen places, and she knew others would come. The coconuts had become lodged on the reef, and she no longer had a float. Her buoyant flesh was gone. But Grandma wasn’t finished. Nursing the broken leg, she set out toward the canoe, shouting on every other stroke.

“There were two fishermen in the canoe. They saw her when she had covered about a third of the distance from the reef.

“‘Save me!’ she cried.

“But she wasn’t fooling those fishermen. They knew a sea demon when they saw one. They were certain it was a demon because the creature came from the sea and not from the land. ‘Mo-o!’ one shouted. And they fled, beating the water to foam with their paddles.

“Grandma Pu-pu almost gave up when she saw that there would be no help from the fishermen. She floated for a minute in the water and then, she said, there came a last strength. Slowly, she began the long swim to the island two miles away. Her leg was broken, she was bleeding over half of her body, she had been a full twenty-three days in the water, and she had lost more than one hundred pounds of her fat. But she still had the will to survive.

“Look at her!” Paul gestured with his right hand, his finger pointing. “I say she is magnificent!”

The group was still beneath the fara tree, and now the children were laughing as Grandma Pu-pu recounted a humorous part of the story she was telling them.

I could see it too. It was a calmness that mantled every gesture she made. There was no mystery in life for her. She knew. She knew!

“The two fishermen reached the island here,” Paul said. “They ran up the beach, shouting, ‘Mo-o! A Mo-o comes from the sea!’ People scattered before them.

“They ran past the hut of Tiki, the one-legged diver, and Tiki, who could not run, came out to watch their retreating backs. ‘A Mo-o,’ he sniffed, rubbing the shark-chewed stump of his left leg. ‘It is more likely someone from the storm.’

“He took his crutch from beside the doorpost and made his way down to the canoe the fishermen had abandoned. Out in the lagoon, he saw the swimmer. Hidden behind him, the people watched. He picked up the paddle and shoved off. The gap between swimmer and canoe closed rapidly. Then the canoe swerved in front of the swimmer.

“Even Tiki’s courage wavered when he saw Grandma’s bloody face and torn body. He took two deep breaths and thought back to his own time in a sea turned red by the blood pouring from the stump of his leg. Then he reached down and pulled Grandma into the canoe. He marveled at the way her skin hung loosely on her thin body.

“At the beach again, Tiki shouted and reviled his neighbors before they ventured down to the canoe. ‘It is a poor sufferer from the storm!’ he screamed. ‘Would you leave her to die and bring down a curse upon us?’

“At last they came, with Chief Kauo-la-oe, the father of the present chief, leading the way.”

Paul chuckled. “I imagine Grandma was quite a sight. For that matter, she still is. As you see, her skin, which was bleached a dirty gray, never quite regained its original pigment. She says it took two months before people were wholly convinced she was a human being. Tiki’s mother doctored her with herbs for almost four months before she really regained her strength. And in five months, when the mission schooner Faith of Jesus put in here, she was well enough to board and make passage for Papeete. She was still quite a sight, skin loose, the left side of her face scarred into a grimace. Most people shunned her.

“At Papeete, she was greeted as one returned from the dead. The wreckage of the Auroheva’s longboat had been picked up by a trader from Tahanea and its story pieced out. Along with the others aboard, Grandma’s name had been added to the rolls for the Easter Mass.

“She chanted her story there at the spring feast, and her fame began to spread. In about three months, an insurance agent came around with a check for the schooner and Pete’s life insurance. Grandma was suddenly a very rich woman by any standard. She was thirty-six years old, which is aged for Polynesian women, but she found herself very popular, surrounded by suitors—all with some scheme or other they wanted her to finance. She thumbed her nose at the lot of them. When the Faith of Jesus made its fall run back here to Makatea, Grandma was aboard. She was just Mrs. Pupuamahele Mahi, a widow, though.

“She stepped out of the schooner’s boat onto the beach here and went right up to Tiki’s hut. Did I tell you about Tiki? You’ll see him around. He’s as ugly as original sin and a born clown. The shark that took his leg also got part of his face, and he has a perpetual grin. It’s pretty horrible until you get to know him. Grandma went up to the village and stopped there, where Tiki sat in the sun outside his door. She was acting as shy as a schoolgirl and ignoring all greetings.

“‘Mea maitai?’ she asked. ‘You are well?’

“‘Tauhere, you have come back to me,’ he said.

“And that’s the way it was settled. Captain Arahab Nobles of the schooner read the ceremony that afternoon. Grandma Pu-pu was a bride again at thirty-six.

“Old as she was by Polynesian standards, Grandma Pu-pu bore three more sons—Tiki Junior, Pete, and Joe.

Paul pointed toward the old woman who was getting to her feet stiffly at the fara tree. “That toddler is Joe’s youngest, Wim.”

“Where did she get that tremendous will to survive?” I asked.

Paul watched the group on the beach. “She told me once that it came over her when she realized all of her sons were dead. Out there in the ocean, she knew that if she died, the lines of her family died, and so did part of her race.”

“What about the waters of Kan-e?” I asked.

“Isn’t it plain to see?” Paul countered. Again he pointed at the old woman.

Grandma Pu-pu had picked up the toddler, taken another youngster’s hand, and was leading the procession away down the beach. “Where do you think they’re going?” he asked.

“Where?”

“Down to the lagoon,” Paul said, “for their daily swimming lesson. In Polynesia, it is the sea that buoys up life, feeds it, carries it on its bosom, makes life possible at all. The sea—it is the source of life. They swim in the waters of Kan-e.”

Paul’s Friend

“That’s Paul’s Friend.”

Charlie Jens waved a whiskey glass toward the fire, a demon of red-and-yellow light on the hot beach below the veranda. At the fireside squatted a black man, part of the darkness around him, taking of the world only in mahogany reflection from the blaze. The light showed a broad, dull face with brow and cheeks a plowed field of scars. His flanks were thin and dim in the shadows; his heels were drawn back beneath him in the aboriginal way, and he stretched scar-laced arms toward the flames.

It was the fire which had prompted me to ask, “Who is that?”

A beach fire in July on the equator is a thing of fiction. And this night had drunk too freely of the sun’s heat on the day just past. It was hot beyond caring, and the only escapes were in getting sodden drunk or flirting with the sharks beyond the drumming reef. Charlie Jens and I were choosing the former. In the tropics, it is a white man’s privilege.

“Paul’s Friend?” I asked. “Doesn’t he have a name? Who’s Paul?”

“That’s his name, Paul’s Friend,” Charlie said.

There was silence broken by the gurgling of the bottle as Charlie poured. From up in the village beyond the palm-guarded beach there came a high-pitched, giggling laugh. Someone began playing a harmonica on the schooner in the lagoon. And the heat closed in, carrying the scent of night blooms like a dark weight that oppressed the senses.

I waited. The signs revealed that Charlie Jens was about to tell a story.

Instead, he slammed down his glass, spilling the liquor in a dark blot across the rattan table.

“Damn your nosy, stinking prying to hell!” he shouted. “Don’t think I don’t know why you come up here, filling me full of your good liquor! I don’t know why I put up with it.”

Again there was silence interlaced with the dim harmonica music. With a shaking hand, Charlie picked up the bottle, looked at it, and filled his glass to the brim.

“Yes, I know. This is why.” He held up the bottle and slammed it down. “You’ll take my stories, and you’ll write ’em up like I always intended and never did. And you’ll get rich while I stay here, selling trade goods to heathens.”

“They’re Christians, Charlie,” I said.

He snorted and gulped the drink, throwing back his head to show a thin neck with a bobbing Adam’s apple. The light from a hissing gas lantern that hung from a porch rafter sent a black shadow across his left cheek, reproducing a thin caricature of his bulging nose. His hair, totally white, hung unkempt down to the collar of a faded blue navy dungaree shirt. On top, it rimmed a bare pink spot in the center of his head—like an island surrounded by surf.

“Christians!” Again he snorted. “Fat lot you know about it!”

I leaned back, watching the play of Charlie’s wide mouth as he spoke.

“Take Paul’s Friend there,” he said, spilling a bit of his drink on his arm as he gestured with it. “He was an orphan, raised by a missionary on the mission grounds like one of their own. Speaks almost as good English as you; better than me. Many’s the time he’s come here to borrow my books to read. Don’t look it, does he?”

The black man by the fire stirred slightly and lowered his arms. I became embarrassed. The man wasn’t sixty feet from us, just below the palm line. On the still air, sounds carry far. I knew he could hear us talking. Before, when I had considered him just another bêche-de-mer native, it had made no difference. When I realized he could understand us, it touched a chord the white man does not enjoy. It vibrated at the wall of our security.

“His parents were kinky-haired cannibals,” Charlie Jens said. “How far away from them you think he is? Feh!” He spat over the veranda rail. “People don’t live forever on the equator, especially black people. He’s forty years removed from cannibalism. Christianity’s a thin skin on him.”

“How’d he get his name?” I asked.

Charlie reached over to the veranda rail with his whiskey glass and very carefully squashed a red crawler almost hidden in the shadow of a pillar. Then he sat back. The flesh of his stomach, showing fish belly white through the spread front of his shirt, began to quiver. The laugh rose within him like a shark swimming to the surface, and it broke coldly on the fetid air.

“Aani Paul,” he said, making the Paul come out Pol. The laughter died slowly, struggling on the hook of his curved lips. “Paul’s Friend!” He bit it off.

“She was gorgeous …” His voice had suddenly grown dim, almost hidden under the soft hiss of surf on the shingle of beach, blending with it. “She had hair like golden feathers, eyes like the blue-green of the lagoon on a spring afternoon. And she was proud of her figure and her long legs. She carried her breasts high.”

“In Heaven’s name, who?” I asked.

“Paul’s wife,” he said. “Waa …”

It was an involuntary exclamation and revealed much of this man who had spent a lifetime resisting the easy languor of native ways.

“So you fell in love with this Paul’s wife, whoever he is,” I said.

“Was,” Charlie corrected me. “She’d have taken me, too, if it hadn’t been for what he did.” He gestured again toward the black figure on the beach, whose arms were once more outstretched toward the flames as though in some mystic ritual. “In time, she’d have taken me.”

Charlie picked up the bottle and held it toward the gas lantern, sloshing the amber fluid and watching the play of color. The diffused portion of light through the bottle made a yellow bar on his face. “Ever hear of Paul Rejoc?” he asked.

I extended my glass for a refill. “It seems I’ve heard the name,” I said.

As he poured, Charlie mimicked me. “It seems I’ve heard the name.” He carried it a half tone higher. The glass full, he replaced the bottle on the table and studiously avoided his own glass.

“He was a paianayo,” he said. “A man’s man. And a woman’s man, too. There wasn’t another white man in the whole of the South Pacific knew these waters like he did. He was one of the first blackbirders into New Guinea and New Ireland, on one of his old man’s boats. I seen him take natives off the beach at Nukumanu with the wreck of the Tamana sitting right there in the lagoon, her dead—what was left of ’em—rotting on her decks.

“His head boat boy was an Eromangan who boasted of having eaten a piece of the Rev. John Williams. And no doubt was telling the truth.

“Paul was twenty then and a first mate. He stood six feet six in his peou sandals, with shoulders like a Lingayen ox. His great-grandfather had been a French duke who escaped the revolution. His mother was Irish and Polynesian. He took the best of all of them and made it better.

“He had an Atafu woman then, back in the Union group. She died the following year in a hurricane.

“Remember the stories about the Japs keeping us out of the Marshalls. Hah!” Charlie snorted and brought out a crumpled red bandana, into which he bugled noisily. “Hell,” he said, replacing the bandana, “Paul Rejoc spent a year on Jeluit livin’ like a native with a native wife, and they never even knew it. That was later, of course. He’d’ve been a fine one to’ve had in the last little blowup.

“Oh, he helled around aplenty in his youth. He ran a pearl raider clean to Mytho and down to Condore Island and then down to the Straits Settlement. That was the last we heard of him for three or four years until he turned up at Bougainville with an eighty-foot schooner, fourteen kanakas, and a white wife. Paul’s Friend there was one of the kanakas. Fair worshipped Paul, they did. It seems Rejoc scooped ’em off the little island at Mapia, where they were being fattened for the table, so to speak. They owed their lives to him, and they damn well knew it.

“The wife was named Sheila. She was White Russian from Singapore, and he found her at Puerto Princessa. That’s Palawan, and enough said—bugs and heat. She’d been with a touring company of actors that got stranded, and she was about to take the easy way out when he showed up. She worshipped him too.

“Everybody worshipped him.”

“Even you?” I asked.

Charlie slammed his glass onto the tabletop. The veins stood out on the back of his hand where he clenched his fist. “Yes, damn you! Even me! He took me off Malekula when I didn’t have a thing but the borrowed clothes on my back and a place scooped out in the sand for a bed. He set me up in business, showed me how to handle the natives. I wouldn’t even be alive today if it hadn’t been for him, and he’d be alive today if it hadn’t been for me.”

His hand slowly relaxed from around the whiskey glass, fingers outstretched limply against the golden tan of the tabletop. The glass rolled free on its side.

“Nature plays the rough game down here,” he said, voice flat. “She may make a couple of passes at you, a hurricane or two, only playing—but you can always tell when the real number is up. There’s no fooling and no use running. She’s played with you long enough, and that’s the time and place. You might just as well face it.”

He grimaced and swiveled abruptly, pouring himself a drink with trembling hands. The drink disappeared down his throat in one convulsive gulp. The heat around us pressed even closer.

“It was 1927,” he said, rolling the glass under his hand on the table. “You maybe read about the blow. It cleaned off half the islands through here. I was running the trading station at Tongareva then. It was coming on for the hurricane season when we heard about the strike at Nuku Hiva; all clean shell and, if you’d believe half the stories, pearls big as marbles in every third one.

“We were making big plans then, Paul and me. We were partners by then. We were going to start up a fleet of schooners trading through the Marquesas, the Tuamotus, and down to the Society group. We were going to set up an empire, and a strike like that one set our blood on fire. It was just the beginning we needed.”

Charlie closed his eyes and went on speaking, his voice lower. “Paul had grown more cautious, though. He said he could feel a big wind in the air. He wasn’t afraid; it was just that he had responsibilities by then—little Sheila and Paul Jr., who had just turned ten.

“The kid was a small copy of his dad—big for his age. He used to go swimming in the lagoon with the native kids and, just like his old man, he was the boss. He was better’n they were, and they knew it and so did he. He had a Polynesian amah he drove nuts keeping up with him and, of course, Paul’s Friend there. That man was like his dog.”

Charlie looked at his hands, which were trembling violently, and made a visible effort to quiet them. They became still like something dying.

“I couldn’t make the run,” he said, looking at his hands. “Things were set up at the station then so I could handle it best. That’s a lie, of course, but it’s what I tell myself. Besides, Paul was the sailor half of the partnership, and we both knew it.

“I kept after him. ‘A quick run and we’ll be millionaires,’ I kept telling him. ‘We’re the only outfit in the area with a diving suit.’ That’s what I told him, and lots more: ‘Sure, there’s a risk this time of year, but not a great one with you running the show.’

“Finally he agreed. He picked ten kanakas, Paul’s Friend among ’em, and Riki, a half-French, half-Polynesian first mate who worked for us. And he took the boy. It was her idea—his wife’s. She knew he’d run no big risks with the boy along. He took the big schooner, the Hiva Oa she was called, after the island in the Marquesas.

“We got some of the story from the boy afterwards and a damn little of it from Paul’s Friend there.

“They had good winds all the way up past Caroline Island, and then headwinds slowed ’em ten days into Eiao. They’d no more than anchored in the lagoon behind the big island when the wind dropped and the air became muggy. Paul ducked into the doghouse. When he came out, his face was grim. ‘The barometer’s at 29.80,’ he said. ‘It’s fallen fourteen-hundredths of an inch in the past hour.’

“‘Let’s get outta here,’ Riki urged.

“But there they were, easterly of Eiao, with a chance of getting the latest word on the big strike. Paul made a quick decision and ordered the whaleboat over. He took Paul’s Friend and the boy, and they went ashore, the boy at the tiller, the two men at the oars.

“There was a French civil agent on the island then—M. Clemenceau, a little man with a goatee and a handlebar mustache. He met ’em on the beach and asked to be taken off in the schooner along with the natives. There were some twenty souls on the island, the rest being down at Nuku Hiva. There was a plenty bad wind coming, he said. He had it on the wireless. He thought they’d have a better chance at sea than on that inverted dish of an island with the highest point six feet above sea level. Paul told him all right and to hurry it. M. Clemenceau began rounding up his charges.

“Meanwhile, Paul signaled Riki on the Hiva Oa to up anchor and make sail. The schooner got under way, tacking back and forth in the lagoon like a chicken looking for a hawk.

“Paul took the boy and went up to the village to hurry things. The natives were Polynesians and slow as a matter of principle. By the time they were all rounded up with their belongings, they could hear the surf breaking clean over the reef, and there was a long swell onto the island beach. They ran for the whaleboat. When they reached it, they all just stood clustered around it for a minute, looking seaward. The Hiva Oa was running free through the reef channel, shortening sail fast. One look to the southeast showed why: there was a black line out there in the distance, rushing down on the island like an express train. Those on the island had to take their chances there; Riki was trying to save the schooner.

“Paul went into action. With the natives helping, he picked up the whaleboat and ran it over the island to the lee side. There he took the axe from under the thwart and lopped off a palm tree about four feet up. From this he ran a long mooring line to the whaleboat and launched it into the lagoon, calling for as many to join him as would.

“But the natives and M. Clemenceau were already picking out their palm trees and lopping off the tops and lashing themselves down. They were none too soon, either. The hurricane struck them like all the winds of the worlds rolled into one.

“Little Paul crouched with his dad and Paul’s Friend under the whaleboat’s gunwale. He said they could see palm fronds whipping past overhead like bullets. Once there was a shouting voice that went by them, out of reach. Seas were breaking clear over the island by then, sweeping everything before them.

“The kid said you couldn’t put your head above the gunwale and face the wind without it puffing out your cheeks and almost blowing your head loose. The air seemed to become filled with flying water, and there was an increasing howl of wind.

“The whaleboat took it well. She was built to stay afloat, and she did, with the long line to the palm stump humming taut as a guitar string. The noise and the surge of the seas seemed to go on until they imagined it would never end, and right at the point where they figured they couldn’t take any more … well, it ended. They were in the heart of the storm. Outside the reef, the seas rose straight up like Chinese mountains, crashing down on the coral barrier and sending their uneven turbulence toward the island.

“There were blots of wreckage and palm trees scattered clear out to the reef. When they looked at the island, they counted only five people still lashed to the stripped palms.

“Then the wind struck them again, flattening everything, driving down the seas, and the waves came back, sweeping over the reef and on over the island. For more than an hour, the whaleboat must’ve taken this new beating and then, just like that, with no extra sound or excitement, their palm stump gave way and let ’em go out into the lagoon toward the reef.

“The stump and the weight of the wet line to it acted as a sea anchor and kept their nose into the wind, or they would’ve capsized and swamped in the first minute. They were heading for the reef fast. Paul ordered the kid to lay low and told the kanaka to take a steering oar; then he went over the side at the stern, holding onto the grab lines.

“The kid knew what Paul was trying to do—the seas were breaking clean over the reef, and they had maybe a fifty-fifty chance to ride one safely over the top. Paul was going to try to boost that chance by picking the wave. He had a knife in his teeth, ready to cut the line to the stump.

“There weren’t many sounds that could survive in that wind, but the surf on the reef was one of ’em. It kept getting louder and louder until even the wind took second place. Then there was a lurch, and the wind and water seemed to pick up the whaleboat and sweep it over the reef. The kanaka managed to keep her bow on while the kid rigged a new sea anchor out of the boat’s kedge and two oars. He was a sailor’s kid, little Paul was, and he did it up smart, got it over the side himself, and snugged it down.

“Where was Big Paul? He was hanging onto the side, and there was a gray look on his face. The kanaka hauled him aboard, and the kid seen what the coral had done to his dad’s left arm and back—right down to the bone and deep into the ribs. A big spike of it must’ve caught him. Little Paul was a brave kid, though, and he helped the kanaka make bandages out of a shirt and got his dad comfortable. And he even took his trick with the steering oar.

“The storm left them sometime the next morning. They kept a sharp eye out for the Hiva Oa, but she was never seen again—by them or anybody else.

“First thing the kanaka did was take stock. They had the axe, four tins of bully, six tins of pork and beans, and six tins of pineapple, a fifteen-gallon water breaker about three-quarters full, a mast and sail, a boat compass, a small tarpaulin, a tablet, a pencil, and a protractor.

“Paul was conscious most of that day, but he’d lost so much blood he could barely move. They rigged the tarp over him as soon as the sun got hot. Toward noon, Paul shared a tin of pineapple and cup of water with the kid and the kanaka. He was rational enough to help make the decision not to head back toward Eiao against the wind. The big blow left ’em somewhere to the northwest of the island. He told Paul’s Friend to set course for Caroline Island and showed ’em how to use the protractor on a meridian sight for latitude.

“Toward sunset he got delirious, and he raved and tossed all night so bad the kanaka had to sit on him sometimes to keep him from throwing himself overboard. The kid was at the steering oar most of the night. At daylight, Paul quieted down and slept some. He woke up about noon. He told ’em he felt a little light-headed but otherwise all right. And he got Paul’s Friend down under the tarp with him and made the native promise by the white man’s God that he’d get the boy home safe to his mother no matter what happened. And Paul’s Friend promised.

“That was the second day.

“More than a week passed. They were through the pineapple and well into the beans. Paul was so weak by then that even the kid could hold him down when he got delirious. The whaleboat had developed a nasty leak, too, so it had to be bailed every four or five hours, the kid and the native taking turns about.

“Paul’s Friend whiled away the time telling the kid stories, some he’d learned at the mission school and some he’d learned other places. He knew all the stories about his own people and those of the Polynesians. He told the kid about Vitu Tapani, the fire god whose son stole the secret of fire and traded it to a mortal in exchange for a bride.

“He told him about the demigod Sagsag, who had a hut with a center pole that was really a stairway to the underworld, and how Sagsag’s sons, Niku and Keaki, battled for possession of the stairway when the old man was away.

“These stories were told in the native way, which takes a great deal of time. The kanaka knew Big Paul was dying and he wanted to distract the kid. Sometimes Big Paul was awake enough to listen, and sometimes he raved so loudly the kanaka had to be silent.

“On the eighteenth day, they hit a line squall and caught some rain—about three gallons—with the tarpaulin and the sail. Paul was unconscious most of the time by then. The storm passed and left a wicked cross chop on the ground swell. As they were making sail, the boat shifting and heaving, the kid fell over the center thwart and hit his head on the water keg that was lashed amidships. He just lay there, with blood running from his scalp into the bilge. The kanaka cleated the sheet line, lashed the steering oar, and rushed to the kid. He felt the boy’s head, and there was a soft spot where the kid had cracked into the keg. Paul’s Friend rigged a place for Little Paul beside Big Paul and went back to the steering oar—course south-southeast, bailing every five hours.

“With his own knowledge of the sea, the native had already realized they’d missed Caroline, what with leeway and the easterly current through there. He was trying for Vostok by that time.

“Three more days he sailed and tended his sick, spoon-feeding Little Paul, trying to get some water down Big Paul with no success.

On the third day after Little Paul was injured, three things happened: the kid regained consciousness for a few minutes, Big Paul died, and the kanaka realized they’d missed Vostok too. There he was, a mission savage, son of a cannibal, grandson of a cannibal, in the middle of an ocean in ten degrees south latitude with an injured kid, a dead man, and a promise. He changed course due east for Rakahanga and prepared his master for burial at sea.”

A grim laugh from Charlie brought me back to the present.

“There’s a scene for you to put into a book,” he said. “A black savage mumbling Christian words over his friend with an ocean for a backdrop. Hah! Rakahanga was four hundred miles away, and he was about out of food, water half gone, and no charts. The whaleboat could do three knots top speed, and it made two knots leeway for every five ahead. But he made it—that determined kanaka made it, and he delivered the kid to the Australian doctor at Rakahanga. Then he went away by himself and made his own grief over the death of his master.

“See those scars!” Charlie Jens pointed again at the dark man by the fire. “He made ’em himself in his grief. Christian? Pfah! And that fire! What do you think he’s doing there? He says he can see Paul in the flames. See Paul, mind you. And him blinded by his own hands!”

I found that I was sitting on the edge of my chair and I consciously forced myself back. Charlie Jens became silent. There was a little sea breeze now, flickering the flames of the fire on the beach, shifting the shadows on the scarred face and arms. It dried the perspiration on our faces and gave us a momentary illusion of coolness.

From out of the shadows to the left of the kanaka came a tall man, wide shouldered, with a free and easy stride. For a moment I had the feeling that here was Paul Rejoc, brought to life by Charlie’s story. And then, as the figure paused by Paul’s Friend, I realized that this must be the son.

Charlie began to speak, almost in a whisper. “She had her son, and he became her whole life. She didn’t need me. If he hadn’t come back, she’d’ve needed me … like I needed her.”

The tall white man by the fire put a hand on the kanaka’s shoulder. “Come, Aani Paul. It’s time to go home.” The kanaka arose, and they walked away down the beach, the black man hobbling on a twisted leg, supported by the white man.

“How did he make that four hundred miles without food?” I asked when the last sound of their footsteps had disappeared. “I would have said it was impossible.”

Charlie’s voice had lost all expression when he spoke. It came out like a dead, flat calm. “And so it would have been for most people,” he said. “If you knew the language, though, you would see it: he is Aani Paul—literally, the man who is closest to Paul.” The voice became grim. “He buried his master at sea back there, south of the Line Islands … all except the legs!”