One-Way Ticket

Bert and Dolores Hitchens

One

It was a cool gray morning in March, and hazy banners of last night’s fog still hung in the upper levels of the city’s canyons. The downtown population, visiting and native, went about its usual affairs. In Spring Street the money men shuffled their stocks and bonds; on Broadway the shopping crowds had begun the treadmill from store to store; and on skid row the winos scrabbled for coins in order to drink breakfast. In an eighth-floor office, Ryerson, the chief special agent for the Los Angeles division of his railroad, had just dictated the last of a batch of letters. As Pete, the office man, gathered up his equipment, Ryerson stood to stretch his legs. He lit the day’s second cigar, glanced at the clock. The clock on the wall said that it was a quarter past ten. So far, a quiet day.

The phone rang. Ryerson puffed, looked at the phone for a moment before picking it up.

He found himself listening to the precise diction of the auditor in the head offices in a city some five hundred-odd miles to the east. Mr. Brice’s accents clipped the distance to nothing. He was as emphatic as his figures, as dry as a bank statement. He expressed to Ryerson a desire to discuss a matter of some checks. Ryerson slid into his chair, nodded at the phone—a habit he couldn’t rid himself of—and signaled Pete at an outer desk to get in on an extension.

“Ryerson?”

“Waiting. Go ahead, Mr. Brice.”

“You didn’t answer. I thought we’d been cut off.” He waited for Ryerson to apologize for his silence; and Ryerson didn’t, so Mr. Brice hurried on. “We have eight checks here in the total of almost fifteen hundred dollars. They are freight-claims payments, or seem to be. Actually they’re forgeries.”

“I see,” Ryerson put in, to assure Mr. Brice of his presence.

“They are the most excellent forgeries ever to come through this office,” Mr. Brice continued, letting a slight heat creep into his voice. “I’m mailing you photostats, so you’ll see what I mean. They cleared through the Los Angeles Clearinghouse last week. We caught them, of course, when we compared the numbers. All were cashed in your district.”

“Any particular M.O.?”

“I presume you refer to a pattern, and yes, there seems to be one. All but two of the checks were passed in large chain markets. The biggest is for the amount of three hundred fourteen dollars. The rest, except for the two I mentioned, run the scale between two and three hundred. The two exceptions were apparently passed in bars. One is for seven-fifty and the other for five.”

“Quite a drop.”

“Yes, indeed.” The scratchy sound of papers being moved about came over the wire. “The endorsement on all the checks is that of a Byron U. Davidson.”

Ryerson thought he’d never heard such a phony-sounding name. “Who was the authorizing agent?”

“The company’s agent is represented as a John Sewell. John Sewell doesn’t exist, at least not with this railroad.”

In the outer office, beyond the glass that shut in Ryerson’s private cubbyhole, Pete was ticking away on his stenotype machine. The door in the far wall opened and a man wearing a brown overcoat and a brown felt hat came in. Pete glanced up, nodded. The newcomer was young and broad-shouldered, with quiet greenish eyes and an attentive manner. He put his hat and coat on the rack near the wall and crossed the room to a desk. Ryerson noted his progress from within the private office.

“Give me the names of the markets and the bars and we’ll get started on it.”

“Let’s see. The Food Corral and Buyer’s Giant, both in Rosemead—”

Ryerson watched Pete’s fingers moving on the machine.

Mr. Brice coughed suddenly, cleared his throat. “Excuse me, I think I’m getting a cold. Now, in Santa Monica he passed one at the Twin Towers Market.”

Ryerson was thinking, these were the people who were out the money. In a forgery job the victim was always the accommodating unfortunate who had cashed the check.

“Now these last two, the small ones …” Mr. Brice halted again and Ryerson thought he heard a cough drop rattle against his teeth. “Poppy’s Place. Something called the HighBoy Room.”

Ryerson’s face crinkled a little in surprise and he swung back in the chair. Pete glanced in through the glass, shook his head. “They’re both within a few blocks of us,” Ryerson said. “They’re skid-row joints.”

“That’s very interesting,” said Mr. Brice, in a tone that betrayed that he wouldn’t have set foot in either of them. “We’ve notified everyone at this end. I take it you’ll get in touch with the local forgery detail there.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you’ll co-operate with them.”

The dried-up little squirt was trying to tell him his job. Ryerson’s tone became oily with patience. “You can depend on us.”

“I’m sure that we can, sir. Forgery is a peculiarly evil kind of crime. It always seemed to me that it threatens the very basis of trade.”

“True,” said Ryerson, thinking that Mr. Brice sounded like a wizened dragon guarding the company’s treasures. “If we had many like this, the customers would be demanding payment in silver cart wheels.”

“I must stress,” Mr. Brice added, “that these forgeries aren’t the ordinary type. The checks weren’t stolen and filled in. They were manufactured. The engraving of the company’s insignia is an exceptionally clever piece of work. The local police laboratory is running a classification on the type of paper, the inks, and so forth. I’ll pass those results along when I have them. Right now we’re interested in laying our hands on Mr. Davidson.”

“We’ll do what we can,” said Ryerson, a trifle stiffly.

“I’m sure that you and your men will put forth your best efforts.”

Ryerson put the phone in its cradle. Pete, in the outer office, hung up at the same moment and turned to his typewriter to get it all down on paper. Over at the desk by the windows the new arrival was sorting some forms. His name was Vic Moine, he was twenty-eight years old, and he was Ryerson’s newest investigator.

Ryerson walked to the door that separated his private sanctum from the outer office. “Moine!”

Moine turned from his papers, the gray-green eyes settled on Ryerson and he waited. He was a quiet type. He moved softly and had little to say. Ryerson thought him somewhat of an odd fish, wasn’t sure that he liked him. “Yes, sir.”

“I’d like to see you.”

Moine put the forms into his desk drawer and rose. His clothes were neat and well kept, but they were a little big on him as if he’d lost weight recently. He went into Ryerson’s office and Ryerson sat down and indicated a chair for Moine. Ryerson said, “What about Mrs. McAdams?”

Moine’s gaze shifted so that he stared directly into Ryerson’s eyes. There was no warmth in that look; nothing like enmity, either. Certainly there was no trace of deference. At times it seemed to Ryerson that Moine’s introspective stare was adding up, evaluating, the office, the furniture, the boss, the railroad-even the quality of the light in the dusty well that opened up the middle of the building. The young investigator said quietly, “I talked to this Mrs. McAdams. She’s a lady in her sixties, I guess, has white hair, dresses nicely, seems intelligent. She’s a widow and she says she has lived alone for the past two years, since her husband died. She gets nervous at night sometimes, and goes outside with her police dog to have a look around.” He waited a moment and then added, “It’s not a very good neighborhood.”

“How close is her house to the coach yards?”

“A block or so. The street ends at her house. Between it and the yards there are some vacant lots and a paved area used for truck parking. I think she’d have a pretty good view of things, especially around the rear of the commissary building. There’s an overhead arc light on the parking area and she says it’s lit every night.”

Ryerson nodded. “What about last night?”

“This is the third time she’s seen this occurrence.”

“Does she know we have patrolmen in the yards?”

“She didn’t until I told her.”

“When she telephoned this morning she said she thought the trespassers were juveniles.”

“Yes, that’s what she told me. The people she has seen going over the fence must be very small men, or teen-agers. Or girls.”

“It won’t be girls,” Ryerson said. “What did you find out at Commissary?”

“I talked to Petsch and went around with him while he made a thorough check. We didn’t find anything wrong.”

Ryerson gave him a quick glance. “You don’t think she could be imagining things?”

“No, sir.”

Ryerson spent a few moments in silent consideration. “This is what you’d better do. Go out there tonight, contact Mrs. McAdams to see if she knows anything new, then take a look around that part of the yards. If there really are trespassers, they may be keeping track of the patrolmen and you could surprise them.”

“Yes, sir,” said Moine, starting to rise.

“Something just came in. I’m putting you on it.” Ryerson paused while Moine settled back into his chair. “Mr. Brice, the company auditor, is hopped up about some checks. They’re fakes and they’re good ones. Eight of them have gone through the Los Angeles Clearing-house and home to roost in the head office. Something about the setup sounded a little screwy to me. Six of the checks were for amounts between two and three hundred dollars and they were cashed in big chain markets. But then a couple were cashed in Poppy’s Place and the HighBoy Room for small amounts. You know those dumps?”

Moine looked thoughtful, then nodded. “If it’s the same place— there’s a HighBoy Room on skid row, a few blocks from here.”

“Another joint called Poppy’s Place isn’t over a dozen doors from it.”

Moine nodded, his greenish eyes withdrawn. “If the checks were so good that the auditor was excited—”

“That’s it. Why waste them buying a few rounds of drinks?”

“Maybe we’re dealing with a lush, and he got thirsty, and careless.”

“I’d like to hear it.” Ryerson permitted himself a thin, foxy smile. ‘We won’t tackle the markets until tomorrow, when we’ll have the photostats to show them. But I want you to amble over to these bars now and pretend to be repairing a hangover. Forget Rule G, really buy yourself a couple of beers. And see what you can find out, casual-like, about this baby, this Byron U. Davidson.”

Moine raised a pair of dark, perfectly even eyebrows. “Where do you suppose he found that?”

“What I wondered. Maybe it helps him cash the checks. A guy calling himself John Jones might rouse suspicion.” Ryerson reached for his desk phone. “I’ll get hold of L.A.P.D. Forgery Detail right now. Mr. Brice expects a lot of excitement around here.”

Moine nodded. “Might as well start the big push.” He went back to the outer office, took his hat and coat off the rack and went out. He dropped eight floors in the elevator, walked a couple of blocks to Main Street, turned north. Poppy’s Place had a neon sign that blinked on and off, the doorway was bordered in outsize papier-mâché yellow blossoms, and the odor from the interior held a conglomeration of brews both old and new. A few yards down the block the HighBoy Room had its own sign going, a big, bright red giraffe.

Moine turned into Poppy’s Place and took a stool at the bar and asked for a beer. The place was almost empty. Three men near the end of the room were arguing, gesticulating, and after listening for a moment, Moine discovered that they were disputing the qualities of ladies of joy in Hong Kong, Melbourne, and Tokyo. He looked right, and over in a niche where the bar curved to an end, sat a girl. She was a tired blonde with a pinched, dizzy look in her eyes, wearing a strapless pink satin dress. Moine smiled; she smiled back. Aimed a little over his head, he thought. Either she was nearsighted or the stuff in the shot glass really was whisky. He moved the beer down the bar to sit beside her.

She was still smiling. “Lonesome, big boy?”

“I’ve got a hangover for company.”

“That’s no company.” She finished the liquid in the shot glass and looked at Moine expectantly.

This was on the railroad. Moine beckoned the bartender, who’d been doing something mysterious with the bottles under the bar. Refilling the B-girls’ supply of cold tea, perhaps. Moine said, “Something for the lady.”

The bartender was a big black-haired scowling type. Probably doubled as bouncer, Moine thought. He came down to their end of the bar and said to the girl, “What’ll it be?” His tone betrayed to Moine that the girl was no friend of the establishment and that something about her had displeased the bartender.

“The same. Don’t try to fool me again. I know the flavor.”

The bartender gave her a stare and went back to the array of bottled goods and took down a high-priced scotch. The girl said to Moine, “He tried something funny. He tried to give me bar whisky.”

Moine paid for the drink. He knew it was no use asking questions of the bartender. The bartender now associated him with the girl who had caught him switching drinks. Besides, Moine thought, the big black-haired man wasn’t a co-operative type. He turned back to the girl. “I was hoping to meet a friend here. Davidson. Byron U. Davidson.”

She sipped at the scotch. “I know lotsa guys come in here. Don’t know them by name, though. Know’em by sight.”

He had no description to give her. “Maybe he’ll show up.” He drank a little of the beer. He wondered if the girl weren’t cold in the strapless dress. Her shoulders were pale, the skin a little grainy, the tendons in her neck jumping faintly now and then as if she were repressing a shiver. He said, “Where’d you lose your coat?”

She glanced at him hazily. “Damned if I know. I had it last night. I was in here, among other places. That’s why I came back this morning. To ask about my coat. The bastard says he never saw it.”

Moine knew then what her life must be like. He sat for a minute in silence, looking at the glass before him. Then he asked, “Where else did you go?”

“I’m not sure. The HighBoy, I think. I’m going over there after a while.”

“So am I.”

“Looking for your friend?”

“That’s right.”

She dashed down the rest of the whisky. “All right, what’re we waiting for? I know Ben, he won’t try tricks with the bottles.” She let the remark drift in the direction of the bartender, who pretended he couldn’t hear her. She rubbed her hands over her bare shoulders and glanced for the briefest of moments at Moine’s heavy coat.

He got off the stool, took off the coat, put it across her shoulders. She patted the thick wool gratefully. Moine said, “It’s foggy out there.” She nodded, a kind of introspection, drowsiness, stealing over her. For a moment Moine was afraid she’d stagger; but then she seemed to gain sudden control, touched his arm, and they headed for the door.

In the street she looked up at the tag ends of fog that floated against the gray sky. “I hate gloomy weather. Don’t you?”

”I don’t know. I guess I never thought much about it.” Moine shook his head at a panhandler who had slid out of a penny arcade with a hand stretched. He felt the girl trembling inside his coat, her arm quivering against the palm of his hand.

“I never lived in a real cold country,” she said. “I guess that’s why—Say, what’s your name?”

“Vic.”

“Mine’s Boots.”

“Pleased to meet you, Boots.”

“The same, big boy.”

They went into the doorway under the red giraffe. The smell, the layout of the room was a duplicate of the other. There was a bar to the right, a few booths and tables to the left. The girl headed for a table before Moine could catch her. He wanted to sit at the bar, to try to make other contacts.

She sat down, looked up anxiously. “All right?”

“Sure.” He slid in beside her. It occurred to him that the odors of her powder and perfume were going to cling to the coat. The bartender came out from behind the bar, and Moine seized the moment to look around. He and the girl were the only customers in the place. The couple who’d been sitting at the bar were just walking out.

The bartender was short, bald, fat. He was chewing a toothpick. He wore a gold ring in his left ear. He had tied an apron over a white shirt and white duck pants. “Well, there, Boots—”

“Ben, this is Vic. I want a scotch, straight.”

“Beer,” said Moine.

“I lost my coat,” Boots said, giving Ben the hazy off-center stare. “Did I leave it here?”

“That little girl, the little black-haired girl—you know—” The bartender’s face twisted in an effort to recall. “Ellie?”

“Yeah, Ellie.”

“She took it home, found it here after you left, said you could pick it up today, any time. Said you knew where she lived.”

“Sure I know.” Boots laughed with relief. “My God, when a girl has just one coat …” She shook her head, then wrinkled her nose coquettishly at Vic. “Vic’s looking for a friend,” she remembered, then.

“Byron U. Davidson,” Moine said, wondering if the name would become familiar enough so that it’s rather theatrical sound would no longer impress him.

The bartender leaned on the table, rubbed his chin, his brown eyes soft with thought. “I don’t know … wait. Maybe. It kind of rings a bell. This Davidson—he works on a railroad somewhere?”

Two

“Could be,” Moine said. “I haven’t seen him for a while.” Ben shook his head; the gold ring in his ear caught the light. “This guy I’m thinking about is an old-timer. Too old to be just starting to work on a new job. I’d say sixty, anyway.”

“Gray-haired? Short, stocky?” Moine hazarded to keep him talking.

Again Ben shook his head. “Tall and skinny. It ain’t him, I guess.” He went away to bring the drinks.

Moine followed him with expressionless eyes. Then the girl touched his arm. “Honey, let’s play some music. You got some change?” Moine stood up to let her pass, fished a couple of quarters from his pockets, gave them to her. The gilt-mesh bag she’d laid on the table was tiny and flat. Moine suspected that her money had run out and that she considered him as a means to fill the gap. He watched as she swayed over to the juke box. She’d left the coat in the booth and below the flaring hem of the pink dress he noticed her legs, long and firm, the ankles narrow. He wondered how she had ended where she was.

She came back, holding out her arms. They danced a few steps, then Ben brought the drinks. A sailor came in, looking young and very lonely, and Moine noticed that Boots examined him with interest. It was a good time to get away.

She seemed disappointed when he said he was leaving. “So soon? Gee, we’ve hardly gotten acquainted.”

“I’ll see you again.”

She pulled the coat up, held it toward him. “Well, thanks—”

“It’s okay.”

“You didn’t find your friend.”

“I’ll meet him someday.”

She rose from the booth to stand beside him. Moine knew that when he left she’d head for the young sailor at the bar. After the sailor, there would be others, enough to fill the day. She said, “Look, honey, I could keep an eye out for him. I could phone you if I ran into your friend.” She hesitated, while Moine shrugged into his coat. “I can guess—he isn’t really a friend, is he? Is it somebody who owes you money?”

“Just a guy I’d like to find.”

“Well, if I had some way to phone you—”

Moine looked at her thoughtfully. He had cards on him, official cards printed up by the railroad with his name as staff investigator. He sensed that she would be repelled if she thought him a cop. He found a scrap of paper, took out his pen, scribbled his home phone number on it. “I’m there evenings mostly.” Nothing would come of it. She’d lose the paper or forget the name of the man he wanted, perhaps not even recall the incident when she was sober.

The coat had her perfume in it. “Well, take care of yourself.”

“Sure. Come back again soon. I’ll be around here somewhere.” She put the scrap of paper into the little purse. Her eyes were arch, a little unfocused because of the drinks; Moine thought there was a terrible pathos about her. He put on his hat and turned for the door.

He tried a few more bars in nearby blocks, asked about Byron U. Davidson, learned nothing. One bartender informed him sourly, “Look, bud, I don’t ask nobody’s name, see?”

“Ever cash any checks?”

“Do I look crazy? Hey, see the sign?” Behind the row of bottles on the bar a card read: Cash Here, Credit in Heaven. Checks Cashed Next Week. “It’s a gag.”

“You think so?”

“Uhh, wise guy.”

Moine paid for the last beer and went back to the office. Ryerson was in his office, apparently tied up with Pete and the telephone. Moine made out a report on the tour of bars, stuck it into a drawer of his desk, and left again. It was noon by now. He had no desire to eat—the beer had left a flat taste in his mouth—but there was something else to be taken care of.

He walked back to Main, turning south this time, kept going until he had left the honky-tonks behind. This was a district of shabby furniture and clothing stores, an occasional pool hall, newsstands, and small old-fashioned hotels. He turned in under a sign that read, Hotel Stull, and passed through a narrow empty lobby to the elevator. An ancient little man in a blue uniform sat on a stool there, reading a comic book. Moine nodded hello. The little man marked his page, stuffed the book into a cubbyhole below the stool, looked into the lobby for other possible customers, then shut the door and worked the levers. “Foggy outside, ain’t it.”

“It was foggier last night.”

“You was out in that?”

“Going home from a show.” Moine offered the little man his pack of cigarettes and the clawlike fingers extracted one swiftly. Moine lit his own and the other’s. “Seen Rock today?”

“Took’im his breakfast.”

“How’s he feeling?”

“Ought to of stayed in the hospital, hadn’t he?”

“I guess so.” The elevator rattled to a stop, the door opened, Moine stepped out. The doors wheezed shut again. He went down the hall to 506 and rapped. A voice growled inside and he said, “It’s Vic.”

“Well, hell, come on in!”

Moine opened the door. The shades were up, the room was full of cold gray light. Facing the door was a bed in disarray, propped up in it an old fellow with a barrel chest inside a flannel nightshirt, white hair, a craggy time-bitten face, eyes like a hunting Indian’s. A breakfast tray was balanced precariously on a chair. There were newspapers scattered on the covers; they looked chewed-upon. “What the devil do you always have to knock for?”

“You might be doing something private,” Moine offered. “The visiting nurse might be in here.”

“I’m doing for myself!”

“You don’t have to holler, I’m right here.” Moine sat down near the bed. “How do you feel?”

“Swell!” It was a lie; the brilliant black eyes wavered for an instant. “Oh, the plumbing’s kicking up a little as usual. I’m used to that.”

“Did you sneak out again last night?” Moine asked.

“What do you mean—sneak?” Rock sat up straighter, punching the pillows. “Am I a prisoner here or something?”

“The doctors told you to stay in bed.” Moine thought privately: I’m wasting my breath. He won’t stay cooped up.

Rock waved a big fist. “Ahh, those company quacks! Who listens to them?” The Mohawk stare glittered on Moine’s cigarette, smoking in his fingers. Moine remembered then, crushed it out on his shoe and dropped it. Rock said, “You didn’t come up here to listen to a list of symptoms and I won’t trot’em out if you did. So give. Talk about something else. You’ve been on the job two months now. How’s it going?”

Moine’s face grew still and his eyes drifted toward the windows. “It’s fine. It’s a good job.”

Rock waited, as if listening to some echo from Moine’s words. “That moose-headed mick, Ryerson—”

“He’s okay.”

“He’ll run you till your butt drags if you let him. He’s not like the old Chief, Clemons. You remember Clemons.”

“A little. I didn’t see much of him on my job.” Through Moine’s thoughts drifted the few years he had spent as patrolman before being called to the Army and Korea. Most of the memory, now, seemed to consist of endless nights checking cars in the yards.

“Clemons took things easier, but Ryerson is a better chief,” Rock said. “He’s got a head on him. You can depend on him to know his business. But, say—you’re not getting ready to quit again?”

“I didn’t quit before,” Moine pointed out. “There was a little matter of being called up from the Army Reserve. But to keep the record straight, no, I’m not quitting.”

“Something’s sticking in your craw. I can see that.”

Moine went into the bathroom for a drink of water. He wondered why he tried to evade the old man’s prying. Rock was wise and, more than that, he’d been a crony of Moine’s father. They’d started work together for the railroad in Chicago years ago. Moine thought, he knows me better than I know myself. Well—that shouldn’t be difficult. He came back to the chair near the bed and sat down again. “What do you want for lunch?”

Rock ignored the query. “Maybe that high-toned gal of yours is giving you trouble.”

Moine shrugged, kept his gaze away from Rock’s. “I haven’t seen June for quite a while.” Don’t forget to call her this afternoon, his mind warned, to tell her you can’t make the party. She’ll be expecting you tonight. You have a good excuse; you’ve got to see Mrs. McAdams and find out who’s climbing the fence by the commissary.

Rock said quietly, “There never was a better cop than your dad, Vic.”

Moine resented these crude tactics. “Then he sure as hell never got what he deserved for it. He made sergeant under Clemons just before he died. After working for thirty-five years for the damned railroad, at investigator’s wages. He never did buy my mother a house. She wanted one all her life, a place where she could dig in a yard, a place of her own.”

A kind of satisfaction settled on Rock’s seamy countenance, as if he’d flushed something from cover, had cleared up a suspicion. “Vic, it’s more than the pay. A cop’s job is bigger than wages.”

Moine laughed.

“I know it’s hard to explain, harder maybe to believe. And some perhaps never know it. Some could work all their lives at it and never see it. Your dad did, though. You’re like him in lots of ways, Vic.”

Moine didn’t answer. He wanted to sit here peacefully and talk to the old man, because Rock didn’t have long to live and he was a friend out of Moine’s earliest childhood. There were moments here to be treasured. Moine didn’t want to talk about himself, his future, his intentions. The past had a lot of unfinished business in it; he didn’t want to dig into that, either. He said again, “What would you like for lunch, Rock? I’ll run out and get you something. I’ve got an hour.”

Rock shook his head, “I’m not hungry now. I want to get on with what I’ve got to say. You’re on the fence; I know it. You haven’t made up your mind to stick. I want to tell you something.”

Moine braced himself. He thought it unfair of old Rock to keep harping on his dad, on the resemblance between son and father, perhaps on what the father would have expected of the son.

Rock didn’t go on in this vein, however. “If you stay long enough, Vic, something will come along and make up your mind for you. Then you’ll want to be a cop. You’ll be glad you stuck.”

Moine wished for a cigarette. It was unfair to smoke in front of Rock, though. Rock’s heart was bad; the doctors had forbidden him tobacco. “I don’t think my dad ever mentioned any such turning point.”

“No. He didn’t to me, either. I sensed it, though. He had something he wanted to finish, or something that gave him a lot of satisfaction; maybe both. With me, it was something I wanted to finish. I never did, but I worked at it.”

Moine nodded. This was familiar territory. He knew what Rock meant; he’d heard of it for years.

“I’ll never forget that man’s face,” Rock said softly, “I’d parked the car and was walking toward this cut of empties—there were a few loading sheds there, some lettuce fields at the edge of town—and all at once, a couple of blocks down the street, I noticed the school, the kids on the playground, fooling around on the swings and stuff the way they do when classes are over. They were all little kids…”

Moine knew it by heart. It seemed to him that he could see the scene as clearly as Rock did in memory: the school ahead, the bright light of afternoon on the bare playground, the figures of the children. Some running in a game, some on teeter-totters, bars, swings. Their voices softened by distance, the colors glimmering. A peaceful scene. Ordinary.

“This fellow jumped down from a reefer. Not more than twenty yards away. He brushed at his trousers for a minute. Then he saw me. I was coming closer by now. He smiled a little.” Rock’s breathing had grown harsh and strained, as if his heart labored. “He had a funny kind of face. Lopsided. Fat, heavy on the left—the eye dragged down a bit, the mouth drooping. The right side,—this is from my point of view, my right as I looked at him—was almost fleshless. I’ve thought about that man a lot. I think he’d had an injury to his face, to a nerve there, perhaps a stroke. A mild paralysis. A withering.”

Vic nodded. He’d first heard this story in his mother’s kitchen, late of an autumn day. He hadn’t been out of the Army long, the first hitch, had only recently joined the railroad police as a patrolman. He was eating an early dinner, preparing to take off for the job. Old Rock had come by and his mother had insisted that he sit down for some coffee. It was the last month of her life; they didn’t know that, of course. His father was already dead.

Rock had come in, his manner heavy, the expression in his eyes jarred, sick; and after he had drunk the coffee he’d told them of this thing which had happened the day before.

Vic’s mother had been terribly shocked at the story.

The flavor of those lost years hovered briefly in Vic’s mind, was swept away by Rock’s angry narrative.

Rock said, “This man looked back at the reefer, a quick hunting sort of look; then back to me again. And at just that minute it seemed I took in the kids in the playground, and the empty reefers, and that man together and it all added to a total. A feeling came over me. A hunch. I went cold all over at the thought in my mind. I said,’You stand still, buddy, until I take a look inside that empty.’”

“And he ran,” said Vic.

“He jumped those back-yard fences like a goat. I got back into my car and chased him in that, but I lost him. So I hurried back to the reefer to see what it was he’d run from, and I found the little girl. Dead, mercifully.”

Vic sighed, a deep uneasy breath. He saw how Rock’s face had flushed with a surge of color; he sensed that the fury that shook Rock on his bed wasn’t good for his creaking heart. But how could you stop a man from remembering?

“I’ve worked that case all the years since, Vic. Day and night, rain or shine, and no matter what else I was assigned. I’ve looked at a million mug shots, I shook down a million bums. I always had the hunch I’d find him somewhere again.”

More than this, Vic knew, Rock had hired an artist to make sketches under his directions until he got a likeness that satisfied him. It was in the file along with the other reports on the case in Ryerson’s office. Buried, you might say. Rock had been the only one who had kept it alive, and now Rock was retired with a bad heart.

“I never forgot what I saw in that reefer. I was glad then that I was a cop. I never wanted to be anything else after that day. It was late coming, that knowing, but it came at last and if I hadn’t been what I was, and able to do something about trying to catch that bugger, I’d have gone crazy.”

Vic wanted to soothe the old man. “You stuck with it, Rock. You followed every lead you had.”

“You bet I did! Vic, do something for me. Get the sketch out once in a while and look at it, study it. You might run into him someday.”

“Sure, I’ll do that.” Inwardly Vic saw that Rock wanted to pass on something more intangible than the unfinished task. He wanted Vic to catch the fever; he wanted him to be converted, once and for all, into a cop.

“It’s eight… nine years now. He’ll be up in years; he was getting gray then. He wore a cap, had it pushed back on his head. It was ragged, I remember, and his clothes were shabby. Dirty-shabby, nasty. He could have been a wino. Afterward I used to be haunted by the thought of his handling the child. She’d been a fresh pretty thing before he got her.” A pulse pounded rapidly and visibly in Rock’s temple. His eyes were weary.

Vic promised, “I’ll study the sketch.”

Rock grew quieter. Several moments went by in silence. Then Rock said, “If you did quit the railroad, would you go back to college? Study law some more?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Isn’t that what your gal would rather you’d do?”

Vic moved on his chair, shifted his legs. “I suppose it is.”

“You still got GI benefits coming, haven’t you?”

“It isn’t important. I’m not quitting the job.”

Rock’s Indian stare went over Vic’s face, spying for hidden motives. Moine kept his eyes blank. In his mind though was the memory of June’s voice in the phone, the little cry of outrage and the scalding words: You’re what? A railroad dick? Oh, Vic, no!

There had been an unwilling apology, half formed on his lips, shame in his mind. What right had she, judging his work by her father’s standards? He had wanted to blurt: Go tell your old man he can quit worrying about fitting me into his flossy law offices.

It was hard for June to believe that he had turned his back on a part of his life, the part that had included her, and that it was finished.

Rock didn’t believe it either.

Three

Moine persuaded Rock that he needed something to eat. First though, Rock insisted on having a drink from the fifth he had stashed in the bottom drawer of the dresser. Vic knew that taking alcohol was strictly against orders. He also knew that Rock would help himself as soon as he had gone. He brought the whisky and water chaser in a couple of glasses from the bathroom and then went out for some sandwiches, fruit, and a carton of coffee. When he got back to the room he had a hunch that the whisky in Rock’s glass wasn’t what he had poured. He didn’t speak of his suspicion. Rock was far too set in his ways for the doctors, or a friend, to work changes now.

When he had eaten a part of one sandwich and was examining the apples, Rock asked, “What’re you working on now?”

“Oh, a couple of things.”

“Well, what?” Rock’s tone implied: Show some interest, damn you.

Vic said quietly, “There is an elderly woman named Mrs. McAdams who lives near the East L.A. yards—the side where they have the coach yards and the commissary building. She says people have been climbing the fence there late at night. I have to go out there tonight and look around.”

Rock bit into the apple, chewed, swallowed. “What about the patrolmen?”

“Betchel’s in that area at night and he hasn’t seen anything.”

“I’ll bet it’s kids,” Rock growled. “Why in hell don’t their parents keep track of them?”

“She thinks they must be juveniles, or very small men.”

“Anything missing from the commissary?”

“If there is, Petsch and I couldn’t find it.” Vic shook his head. “Until I made that tour with Petsch I had no idea the amount of stuff they keep to feed those people in the diners.”

“The kids may just be casing the place,” Rock suggested. “If they can’t get in to steal food they may take anything lying around loose outside. Lanterns, fusees, tools. You’d better check the shanties.”

“Good idea.”

“What’s the other thing?”

“Some forged checks. The auditor called from the head office and put Ryerson on his ear. I judge that these checks are something out of the ordinary and the auditor is worried.”

Rock’s thick gray brows had shot up. “Payroll vouchers? I thought all that was key-punch work now. Pretty hard to fix up one of those babies.”

“These were supposed to be freight-claims payments.”

“They’d have the railroad insignia on them. I’ll bet it’s an engraving job,” Rock said, his face thoughtful. “That’ll account for the excitement.”

Vic nodded. The same idea had occurred to him. He told Rock the further details. “Ryerson’s waiting for the photostats. They’ll be here tomorrow and I’ll hit the big markets where most of them were cashed. Two of the checks were for small amounts and were passed in a couple of bars.” He sketched briefly his work on Main Street of that morning, in search of some trace of Byron U. Davidson.

“U for Ulysses, I’ll bet. And phony as hell.” Rock thought it over for a few minutes, munching on the apple. “These checks in the bars strike me this way—whenever you find a part that doesn’t fit the pattern, you can bet your boots you’re looking at an accident. It could be that the Davidson bugger is a lush, got to drinking, made a mistake.”

“Ryerson hopes so.” Moine smiled to himself, noting Rock’s sudden interest and attention. Rock was like an old fire horse smelling smoke.

“He won’t go back to those bars,” Rock prophesied. “Save yourself the trouble of looking for him there. I doubt if you’ll even get a decent description. Skid row is a world of its own.”

Moine thought of the girl in the pink dress. Something about her had touched his pity.

“The markets are a different story,” Rock went on. “They’ll have something on him. It’ll be a phony identification, like the checks, but it may lead you somewhere.”

Moine glanced at his watch. It was time to go. “I’ll hit the markets tomorrow. I may not see you at noon. I’ll try to drop in after five. Try to rest, Rock.”

“Sure, sure, I’m resting all the time.”

Moine went over to the door.

Rock pushed up free of the pillows. “Vic—make up your mind once and for all, what you want to do with your life. The way you’re going now, never sure, debating with yourself … Well, it’s like building track with a tin rail.”

Vic smiled at the old man. It was easy to imagine what would happen when a train hit a tin rail after the hardness of steel. “A good comparison. Only it happens, Rock, that I’m not using tin rails this time.” He nodded good-by and went out into the hall, closing the door behind him. He thought Rock was beginning to shake his head, wanting to argue; he didn’t wait to find out.

Going down in the elevator, his slight sense of irritation drained away. Rock’s attitude was bossy and possessive; it was also fatherly. The old man had never had a child of his own. He’d been married when he was young but the marriage had ended in divorce. For as long as Moine remembered, Rock had lived alone in rooms in such places as the Stull Hotel. He was a great reader, but his principal interest had always been his job—even before, Moine thought, the terrible case involving the dead child.

In the lobby he turned to the little man in the elevator cage and held out a folded five-dollar bill. “Keep an eye on him.”

The little man took it after a brief hesitation. “You don’t have to pay me to look after Mr. Rockfort. Him and me are old friends.”

“Call me if he seems worse.”

“Sure. I’d do that, anyway.”

Moine went back to the office, shed his hat and coat. Pete was at his desk and as Moine passed he said, “Ryerson is waiting for you. We’ve got a break on the Davidson case.”

There was a second man in Ryerson’s office, seated across the desk from the chief. He was a large man with a plain bony face, keen gray eyes, salt-and-pepper-colored hair brushed neatly against a long head. Ryerson said, “Moine, this is Ed Towers of the Secret Service,” and the big man rose briefly to shake Moine’s hand. He had a firm grip and his palm felt clean and cool. He gave off an odor of high-grade pipe tobacco. His clothes were neat but unobtrusive.

Ryerson nodded to a third chair and Moine sat down. “We’ve hit a trail on this cooky who passed the checks. Maybe it’ll lead us somewhere.”

This echo of Rock’s words caused a flicker in Vic’s eyes and Ryerson thought, He’s showing signs of life at last. Moine said to Towers, “I’m pleased to meet you.” The reserve in his voice—which Moine didn’t know was there—brought a quick glance from the government man, a slight smile to his lips.

Towers said, “I dropped in to see if you had any record here of a man named Byron U. Davidson. We think he works, or has worked, for a railroad. We know he tried to manufacture some ten-dollar bills.”

Moine didn’t conceal his interest now. Ryerson, with a satisfied look, broke out the cigars, offering one to Towers and Moine, which they declined. He lit a smoke for himself. “He’s already checked the other lines and they don’t show any record on Davidson. He’s not here either, so that means the name’s a phony.”

“I’ll fill you in on it,” Towers said to Vic. “About two months ago, a little after Christmas, a man calling himself Byron U. Davidson rented a house on the outskirts of Ventura and identified himself to the landlady with what she thinks was a railroad employee’s pass. He gave her a quick glance and told her that’s what it was, and she took his money and wrote out a receipt for a month’s rent, plus twenty dollars for cleaning the place. She describes him as a man of perhaps sixty, of neat and respectable appearance, and with a deformed or injured left ear.”

Ryerson made a note on a writing pad. Moine could judge the Chief’s pleasure at such a definitely identifying detail.

“The house is close to the beach and somewhat isolated,” Towers went on. “There are no close neighbors, and those there are haven’t been able to tell us who lived there or what went on. Probably there was nothing to be seen from the outside. We think a couple of women and a child occupied the house, along with Davidson. Nobody can describe them. The landlady is a tolerant un-nosy type; and she didn’t go near the place until she heard it had been vacated. This was three weeks ago.”

Ryerson had leaned back in his chair to puff contentedly. Moine thought of the plans, the happy nets being woven inside that Irish head.

“They disappeared at night apparently, and owing a week’s rent. Mrs. Raines, the landlady, went to check on the house a day or so later and in scouting over the yard, which had been neglected, she noted where some digging had been done. Later in the week she explored the spot with a trowel and about a foot and a half below the surface she found some copper plates. She called the police.”

Moine thought, that wasn’t bright of Davidson; and he recalled Rock’s remark: when you find something that doesn’t fit the pattern, you can bet your boots you’re looking at an accident. He wondered what sort of accident could account for the clever forger’s hasty burial of the damning evidence.

“The plates are of very poor quality,” Towers went on. “Nothing printed on them would pass muster as genuine currency. There was nothing left in the house except some broken toys and a few old clothes, plus a supply of groceries, but from evidence our experts turned up we know that the photoengraving and the printing was done in the basement.”

Moine said, “I can imagine how you went through the house.”

“We covered every square inch,” Towers said. “And this is what we have now: One woman is a blonde. The other woman smoked Turkish cigarettes, a brand that’s a little hard to locate except in big tobacco stores. The baby is cutting teeth. Somebody in the house drinks whisky, and somebody else likes the liqueur called chartreuse.”

“The woman who smokes Turkish cigarettes,” Moine offered.

“It could be. She likes to be different,” Towers agreed. “We have some fingerprints, too, which we’ve forwarded to Washington. We’re waiting to hear from them.”

“This is where you come in,” Ryerson said, looking at Vic. “He’s going up there this afternoon to show the landlady some pictures.”

“I have a brief case full of mug shots,” Towers agreed. “All known counterfeiters of the less skilled variety. This job wasn’t done by any of our experts.”

“Any with an injured ear?” Moine asked.

“No. I figure that might have happened recently, that maybe he even played it up, kept it toward her so she’d notice it, concentrate on it.”

Moine nodded.

Towers said, “If you’re ready to go, we’ll leave now. It’s quite a drive.”

Ryerson said, “Stop in at the Ventura police department and talk to their forgery detail. See if they’ve got a record of any recent checks bearing engraved insignia—any kind.”

Moine said, “I’ll do that.” He followed Towers out, taking his hat and coat off the rack by the door, shrugging into the coat in the hall while they waited for the elevator. Towers had left his car in the garage downstairs. They pulled out into the downtown traffic. The dismal gray fog showed no signs of lifting. It was slow, working through the traffic signals across town. Towers turned north on Hope Street, drove as far as the Hollywood Freeway, found an entry, and scooted down the ramp into the stream of cars and said, “Well—” with an air of relief. They were headed west now. They took the new section of freeway out Cahuenga Pass to the valley, turned on Ventura Boulevard; and Moine settled himself for the grind out through the valley to the coast.

It developed that Towers had a great interest in gardening, especially in pelargonium geraniums, and, as some of these flowers were showing spring bloom, he had something to divert him. Moine asked him what the difference was between these orchidlike blossoms and plain geraniums, and Towers told him. “Do you have a place of your own?” Towers asked.

“An apartment,” Moine said.

“My wife and I couldn’t stand apartment life any longer,” Towers said. “We haven’t any kids and, in a way, it was convenient. But we got tired of the lack of privacy, no place to sit around outdoors, and a manager always laying down rules for us. I wouldn’t go back to living in apartments for a million dollars.”

“I guess keeping up a yard is a lot of work.”

Towers shook his head. “Yes. Yes, it is; but it gives me some exercise. Besides, I’ve gotten interested in flowers. Why live in California if you can’t grow flowers?”

“I’ll have to try it someday.” Moine lit a cigarette.

“Been with the railroad long?”

“A few months this time. I was called back into the Army and then went to school for a while. I’d put in my time as patrolman before that.”

“I see.”

“What about you?” Moine asked.

“I’ve been with the government sixteen years.”

They rode in silence for a while. Moine smoked and looked at the view and Towers kept an eye out for pelargonium gardens. The fog began to lower, a white bank against the hills to the left, sometimes touching the tops of trees beside the road, so that in places the pavement was wet with dripping moisture. The air was chilly. Towers turned on the car heater and then the radio. Moine listened idly to jazz, to ads, and to the news.

In Ventura, a quick check with the local Forgery Detail showed no record of work resembling that passed in Los Angeles. Towers drove out of town, northward, until it seemed all houses had been left behind. A sandy road took them down to the beach. “Mrs. Raines is going to meet us here,” Towers explained. “She’s busy cleaning up the place to rent it again.”

The sea looked cold and gray under the foggy sky; and the house faced it like an old ship, cast up on the beach to rot. It was a big rambling house, two stories, shabby for lack of paint and repair. A wooden picket fence marked off what must be the boundaries of the yard. Perhaps a half mile down the beach were three more houses in a group, and these were the only ones in the near vicinity.

Moine followed Towers up the steps to the porch. There was a feeling underfoot as though the foundations were none too steady. Moine guessed that the sea air, the wet, had eaten at the underpinnings of the porch. He stood beside Towers while the government man rapped on the doorframe.

The woman who answered was short and plump. She had on an overall apron of clean faded denim; her hair was tied up in a red bandanna and she carried a dust mop. She smiled, showing large uneven teeth. Her eyebrows were dark and thick above pale blue eyes. “Hello, Mr. Towers.”

She held open the door and they went in. Moine found himself in a hall paneled in dark wood. A staircase rose at the right; the hall continued past it to the rear of the house. The proportions of the hall and stairs were spacious and pleasing, and Moine thought that the house had been well built, attractive when it was new. Towers said, “Mrs. Raines, this is Mr. Moine.” He explained Moine’s position with the railroad. Moine had automatically taken out his identification to show it to her.

“I’ll declare,” she said. “Is that where Mr. Davidson works?”

“We don’t think so,” Towers answered.

Vic said, “A man calling himself Byron U. Davidson printed some checks on my railroad and cashed them in Los Angeles.”

“Oh dear!” She put a plump hand to her lips in alarm. “And he’d been trying to make ten-dollar bills too! He was certainly a bad one.”

“Not a desirable citizen,” Towers agreed.

She glanced at the brief case Towers had brought from the car. “Are those the pictures you wanted me to see?” When he nodded she said, “Come into the parlor where we can sit down.”

The furniture in the big room was worn and she apologized for it. “This is such old trashy stuff. But it helps to rent the house.” She sat down at the end of a couch. Towers took a chair beside her, put the brief case on the floor, unsnapped its buckles. Moine chose a chair on the other side of the fireplace. In spite of the bank of windows facing the beach, he thought the room dismal and frumpish. The furniture was a hodgepodge, most of the pieces slip-covered in a red, striped fabric. It had faded irregularly and there were darned spots here and there.

Mrs. Raines went through the collection of mug shots carefully, spending several moments over each one. At each, after an intense examination, she shook her head. When she had finished she patted them neatly into order and gave them back to Towers. “He’s not in there.”

“Tell us about the day he came to your house in town,” Towers suggested. “Take your time. Try to remember every detail.”

She blinked her pale eyes as if in an effort to concentrate. “It was about noontime. I’d just finished the lunch dishes. My husband eats at eleven; he has a service station and he takes the early shift, so he’s hungry by then. I was hanging up my apron when the doorbell rang. I went to answer. Our place in town doesn’t have a hall. The front door opens right into the living room and there’s a big window where you can see the street. I looked out, just automatic-like, to see whose car was at the curb. There wasn’t a car there, so I opened the door expecting a door-to-door salesman, maybe, only it was this Davidson feller.”

Towers sat silent and patient, soaking up the narrative. Moine thought that the plump little woman rather enjoyed the attention she was getting.

“He gave me his name and said he’d noticed a for-rent sign on my house out at the beach. He wanted to know how much the rent was and if the place was ready to be occupied. I said the rent was sixty dollars, with a deposit for cleaning, no utilities furnished, and that, yes, he could move in right away.”

Towers said quietly, “What sort of voice did he have? Did he use good English? Did he sound like an educated man—or otherwise?”

“He sounded all right to me. I just went through high school myself.” She had propped the dust mop against the wall near by; now she adjusted the handle so that it wouldn’t topple. “Before we go on, maybe I ought to mention something.”

“Yes?” said Towers.

She used the heel of her shoe to pull a wrinkle straight in the rug. “I think there was two men living here.”

Four

Moine’s interest was caught by the way she spoke these words shyly, as if expecting them to doubt her.

“This is what gave me the idea,” she went on. “In a paper bag in one of the closets upstairs was a small piece of braided rug. Somebody had started it, made a fair beginning, but hadn’t finished. There were some extra scraps in the sack, cotton swatches. Your men looked it all over and left it here. I braid rugs myself, so I took the paper sack home and picked the work apart, thinking I might use the strips. After I had it separated I found that most of the stuff had been socks, men’s socks, and real gay ones.”

Towers was still, silent and watchful. He made Vic think of a big gray cat who hears a mouse behind the baseboard.

Mrs. Raines smiled from one to the other. “Whoever made that rug hadn’t much experience, I figure. Or perhaps didn’t care. A man’s sock mostly will just fade and fade as long as there’s a shred of it left. You couldn’t have washed that rug when it was done without ruining it.”

Towers said, “Was the work neat?”

“Yes, real neat. There was a little sand in the bottom of the sack. I thought to myself, well, she sat on the beach working at it. But the weather’s been cold, foggy, miserable—so I wondered, remembering what I’d found in the yard, if the woman hadn’t been out there as a sentry. Someone to watch and give warning if anyone got near the house. She took the rug makings with her to pass the time. Or to make it look as if she were enjoying herself.”

“That’s very clever reasoning, Mrs. Raines.”

She seemed a little flustered by the compliment. “Oh, it wasn’t much. Just common sense, you could say. It was later, last night in fact, when I picked up the sack and the scraps of wool to throw them out, that I thought about those socks. They’d been expensive. Sort of sporty, too, if you know what I mean. I don’t think they belonged to that older man who rented the house.”

Towers smiled faintly. “Some older men are fairly frisky.”

Her glance was thoughtful. “Well, he wasn’t. There was something about him … oh, not tired, exactly. Dull. Just dull and quiet. There was a bad scar, a kind of twisted place, on his ear—and that took away from his appearance. Otherwise, he was a very ordinary man.”

“Perhaps the piece of rug was left by a previous tenant,” Towers said.

“No, I’m sure it wasn’t.”

“We found no fingerprints of any other man,” Towers pointed out.

“It was just a hunch I had,” she said defensively, and with an air of dropping the subject.

Moine said, “Perhaps the woman on the beach had other reasons for being there. Perhaps she was frightened about what went on indoors.”

Mrs. Raines considered. “Yes, it could be. Then, with two women here as you say, there may have been arguments. About running the house, you know. And maybe the other woman was jealous about the baby.”

“Still, I like your theory that the woman was a sentry.” He saw that this pleased her. “What did Davidson tell you about who was to occupy the house?”

“Well, I didn’t question him closely. It’s kind of hard to rent the place; it’s far out, and then there are new places, built up close to town. I wish now I’d sold this house during the war when they were hard to get.”

“What about the railroad pass he showed you?”

She shrugged embarrassedly. “It was just a blur. I didn’t have my glasses—I put them on afterward, you understand, when I wrote the receipt. But this was at the door, when he said,’I guess you need some kind of identification. Here’s my employee’s pass. I’m a railroad man.’ He didn’t say what he did for the railroad and I just supposed he worked somewhere near L.A. and meant to drive out on his days off. It’s too far for regular commuting.”

Under her words, Moine grasped other things. The house had been vacant for a while and she had been eager to rent it. She hadn’t pressed Davidson for details about his family and occupation. The twenty-dollar cleaning deposit would take care of rough usage. The furniture was past the stage of being visibly damaged, outside of total destruction.

Towers went on with careful questions, leading her through the interview with Davidson to its end, then over it again. The events of that day weeks ago were clear in her mind. Davidson had shown her a piece of paper which he had said was an employee’s pass; and he’d said definitely that he worked for a railroad. That’s what she had for Moine.

She didn’t touch again on her hunch that there had been two men in the house; and, though Moine expected Towers to bring it up, the government man ignored the point. What he thought of it privately, Moine was unable to decide.

To Moine, the image of the woman on the beach, huddled under the bleak sky, was peculiarly vivid. He thought to himself that someone had ordered her out upon the little dunes facing the sea, a guard; and it occurred to him that this must have been the woman who had no child. The baby would have been indoors with its mother, warm and snug. He remembered Mrs. Raines’s casual remark that perhaps the woman on the beach was jealous over the baby. Feminine insight, he thought. He made up his mind on other details. The woman who had sat on the beach in bitter weather, knotting strips of socks into a rug that wouldn’t wash, was the woman who smoked unusual cigarettes, who liked chartreuse. He sensed the pattern of her personality. She’s a rebel, he told himself. A perfectionist too. The useless rug had been put together neatly.

Towers had risen, picked up the brief case containing the mug shots. He thanked Mrs. Raines politely for her help.

She offered Moine her hand. Her palm was smooth and warm. “If I think of anything else I’ll phone you.”

Moine gave her one of his cards.

The drive back to L.A. was dark, wet, and cold. At eight-thirty Vic was home in his rented flat, had stripped, had turned on the shower, hot, when he suddenly remembered his promise to go to June’s party.

He bathed, trying to think of excuses. It was late. Too late. He should have phoned that morning, or at latest when he’d left Rock’s room at noon. He put on a terry-cloth robe and went into the living room and lit a cigarette, stood by the phone and tried to compose something to say. Then all at once he told himself, to hell with it. I’ll drop by the house for an hour. It’ll do. She won’t miss me when I leave.

The thought of June, lovable and lovely, their dates of last summer, their engagement of last fall, just before the blowup, slid across his memory. Her father would ignore him, ignore the jerk cop who could have become an attorney and his son-in-law and his partner. Maybe that’s why he’d forgotten the phone call. Maybe he needed Arnold Grem’s cold stare to bolster his decision.

Why can’t I be sure? Why does it have to come from outside?

My tin rail, he jeered at himself.

He brushed his shoes, put on a fresh white shirt, a bow tie, a navy-blue suit. He picked his hat and overcoat up off the chair where he had dropped them. He checked his pockets for cigarettes and matches, then let himself out, locking the door.

He drove south to Wilshire, then west on Wilshire to an intersection a few blocks past Western Avenue, where he turned. There were big homes here, two stories, set well back behind smooth green lawns and flourishing shrubbery. Most were of white or tan stucco with red tile roofs. About twenty-five or thirty years ago it had been a new and fashionable neighborhood. Now it had settled into expensive, well-cared-for, upper-middle-class respectability. There were neighborhoods exactly like it all over the western half of the city, out through Beverly Hills to the coast, but for some reason this particular street, this one block, had a bad effect on Moine. He hated it. He thought of it as a trap, as something you escaped if you possibly could. To him it some-how represented Arnold Grem and his money and his success and the strait jacket he’d want you to live in if you were his son-in-law.

There was a lamp on a post set beside the drive. Moine drove past the house, parked, shut the car and walked back. A maid met him at the door. She was small, gray, and smelled like starch. “Good evening, sir.” She reached for his coat and hat.

“A night not fit for man nor beast,” said Moine, shedding his coat.

“That’s right, Mr. Moine.”

“Is anyone else here yet?” He hoped he was early; he could fade out when the crowd came.

“Oh, yes, sir. They’re in the game room.”

He met Mrs. Grem in the hall. She was a tall thin woman with a regal posture, coal-black hair braided into a coronet on her head. Moine liked her much better than he did her husband. She shook his hand. Her fingers were hot. There was a strong smell of whisky about her and Vic had a sudden hunch: she was on her way to some private store of liquor to hop up the glow she felt. Once June had asked him worriedly what she ought to do about her mother’s drinking and he had suggested that she get her away from Arnold Grem for about six months; and that had started one of the quarrels.

“Nice to see you, Victor. You’re looking thinner, I believe.”

“I’m glad to see you, Mrs. Grem.”

“June will be very happy you’ve arrived early.” Her tone chided him about other things: June was lonely. She had missed him. And why couldn’t he be decent to her little girl and buckle down to learn the law business? You had whisky to fall back on when things got tough.

“I’m afraid I can’t stay long.”

Her hands fiddled vaguely with the strand of pearls which lay against the bosom of her green crepe gown. “Oh? That’s unfortunate. You had a previous engagement?”

“I have to work.”

“June says you’re with the railroad now.”

Her thoughts had gone ahead, he sensed, to the bottle hidden where only she could find it. He noted the high color on her cheekbones. “Yes, I’m with the railroad police.”

“Is it interesting?”

“It’s a job.”

“And what is it you have to do at night?”

She wasn’t really interested. She was trying to show him that she liked him, for June’s sake, and that her hand was being offered in friendship. “It’s part of a routine investigation,” Vic said.

“Well, perhaps I’ll see you before you go.” She smiled, nodded, walked briskly toward the stairway to the upper floor.

Vic went on, past several doors to the entrance to the game room. This was a sprawling addition to the rear of the house, put in when Grem’s business had begun to demand a lot of entertaining. There was a pool table in a corner at the right, where a group of young fellows, teen-agers, June’s brother among them, were having a game. In the center of the floor about six couples were dancing to the music of a juke box. At the left was a bar, done up in rawhide leather with brass trimmings, very ranchy; and here sat Arnold Grem and a couple of cronies, watching the younger people.

Grem looked at Vic, took the cigar from his mouth, jerked his head in greeting. June saw him then. She pushed away from her partner and hurried over. She was a small, finely built girl with pale, almost silver, hair, and the erect carriage of her mother. She put up her mouth and he had no choice but to bend and kiss her. It was a signal, he knew. It was a sign to these people, her friends, that she still considered Vic as her own.

“You remembered, I’m glad, darling.”

He felt like a fool. It was her birthday. He had brought nothing.

She was so quick to understand. She said, “I know you’ve been busy. Look, come say hello to Dad and then we’ll dance. After a while we’ll sneak out for a quiet moment somewhere else.”

She led him over to Grem. Grem said, “Hello, Victor. How’re tricks?”

“Everything’s fine, Mr. Grem.”

A level look passed between them. One of Grem’s cronies coughed behind his hand. A second started up a quick conversation about politics. June tugged Vic away. “Why do you and Dad have to act like that? This is a party. People are having fun.”

“Let’s have some then. Let’s dance.”

While they danced, he thought. He had forgotten all about June’s birthday. A year ago it was fixed in his mind so firmly he’d have sworn he could never overlook it. So soon, he thought wryly, do the trappings of romance fly out the window.

Fifteen minutes later, while June danced with someone else, he found a chair and sat down in the corner beyond the pool table. Presently a little old lady joined him. She was Mrs. Standish, an aunt of June’s mother, who visited here with her niece for months at a time. Everybody loved her but Arnold Grem. Vic sometimes suspected that Grem was not aware she existed. She sat down, smoothing her steel-gray satin skirt. She had eyes like a rooster. “Well—she still likes you. June, that is.”

Vic had a drink in his hand. He set it down. He felt stupid, not knowing what to say. He felt Mrs. Standish’s fingers on his sleeve.

“Why don’t you come to see June any more? Don’t look at me like that. I’m old enough to say what I please, even when it’s impolite.”

He shrugged, feeling awkward. “We’ve both been busy.”

She cackled over it. “Married fifty years, I’d believe it! Well, this is what I think—I think Arnold spoiled it somehow. Somehow? What am I saying? He spoiled it by doing just what came naturally. By being his own dreary cussed little self.” Her own drink rattled around in her hand and gave off clickings like a castanet.

Vic said, “How are you feeling these days?”

“Do you really want me to tell you? I have a gall-bladder condition. Plus hardening of the arteries. I can’t eat butter or whipped cream. They stop me up in various sections of my anatomy. Shall I go on?”

“I don’t think you’ve slowed down a bit,” said Vic.

“Slowed down? My God, I have to go faster and faster. Some of these days I’ll conk out without half of it done.”

“It?”

“The meddling. The prying and poking. Trying to understand people like Arnold, for instance; which I never will, God knows. Tormenting shy young men like you, Victor.”

He knew she was trying to get a rise out of him. “I’m far from shy. You just don’t know me very well.”

“Maybe you’re not shy other places. Around here you have a smoldering look. As if you might be spoiling for a fight underneath. Don’t argue. I was married for years to a drunken Irishman. I know how a man looks when he wants a fight.” She downed some of her drink with an air of emphasis.

“Well,” Vic said, “at least we agree on the Irish.”

Her rooster’s stare met his over her glass. “Don’t misunderstand me.”

“How could I? I have a vivid memory of my mother’s Irish temper. Plus welts on my bottom which still must be there. How do you think I had the stamina to be a cop?”

She lowered the drink and an expression came into her face which showed Vic that she had had some curiosity satisfied. “That’s what balled things up? You’re a cop?”

“A railroad dick. Surely June told you.”

“I knew that she and Arnold shared some unmentionable secret.”

He was suddenly tired of it all, the house, Grem’s boring stare, Mrs. Standish’s chatter. He rose and made his excuses to her. June spotted the move and left her partner in the middle of a dance step. “Wait a minute, Vic.”

“I just dropped in to say ‘Happy birthday.’”

They were walking toward the door, but then she turned and pulled him out through a side entry to the driveway. It was dim here, the light from the house shut out by feathery evergreens. “You didn’t even know it was my birthday until I reminded you!”

“That’s right.” It didn’t sound very polite.

“You’re not going to let Dad spoil it all. I won’t allow it!”

He put his hands on her arms, pulled her close. He could see the outline of her face, the shadowy eyes, the faint glitter of her hair. “Let me go, June. Forget me. I’m not worth one half minute’s worry on your part. I’m a drifter, trying one thing and then another. Your dad wants you to marry someone solid and secure and he’s right, entirely right. You’re too beautiful and too decent to waste yourself on someone like me.”

Her fingers touched his face, and feeling their warmth, their gentleness, Vic had a sudden panicky feeling that she might not forget him and that he might be throwing away something which was irreplaceable. His hands, holding her, trembled and he wondered if she felt that.

“Well. What a speech!” she whispered.

“I mean it, June. Look around for somebody else.”

“I’ll love you as long as I live. Believe me, Vic. I’m telling you the truth. You can go away and come back when I’m an old, old lady and I’ll still love you and still be waiting for you.”

He felt sweat break out on his face. It seemed then that June was drawing him back into the thing he had escaped, into a steel groove Grem had prepared for him; and this panic was worse than the thought of losing June, of never seeing her again.

She pulled down his head and their lips clung; but to Vic there was no taste of passion or desire in it. As if in revolt from the love she offered, he had already begun to think ahead, about the old lady who lived near the coach yards and who had been seeing little men climbing the fence at night.

Five

It was earlier than he had expected to start for the yards, but he went anyway. He drove back through the heart of the city. The theaters were all lit up now, and on Broadway the big store windows blazed with light; but on Spring it was quiet and dark. The money men had closed the banks and the brokerage houses, and were at home in Bel Air, Beverly Hills, and Pacific Palisades. He turned on Fifth and found himself in skid row. Main Street was its usual honkytonk, bespangled, and befuddled self. He drove north on Main, glancing at the HighBoy Room as he went past and wondering if Boots was there and whether she was still conscious or walked in an alcoholic state of zombie-ism.

“Good luck, Boots,” he said, half aloud. Perhaps he had judged her wrongly; she might at this moment be quizzing the character who called himself Byron U. Davidson. Miracles still happened … sometimes … didn’t they?

The traffic thinned on North Main. He cut over to Alameda, past the Union Station, and then on through block after block of factories, packing plants, warehouses, and so finally to the East L.A. yards. The freight yards sprawled behind their steel fence, acres of tracks, cuts of boxcars, gondolas, tanks, and reefers, and Diesel switchers working behind lights as big as moons. Beyond this section of the yards, separated by a length of fence, were the coach yards. Here the passenger coaches were brought after a run to be cleaned and supplied. The commissary building, where food was stored and prepared for the diners, was a long, rambling, two-storied wooden structure, now almost entirely dark. It was situated close to the far fence.

Vic circled the yards on dim deserted streets, then cut left at the other end of the truck-parking lot. The paved lot was lit by a big light on a pole. A couple of truck trailers, big ones, silver-colored, sat close to the commissary entrance, ready to be unloaded in the morning.

He parked in front of Mrs. McAdams’ gate. There was a light behind the bay window of her living room.

The house was small and quite old, decorated with gingerbread scrolls, some of which were missing. It had been built here, Vic thought, long before the factories and warehouses and junk yards had taken over the district. At the time of its building the location might have been considerably out of town, almost rural. Now it stood next to a wholesale pipe yard, and behind it a green glow escaped into the night from a big welding shop.

He picked his way through the yard to the rickety front porch. He heard the police dog inside give a sharp angry bark. Then he rapped.

She looked smaller, frailer, more bent than ever. She had the dog’s collar in one hand, shaded her eyes from the lamp’s glow with the other. “Yes? Oh. You’re the gentleman from the railroad—”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Get back, King.” The dog wanted to tackle Vic and she scolded him, tapping his jaws with her fingers. “Good dog, now. Good dog!” She peered out at Vic. “I’ll get him calmed down. He’s fiercer at night, seems like. Always expecting trouble.”

The dog was smart, Vic thought; and Mrs. McAdams was smart to keep him. She got the dog settled back on some cushions and let Vic in and offered him a chair. “I haven’t seen anything tonight, Mr. Moine. I haven’t been out yet. I usually take King for a stroll rather late, along about eleven. You know, when you get older you don’t need as much sleep. I’m often awake past midnight, knitting or reading or listing to music on the radio.”

“I understand.” Vic looked at King, who had his head up, ready for trouble. “Does the dog ever act as if he hears someone out there?” Vic jerked his head in the direction of the coach yards.

“Yes. That’s why I’ve gone out when I did. I thought … well, if there was a prowler who had ideas about trying to get in here, I’d let him see what he was going to tangle with. It might cause a real dangerous man to arm himself, of course. But it should scare off the ordinary kind of bum.”

“You’re right. It should.” King had his mouth open, smiling a little, and Vic admired the big sharp white teeth that shone in the light from Mrs. McAdams’ chandelier. “Do you think the persons you saw climbing the fence caught sight of you and the dog?”

“I don’t know.” Under her smooth white hair her face was puzzled. “I wish I could help you more. But that’s all I’m sure of. Someone climbed the fence, then disappeared.”

“I’m going over for a look around.”

She nodded. “I’d be interested to hear what you find.”

“If anything,” he put in.

She opened the door for him. King came over and smelled the leg of Vic’s trousers as if memorizing something in case of danger. Vic patted the dog’s head.

“He likes you,” said Mrs. McAdams. “Do you mind my asking—are you with the city police, Mr. Moine?”

“We’re under the sheriff’s office,” said Vic. He went out, put on his hat, left the car where it stood and headed for the commissary gate. This was locked. He walked some distance to a smaller gate, close to the cleaning racks, where a bright light burned above the wicket.

He turned right and retraced his way, inside this time, to the big dark bulk of the commissary building.

He walked close to the fence, studying the layout. It looked different by night. Where he walked lay a netlike shadow cast by the light on the pole in the parking lot; out further to the left was an open cement-paved area much marked by heavy grease; and then the building—on this side was the loading platform, a kind of lengthwise shallow cave overhung by the offices upstairs. At either end of the platform, at approximately a hundred-odd feet apart, two lights burned in wire brackets on the wall.

His footsteps echoed against the building. The air was cold against his face and held a clammy touch of fog. It was all very quiet, peaceful, deserted.

There were steps up to the platform at the far end and Vic went up and tried all the doors. Everything was locked up tight. He stopped to light a cigarette, looking out from the shelter of the platform to the grease blotches where the trucks had stood, to the link fence, to the parking lot where the two big trailers stood together. Mrs. McAdams’ house seemed pretty dim from here. He decided she must have good eyesight to have made out what was happening at the fence.

He left the platform and went around the end of the building to the side that faced the yards. One of the lighted rooms here was a cubby-hole set aside for the patrolmen. He went in and sat down. Betchel came in about fifteen minutes later. He was a big, cheerful, slow-moving and thoroughly reliable man, one of the best of the young patrolmen, in Vic’s opinion. He put his khaki cap on a table, took a thermos from a desk drawer, and offered to share his coffee with Vic.

“Ryerson told Burns you’d be out here.”

Burns was the night sergeant. Vic nodded. “Ryerson thinks these trespassers may have your route mapped. I’ll try to surprise them.”

They drank coffee. The phone rang. It was Burns, uptown, reminding Betchel that Moine would be there for a stake-out. “He’s here now, Mr. Burns. You want to talk to him?”

“Tell Moine I’m going out now to the Brett Street yards. I’ll be there until about midnight.”

“Yes, sir.”

When the coffee was gone Vic went back to the loading platform and Betchel returned to his rounds. Just to make things easier and to invite the prowlers, Vic unscrewed the two bulbs in their cages, leaving the cavelike platform in darkness. There were two empty cartons stacked at one end. He moved them close to a corner and sat down in their shelter, pulled up his coat collar, rested his back against the wall. He settled himself for the vacant hours ahead.

He hated stake-outs because there was nothing to do but wait. Most of the time you waited and waited and when finally you figured nobody was going to show, you got out of your hidey-hole and tried to beat the stiffness out of your body and the taste of frustration from your mind.

And still, there wasn’t any other way to handle a case like this one except to stake out on it.

He glanced at his watch, the luminous dial, after a while. Almost twenty minutes had passed. He yawned behind his hand. Without wanting to, he found himself thinking of June. He imagined her face before him in the dim light, her fingers touching his cheek; and then there was in him a terrible anger that it must end as it must, the love he had felt for June, and hers for him, of no more importance than water running out a drain.

If he returned to her he returned to Grem’s ambition.

He tried to probe into his own feelings. What was this within himself? A fear of failure? It had nothing to do with a real desire to go back to the railroad, and that’s what Rock sensed and what made him uneasy. He could discover in Vic no drive to be a cop.

Vic thought, maybe I’m just fed up with being bossed. Army style. Grem’s style. Off in the dim street beyond the fence, he heard the creak of tires, a motor running. The sounds crept closer and died. Vic sat up a little straighter, the puzzle of himself slipping from his mind.

There were hesitant steps along the fence. A tall figure silhouetted itself against the light from the parking lot. Vic could make out the shape of the man’s head, saw him look to right and left before he put a hand on the fence. This was it. Vic got his heels under him. He was smiling in the dark, though he didn’t know it.

The tall man climbed the fence with the agility of a monkey, dropped to the near side, remained crouched and watchful for a few minutes. Listening, Vic decided. Vic rose slowly, inching up against the wall. He breathed through his teeth. His fists were clenched against his thighs. He never let his eyes waver from the crouching body.

The man walked slowly toward the loading platform, and now there was a metallic tinkling as he moved. He went up the steps at the end opposite Vic’s corner, walked directly to a door in the wall, began to work there with some sort of tool. Vic waited. The man got the door open and went in. Vic took the flashlight from his overcoat pocket.

The trespasser came back almost at once with a roll of some kind across his shoulder. Vic caught him in the light, spotted him. “Hold it, mister.” He sized him up in that first instant: a bean pole of a fellow with hound-dog eyes, a long jaw, shabby coveralls, greasy shoes.

The man’s Adam’s apple worked. He tried to toss the rolled object behind him into the room he had just left but Vic said: “Don’t move.” He went closer. The thing on the floor was a roll of carpet. “Pick it up and walk.” As he passed the light on the wall, Vic poked it, twisting it back into its socket. By its light he saw the man shambling ahead, face lowered, the roll of carpet banging his knees. “Down those steps and turn left,” Vic instructed. Inside the office he took the carpet, put it on the desk, and made the man stand near the wall with his spread hands on it while Vic gave him a quick frisk.

There was no identification on him. The tool he had used to open the door was a piece of steel, perhaps ten inches long, taped at one end with a wad of friction wrapping, the other end bent slightly and sharpened to a fine edge. Vic put it on the desk beside the roll of carpet.

When Vic was through the man flopped on a chair and fell forward with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. He made some muffled noises. They might have been grunts, or perhaps sobs. He had broken nails and there was grease on his knuckles. He needed a haircut. He had no hat and the hair lay thick and uncombed in a tangle that reached down to the edge of his collar. Vic said, “What’s your name?”

The man snuffled behind his hands, saying nothing.

Vic dialed the yard offices on Brett Street and left instructions for Burns to come over as soon as he could. Betchel must have been close enough on his rounds through the yards to see Moine arrive with his captive, for he came in now. He sat down near Vic and the two of them attempted to question the man who had tried to steal the carpet.

They got his name after a while. He was John Hadley. He worked for a produce company. That morning he had helped unload some lettuce on the other side of the building and he had glanced in during an idle moment and noticed the roll of carpet and decided that it was something he could use.

“This looks like something out of a dining car,” Vic said.

“Sure,” Betchel agreed, “that’s what it is! They were going to replace a rug in one of the diners.”

“What could you do with it?” Vic asked Hadley. “It’s a kind of funny shape. Long and narrow.”

“I own a house trailer,” Hadley confessed. His eyes had reddened as if with unshed tears and the Adam’s apple jerked up and down between the wings of blue collar. “My girl friend’s been riding me, how crumby the trailer looks, and I just figgered … hell, the railroad’d never miss it.”

“That’s a pretty good story,” Vic said. “What about the other nights you were here climbing the fence?”

The man seemed stung by surprise. “I ain’t never been in here before! Night or any other time. Except today.”

“You’ve been seen climbing the fence.”

A sickly expression crossed Hadley’s face. “Don’t you try to pin something else on me, like something I never did! Don’t you try it!”

Vic argued with him patiently and reasonably. He sent Betchel out for more coffee and when he returned they gave Hadley a cup, along with a cigarette. They tried to be friendly. They reminded Hadley of the rap hanging over him and how they might help him.

He persisted in his denial that he had ever been near the commissary before that morning, when he had helped stack the lettuce. He refused to admit even to a few fruitless scouting expeditions.

Betchel had picked up the tool off the desk. “Hey, this is pretty professional!” And Vic agreed that it looked like the real thing.

“I made it tonight,” Hadley quavered. “A friend of mine’s got a lot of power tools in his garage, a workshop, and I just dropped by and made it. I ain’t no real burglar.”

“Who’s your friend?”

Hadley’s sad eyes bugged out. “Nobody’s dragging him in on this!”

“How about giving us a look at your place?” Vic suggested.

“What for?” Some emotion sent the lump in his neck bobbing, tightened the tendons under Hadley’s skinny jaw. He licked his lips.

“To see if you’re telling the truth about that trailer of yours, for one thing.”

“I never tried to steal anything else in my life!” Hadley protested doggedly.

“A look at your place should prove it.”

They were still arguing when Burns arrived. He carried into the room the cold authority of thirty years’ service, thirty years of tossing bums and slapping handcuffs on petty thieves like Hadley; and the smell of jail came with him. Hadley looked at him and wilted.

The next step was routine. Brace took a mimeographed form from a stack in the desk and gave it to Hadley to sign. Hadley mumbled the words to himself. “… permission to search … home and premises … for the property of … railroad …” He squinted at Burns. “What premises? All I go’s a crumby trailer, like I said.”

“You have a car,” Vic pointed out. “I think that will come under the heading of premises.”

Hadley scrawled his name on the form with a pen Vic handed him. Vic retained the sheet of paper; it would be included in his filed report. He and Burns accompanied Hadley out to inspect the car he had driven, an old Ford truck with the fenders missing. In the truck bed were a few pieces of rusted iron pipe, some bundles of tied newspapers and a set of very dirty automobile seat covers. “I picked’em out of some trash,” Hadley offered.

Burns nodded, switched off his flashlight. Obviously he didn’t consider the stuff worth stealing. He ordered Hadley into his car and with Vic in the back seat they headed for the trailer park where Hadley claimed to live. It was out past Boyle Heights in a very run-down neighborhood. The end, where Hadley’s trailer sat, adjoined, of all things, the yard of a church.

The door was unlocked. “Turn on the light. No tricks,” Burns warned. Behind him Vic tensed, half expecting Hadley to try something. But the light went on inside the trailer and Hadley stepped on in, and Vic and Burns entered to find a yellow-haired woman starting up in bed to stare at them. She grabbed up the sheet to cover herself. There was nothing across her shoulders so Vic decided she slept raw.

“Who in the hell are you?” She tossed back the mane of hair and turned to Hadley. “Who are these jerks, Johnnie?”

“Cops,” he said tiredly.

They went through the trailer for company stuff, except the bed; and then the girl friend sat on a stool wrapped in a sheet, and they went through that. As Hadley had explained, there was nothing much in the trailer. Under the sink was a store of empty wine bottles and in the toe of a man’s shoe in the tiny closet Burns found a ten-dollar bill folded small, apparently Hadley’s savings. There was nothing marked with the colophon of the railroad. There were the simple necessities of trailer life, reduced to an irreducible minimum. Vic couldn’t figure out why Hadley had craved the carpet. It was new and rather brightly patterned and would have shown up the surrounding dirt and decrepitude like a spotlight.

Six

Hadley stepped back into the office and flopped on the same chair, his hands hanging between his knees, the hound-dog eyes weary and puzzled. But Burns stopped Vic with a glance.

“I think he’s telling the truth,” Vic said quietly. “He’s not an habitual thief.”

Burns nodded. “I might be tempted to let him go with a stiff warning—if it had been a matter of walking in through a gate and picking up something loose. But this bugger pried open a door with a tool he made for the job. I’m going to call L.A.P.D. and you’ll sign a complaint.”

They went in and Burns used the phone. Hadley’s dejection grew as he realized what the call was all about. He began to snuffle again, sheltering his face with his hands. He was a sad-sack type for sure, Vic thought. Vic was in favor of letting him go; but under his impatient pity, he knew that Burns was right. A man who had gone to the trouble of manufacturing a tool for a particular burglary needed more than a warning.

While they waited for the men from L.A.P.D., Vic went around and fastened the broken door as best he could.

Vic awoke from a deep sleep, the jangle of the phone echoing in his head. He sat up, fumbling the blankets away, aware of stiffness across his shoulders and the ache of drowsiness behind his eyes. The room was barely growing gray. He looked at the clock. It was a quarter of five.

Ryerson was on the wire, his voice heavy and harsh. “Can you come out to the East L.A. yards right away?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Vic yawned behind his hand. He remembered that on the way home last night he had considered calling Mrs. McAdams to tell her that she wouldn’t be seeing any more little men climbing the fence. And then he had noticed that it was close to midnight and had abandoned the idea.

Morning would do well enough. The little climbing men were finished. Kaput. This had to be something else. “What’s going on?” Vic asked.

“You were a good friend of Rockfort’s, weren’t you?”

“What are you talking about?” He felt all at once the clammy unheated air of the apartment, and the windows looking out at grayness were like empty eyes. “What’s with Rock?”

Ryerson hesitated; the wire hummed; and then he said slowly, “He’s dead.”

“Where?”

“Here in the yards. He had a liquor bottle with him. We think he accidentally walked into a moving cut of cars.”

“I’ll be right out.”

His mind was a vacuum now, no thought in it, no feeling either. He went into the bedroom and began to dress mechanically. The clothes felt damp, limp. The light on the stand beside the bed looked sickly against the gray glow from the windows. All at once he thought, it wasn’t true. Of course it wasn’t true. They’d confused someone else with Rock. Rock was safe in bed at the Stull Hotel. Vic ran from the bedroom, buttoning his shirt, and looked at the phone, thinking he ought to call the night clerk at the hotel and make sure, just to satisfy himself; and in that moment, jarringly, he began to believe in Rock’s death. Ryerson knew Rock too well to be fooled by a stranger.

He sat down in a chair near the phone. A terrible squeezing pain drew in behind his eyes; he felt wetness in his mouth; and after a while he realized that he was crying. He beat on the arm of the chair. He wiped his face on the shirt. The cold air settled on him, and beyond the windows the fog looked in.

Presently he went back to the bedroom, got a fresh shirt, put it on. Trousers next. He snapped his belt, sat down to put on his shoes. His eyes were dry now. There was nothing left of the convulsion of grief except a dull ache in his throat.

He had little memory, afterward, of that drive through the gray and foggy dawn. As soon as he turned into the street bordering the freight yards he saw the group of men inside the fence and knew that Rock must be there. Ryerson walked toward him as he came in through the gate. Ryerson had a faint stubble of beard and his tie was crooked; so Vic knew in what a hurry he had come.

Rock’s body was on the ground close to the tracks, covered by a worn blanket. Vic knelt and turned back the cover. Rock’s face was crushed and bloody, gravel spattered in its wounds, but it was recognizable. There hadn’t been any mistake. Vic gently put the blanket back in place.

Ryerson drew him aside. They were waiting for the detectives from L.A.P.D., he explained to Vic. They’d be here any minute. Vic didn’t say anything, just stood and listened. Away off in the distance was the fence dividing the coach yards from the freight yards; and beyond that was the commissary building where he had spent the hours of last night up to midnight. In the middle distance, toward the right, was the big building housing the yard offices. Here and there were switchmen’s shanties and shelters for storing tools, and so on. There were no switchers working in this part of the yards. The long cuts of cars stood under the pale gray sky like red and yellow dominoes stacked alone the rails.

“When did they find him?”

“As soon as it got light,” Ryerson said. He took out a cigar and lit it. “He’s been down here before, there’s nothing odd about that. Usually along in the afternoon. He’d stop and chew the fat with the patrolmen. He liked to keep up with what was going on. Brett Street yards, too, though not as often because they’re so far out of town.” Ryerson puffed smoke upon the still, foggy air. “He was a real man, that Rock.”

“He was a cop,” Vic said, not knowing why he said it.

Ryerson gave him a sidewise glance.

“Who found him?”

“Switching crew.”

“I mean, who noticed him first?”

“An engineer named Zellerman.”

“They were switching here during the night?” Vic looked around at the empty tracks near by.

“Yes, they were.”

“They think he was drunk and walked into some moving cars?”

Ryerson coughed. “It looks that way.”

“It’s hard to believe,” Vic said slowly. “Rock was always a careful guy. He’d been around trains for almost fifty years. He started to work back East, my dad said. The two of them, just kids. Call boys.”

Ryerson coughed again. “There was the bottle, Vic.” It was the first time he had ever used Vic’s name. “I know Rock was on the stuff. Hell, I had to look the other way on Rule G more than once, there at the end when I knew he was leaving.”

Vic looked in his eye, a level stare. “What else is wrong, besides what happened to his face?”

“His chest is crushed. There’s a mark of a bar where he was hit. Like one of the grabirons on a boxcar—his clothes are stuck in it. He must have been fumbling along the side of the car when it gave one hell of a jerk.”

“How about the bottle? Was it broken?”

“It was in the pocket of his coat. Not broken, no.”

Vic walked away. He went out of the gate and across the street to a diner. He ordered a cup of coffee. Then he left it untasted on the counter and went to the pay phone on the wall near the door, put in a coin and dialed June’s number. The maid’s voice was full of sleep. It was several minutes before June came on the wire and by then Vic had lost all desire to talk to her.

“Vic?”

“June … I—” She had never met Rock. “An old friend of mine is dead. I’m going to be busy settling his affairs. I don’t think he had anybody but me.”

“Who, Vic?”

“A man named Rockfort. An old pal of my dad’s.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Vic—”

He slammed down the receiver, cutting off her words.

He went back to the yards. The L.A.P.D. men were there now, and they were preparing to take pictures and measurements and collect evidence of the accident. Vic walked up to Ryerson. “I think you and I ought to go to Rock’s room and itemize his stuff before some loot-happy bellboy hears about this.”

Ryerson nodded, took the cigar from his mouth. “I’m turning it over to you, Vic. Go ahead.”

He walked to his car. Why had he treated June like that? What was it about her voice, stumbling, trying to express her sympathy, that he found galling? She hadn’t known Rock. How could she feel sorrow at his going? He’d never be more than a name to her. The name of an old friend of Vic’s dad’s.

Her sympathy had been for Vic, a real regret over the loss of his friend. He had wakened her from a sound sleep. How could she be expected to grasp everything at once? He could have said a brief good-by instead of slamming the phone in her ear. He cursed himself under his breath as he walked to his car. His hand on the switch was shaking.

The night clerk-and-elevator man in the Stull Hotel was sweeping out the lobby with a frazzled broom. He wore a blue uniform like the day man’s but he had grown plumper since it was tailored for him and now the seams showed the strain and you could see where the buttons on the jacket had been set over. He looked up as Vic came in. “Oh, hello, Mr. Moine. Kind of early for you, ain’t it?”

“I want to go up to Rock’s room. Do you have a key?”

The clerk shook his head. “Mr. Rockfort always carries his key with him. I have a passkey, though.” His glance wavered a little. He knew that Moine, besides being Rock’s friend, was also a cop. He also had a keen nose for trouble. “Tony said he went out about six. He hasn’t come in all night. Is anything wrong, Mr. Moine?”

“He had an accident,” Vic said shortly.

“His heart acting up?”

Vic nodded. If the clerk knew that Rock was dead, he might demur about admitting Vic. And someone else might slip in, instead.

The clerk took him up in the elevator and unlocked Rock’s door, looked in before admitting Vic. “All in order. I knew he hadn’t been in.” The bed had been straightened, the scattered papers stacked on the bureau, and the remains of the lunch Vic had brought had been removed. “Let me know if I can help,” the clerk offered as he withdrew.

“Sure. Thanks.” Vic shut the door. The gray light was thin; he clicked the switch by the door.

The room gave an impression of emptiness and peace. There seemed little of Rock left in it. Vic had no trace of a feeling he had heard described that the dead person might still be there, out of sight, or might suddenly walk in. The sight of Rock lying on the gravel beside the track, his Mohawk stare obliterated by the wounds to his face, had changed even this room, his home, into something impersonal and alien.

The impression of vacancy was further increased when Vic began to take Rock’s belongings from the drawers and stack them on the bureau. Rock had kept himself poorly supplied with underthings and small personal necessities. Under some handkerchiefs were two packs of cigarettes; they looked as though they’d been hidden there for a long while. In the bottom drawer was the bottle of whisky, still about a third full, from which he had poured Rock’s drink yesterday at noon.

Without thinking much about it, Vic went into the bathroom, poured a drink from the bottle, drank it, put the cap on again and set the bottle on the dresser. The top of the bureau was getting crowded now. Vic decided to move the newspapers, ditch them into the wastebasket. As they slipped from his hands, however, he caught sight of some writings, markings, on one page, along the border.

He extracted the sheet from among the others and took it to the bed, sat down and examined it while he smoked a cigarette.

The name Byron U. Davidson had been scrawled along the margin in pencil. Five times. Some of the lettering had been doodled elaborately, as though Rock had been lying in bed with idle time on his hands and had fooled with the pencil out of boredom. Below the name, in a white space surrounding an ad, a tall lacy fence had been drawn, with little matchstick figures scrambling to its top.

Vic started to return the sheet to the wastebasket with the rest of the papers and then changed his mind. He folded the sheet and put it into his coat pocket. He went back to the dresser. He noticed the label on the bottle of whisky. It was irish whisky, seven years old. He remembered that Rock, though he drank hard, was finicky about his brand.

When he had emptied the dresser drawers he turned to the closet. Rock had three suits there. They were neat, inexpensive, and had dust on the shoulders; the pockets held a few match books, nothing more. A spare pair of shoes sat on the floor, along with a couple of suitcases. One suitcase was completely empty. The other, a cowhide Gladstone, had a collection of letters and papers in its bottom. Vic turned these out on the bed to look through them. He sorted out the old receipted bills for rent, clothes, and laundry. There were a few newspaper clippings about cases Rock had worked on; these were wrinkled and yellowing.

He found a picture, taken of the group in the office during the year before. The occasion had been the visit of some of the brass from the head office. Among those in the picture was Rock. It was a good likeness.

In a manila envelope, not new, was Rock’s social-security card and other personal identification. A savings-account book gave a balance of three hundred-odd dollars. There were also eight five-hundred-dollar government defense bonds, all past maturity. Vic’s mouth jumped when he saw how they had been filled in. All were payable on Rock’s death to Victor Houston Moine.

He went over to the window, finished a cigarette there, staring at the gray day, the city’s canyons. He wondered what Rock would have wanted him to do with the money. Keep it? Give it to some charity? Rock had been a great subscriber to funds for orphans and old folks.

He read a few of the letters, among them one from a Mother Superior in Wisconsin who wrote to thank Rock for buying baseball uniforms for the boys in the home. Vic put this letter aside. He packed all of Rock’s extra clothes and miscellaneous belongings in the suitcases, snapped them shut. He took with him the picture, the newspaper on which Rock had scribbled, and the manila envelope containing the personal papers and the bonds.

He went out, shutting the door. Downstairs he stopped at the desk. The clerk was dusting shelves under the counter. “I want to talk to Tony.”

“He’s in his room in the basement. Down them stairs there, then turn left. Room 312. Is everything going to be okay with Mr. Rockfort?”

Vic said without expression, “Rock’s dead. He had an accident in the freight yards. Will you go up now and relock his room?”

“Sure, Mr. Moine.” The fat man’s eyes were round with astonishment. He came from behind the counter. “I’m sorry to hear that. I liked Mr. Rockfort a lot. He was here a long time and he was a real nice guy.”

“I want to talk to Tony about his leaving last night.”

The fat man nodded. “Tony was here. He’ll know.”

Some tremendous snores stuttered to a stop when Vic rapped on the door. Tony came in a few minutes, rubbing his nose with his knuckles, skinny calves bare beneath the hem of an old gray bathrobe. The bare bulb in the hall ceiling shone in his tired, wet eyes. “Uhh. Mr. Moine. Hello.” He stared at Vic. “I must of overslept.” He glanced behind him, apparently at a clock. “No. Guess I didn’t.”

Vic began without preamble, “Rock was killed in the freight yards last night.”

Tony blinked several times. He brushed the thin hair back from his balding forehead. “It don’t seem possible.” He thought about it; Vic could see excitement come into his manner. “You don’t know, it worried me, him going out. I almost called you.” Tony backed into his room, motioning Vic to follow. It was a small, stuffy room. In addition to the bed and bureau supplied by the hotel, Tony had brought in a few things of his own.

A bookcase was crammed with volumes, some new and bright-jacketed, others showing years of use. There was a combination radio and record player on a stand, records in albums on the shelves below. An enormous seascape in a plain pickled-oak frame hung on the wall and gave the incredible effect of Tony’s room overlooking a panorama of rocky coast line.

“Sit here, Mr. Moine.” Tony jerked some clothes off a straight chair. “I just can’t get it through my head … about Mr. Rockfort being killed. How did it happen? He tried to catch somebody?”

“They think he was drunk and walked into a moving cut of cars.”

Tony stopped what he was doing at the closet, turned with the clothes in his hand. “No fooling?”

Vic began to light a cigarette, first offering one to Tony, who shook his head. “I want to know what sort of shape he was in when he left here.”

“There wasn’t anything wrong with him. No, sir! Oh, sure, he’d had a drink, maybe. Usually he did, before dinner. But he was as sober as I am right now, as far as a clear head went.”

“He went out to eat?”

Tony looked at the clothes in his hands. “I said in the elevator, ‘I could of brought you a tray,’ and he said, ‘Does the old carcass good to go out once in a while. Besides, I got to keep my hand in.’”

Vic said, “What was that?”

“Yeah, just them words. ‘I got to keep my hand in.’ And then he added something. He said, ‘I’m like an old war horse, Tony. I got something on my mind.’”

Seven

Vic said, “What do you think he meant by that?”

A kind of fright had come into Tony’s manner. “Why … I don’t know. It made me uneasy, though. I wondered if he meant to tackle something along the line he used to work at.”

“Did he say anything about going to the freight yards?”

“Not a word.”

“Where did he go to eat?”

“He almost always ate at Tompson’s, around the corner.”

Rock was a creature of habit, as Vic well knew.

Tony went on quickly, “I stepped out at the front entrance when he left. It was around six, close to quitting time. I wanted a breath of air and a look at the weather. On account of what Mr. Rockfort had said, I was wondering what kind of night he’d have to be out in. Foggy, maybe. You know, lots of nights he toured the bars, talking to his friends. Sometimes, though, he’d buy a magazine and read in his room or come to my place and we’d listen to records. I got a real nice collection.”

“You didn’t ask what he meant to do?”

“Oh, no. He was always passing jokes and little remarks, Mr. Moine, and always very friendly, but he didn’t like you to pin him down about things. He was touchy that way.”

The typical cop, Vic thought, playing it cagey.

Vic left the hotel and went around the corner to Tompson’s cafeteria. A big-bosomed woman at the cash register recalled Rock’s being in the night before. Around six, she thought. He’d had the corned-beef dinner—no cabbage—boiled potatoes, carrot salad, a glass of skimmed milk. She’d known Mr. Rockfort for some time and was familiar with his taste in food. It was a perfectly normal dinner for him. Normal, that is, since he had been put on a diet by the doctors. She told Vic that she was aware Mr. Rockfort suffered with heart trouble, but that on the previous evening he had seemed in good condition so far as she could tell.

Ignacio, the Filipino bus boy, had seen Rock leave, had even spoken to him for a minute at the door. Mr. Rockfort had been in a good humor, had cracked a joke or two; and among other remarks, according to Ignacio, had been one to the effect that though the ticker was on the blink, the old noggin worked just as good as ever.

An ominous feeling was growing in Vic. “What did you get out of that?”

Ignacio shook his head, his black eyes twinkling. “Mr. Rock’s a smart man. He had something he was going to do, something very clever. But he didn’t tell me. Maybe afterward, eh?”

“There won’t be any afterward. Rock’s dead.”

The cashier and the bus boy were shocked at the news, but could add nothing to what they’d already said. And in the face of tragedy, Ignacio decided that perhaps he had misinterpreted what Mr. Rockfort had meant. After all, Mr. Rockfort was dead. It was very serious. One did not meddle with the words, the meanings, of dead men.

Vic needed time to think, to meditate. He drove home, shed his coat and tie and shoes and stretched out on the bed. He smoked there, looking at the morning light reflected on the ceiling of the bedroom. An opinion, a conviction, was slowly growing in his mind.

He tried to push it away; but it returned stronger than ever.

Rock had been up to something. Like an old war horse chafing in his stall. He’d been keeping a hand in. In what?

The phone was ringing when Ryerson arrived. He dropped his hat on the desk and picked up the phone, knowing before the squawk of the voice reached him that it would be the auditor, Mr. Brice, full of righteous indignation at all chiselers, thieves, and especially check artists. He listened, nodding. Three more checks had come in, to the tune of more than seven hundred dollars. And what were Ryerson’s railroad dicks doing to earn their money?

Ryerson had shaved hastily at home after leaving the freight yards, had eaten breakfast too fast, gulped too much coffee. He felt gassy and sour. He sat down slowly, holding the phone, keeping a tight check on his temper. Uppermost in his mind was the memory of Rock’s body by the tracks, and the puzzle outlined by the L.A.P.D. detectives. Rock hadn’t been killed where they’d found him. Either he’d been knocked some distance by the blow that killed him or he’d clung, dying, to the car as it moved along; and they couldn’t find what they wanted, a spot with the kind of bloodstains made on impact, or a car marked as the one should be marked which had caught Rock across the face and chest with a pair of grabirons.

Wires had gone out to other stations, asking for a check on all trains moved out of the yards during the night.

Extra patrolmen had been shifted to the East L.A. yards. The signs of Rock’s accident might be small, hard to find. A lot of eyes were looking for them, though. Ryerson wanted that spot pinned down. He was beginning to have a funny feeling about Rock’s accident.

Mr. Brice wanted to know what had been done in the matter of Byron U. Davidson and his phony checks.

“We’ve had a break on the case. Davidson is wanted by the government. He tried to make some ten-dollar bills.”

“Well, that still doesn’t put him behind bars. Wanting isn’t the same as getting,” Mr. Brice pointed out tartly.

Pete, the office man, came in with the mail. He put down most of it, retaining a manila folder with a lot of stamps, which he opened. He took out some photostats and laid them out in front of Ryerson. Ryerson said hopefully into the phone, “I have the photostats here, Mr. Brice. Moine will take them around this morning, the markets where Davidson cashed them, and get a description and a clue to his whereabouts.” I hope, I hope, he added to himself. “Meanwhile, of course, we’ve alerted the forgery details—L.A.P.D. and the sheriff’s office. Information on the checks is being incorporated in the merchants’ protective bulletin.”

Mr. Brice was seemingly not impressed. “I believe I called your attention to the gravity of this man’s depredations.”

It almost choked Ryerson to get it out, but he said humbly, “Yes. Yes, you did, Mr. Brice.”

“The company won’t lose by it,” Mr. Brice went on, “but we can’t afford to have our legitimate claims payments confused in this manner. Soon it will be impossible for customers to whom we actually owe claims to turn our vouchers in for anything better than soap coupons.”

A joke yet, Ryerson thought in outrage. He covered the mouthpiece and delivered himself of a phrase or two which sent Pete outside to guffaw.

“Yes, you’re right,” Ryerson said finally into the phone.

“Notice that the checks bear different serial numbers,” Mr. Brice said, “indicating that they were thus serially numbered while going through the printing process. A clever forger here. Be sure to call the attention of the grocer-association members to the difference in color. Our genuine checks are pale gray; these are green. What else are you planning to do?”

“The experts at L.A.P.D. suggested that we look for a shop selling photoengraving supplies—it took some of these to reproduce the engraved insignia.”

“Good. Good. On with it then, and good luck.” His tone implied they’d better have it.

Ryerson hadn’t more than got his cigar lit when the phone rang again. This time the caller was female. Elderly, he decided. It took Ryerson a few moments to get the name straight—Mrs. McAdams—and to place her. It seemed she had further news. Someone had climbed the fence at the coach yards again last night. Later than usual—sometime after one o’clock. On this occasion she happened to be out with the dog and had had a much better view of things. There were two figures in dark shirts or sweaters, and denim pants. She was pretty sure that they were young people, juveniles. She also thought that there had been a car parked down a side street not far from her house.

“Thanks for calling,” Ryerson told her. “We’ll check on it.” He hung up and left the desk to stride to the door. Besides Pete, there were several investigators in the outer office, making out reports or checking on stuff which had just come in. Ryerson looked them over, then bellowed at Pete, “Where’s Moine?”

“Hasn’t come in yet,” said Pete with a glance at the clock.

“I want him the minute he sets foot inside the door.”

“Yes, sir.”

Ryerson half turned. “Better call his apartment.” He thought, I wonder how bad he’s going to take Rock’s death.

Pete called but Moine wasn’t at home. He had shaved, redressed, and gone out. At the moment he was in Tompson’s Cafeteria for the second time that morning, sharing a cup of coffee with Tony.

The little hotel clerk was uneasy now, in the way Ignacio had been; and Moine sensed his dread of being involved in anything official, anything which might turn out to concern even remotely cops, courthouses, coroners, judges, or investigations. “I guess I told you all I know, Mr. Moine.”

“Well … I thought, in case you remembered something.”

“Sure.” Tony eyed the big woman at the check stand. “I guess you talked to the cashier and everybody, huh?”

“Yes. He ate here, all right. He spoke to Ignacio in a way which made Ignacio think he had some errand on his mind.”

Tony remained blank.

“At the yards Ryerson said that Rock had been around off and on, visiting, keeping an eye on things. In a way, Rock never had quit the railroad.”

“I guess that’s right.”

“They retired him; but he wouldn’t give up. He was out scouting around, talking to the patrolmen when he should have been resting in bed. When his heart needed a chance to heal. Of course, there was one case Rock had never forgotten.”

Tony nodded slowly. “He told me about it. He even brought home a sketch, asked me if I’d ever seen anybody like that man. I said, no, I never had.”

“He was a cop to the end,” Vic said. “Something about his death worries me. I wish I could quit thinking about it.”

Tony sipped carefully at his cup. “If I remember anything new I’ll call you right away.”

“I’d appreciate it.”

When Vic showed up at the office Pete sent him in to Ryerson. The big Irishman was puffing on a cigar and his temperature, to judge by his complexion, was somewhat above normal. He shoved the stack of photostats over to the edge of the desk. “I want you to take these around to the markets where they were cashed and find someone who remembers Davidson.”

Vic put his fists on the desk. “You’ve forgotten something.”

Ryerson’s eyes were flat as steel, shiny. “What do you mean?” In the midst of his anger at Vic’s tone he must suddenly have known what Vic meant to say, for he snapped, “Rock? If you think I’ve forgotten Rock you’re crazy as hell.”

Vic was breathing heavily. “Just tell me this. What kind of bottle did they find on Rock’s body?”

“Muscatel. A pint. Had a few snorts left in it.”

Vic put his face closer to Ryerson’s. “It’s a fake. Rock never drank anything but irish whisky. One certain brand. He hadn’t touched anything else for years. Not since I’d known him. And that was a goddamn long time.”

Ryerson shook some ash off the cigar.

“He hadn’t gone broke,” Vic went on. “He didn’t have to come down to wine. It stinks. Stinks.”

“So … I’ll call L.A.P.D. and give them the information. If this is homicide, it’s their baby.”

“It’s my job. Rock was my friend.”

The small office was electric with the clash of wills. Ryerson’s high color had faded; he even looked a little gray, a sure sign of apoplectic rage. “Now see here, my bucko. Don’t pop any buttons over my desk. You’re not a homicide cop. You’re a cinder dick. Get that?”

Vic remained leaning, bent forward a little; and Ryerson looked into his greenish eyes and thought they were very much like a snake’s.

In the outer office Pete was watching the row, catching a muffled word or two through the glass partition. He knew how thoroughly Ryerson had been goaded by the auditor; and he marveled at the Chief’s relative control as he faced Vic’s insubordination.

He saw Vic fling away from the desk and go to the big files in the far corner and jerk out a drawer. Pete had been there for some years and had a hunch what Vic wanted. Sure enough, he came back waving a sketch under Ryerson’s nose. Pete knew all about that sketch. Every year when the files had been sorted and the inactive stuff went to the storerooms, Rock and he had had an argument about that sketch.

Ryerson turned away, perhaps to keep from doing something violent, and glanced out through the glass partition. Pete busied himself hastily at a typewriter.

Vic came out pretty soon. He had the photostats in his hand but the way he was holding them made it seem a temporary gesture. He stopped at the desk and said harshly, “Write out a letter of resignation, will you, Pete?”

He went out into the hall, punched the bell for the elevator, dropped eight floors to the street and found himself on the sidewalk in the middle of the throng, the photostats still in his hand. There was a strange ache in his jaw. He rubbed his face with the fingers of his free hand, realizing how he had ground his teeth in rage at Ryerson’s refusal to let him work on the mystery of Rock’s death.

People eddied around him, side-stepping, giving him half-curious unseeing glances. Vic went over to the shelter of the building wall. He leaned there and stared at the offending photostats. The throbbing rage was dying and now there was nothing but a sick taste in his mouth.

“I’ll quit,” he promised under his breath. “I’ll throw the damned job in his teeth.” He straightened, twisting the photostats in his closing fist, prepared to go back at once, rip the letter from Pete’s typewriter, and mash it into Ryerson’s face. The rage surged back; rage at the stubborn Chief and at some shadowy creature who had planted a muscatel bottle on Rock’s dying body.

And then it hit him. The shock spread from his conscious thought to jar his bones. In the light of the cold unassailable fact, everything he had hoped or meant to do, the years in the Army, at school, and his love for June, took on the minuscule unreality of a puppet parade. Against the background of his indecision, his uncertainty about himself, the thing was blinding … the thing Rock had said.

He tried to turn from it but its force was inexorable. He seemed to hear Rock’s voice against the shuffle of the crowd.

Something will come along and you’ll be glad that you’re a cop—

Had Rock really said that?

Something practically like it, anyway.

Vic found himself staring at the side of the building against which he leaned, dirty with the smoggy deposits of years; found himself touching the stone to test his sense of reality.

He argued with himself. Rock couldn’t have had a premonition that he would die. This was a freak, a phantom conjured out of guilt and grief. He had to escape it, throw it off. You went nuts, believing in occult connections like this.

Vic began to walk, the photostats jammed into the pocket of his coat, his stare glazed and glassy.

He refused to think. He craved to exist in a vacuum. He wanted to gaze at the passing throng, the street, the foggy light, the traffic, and let the kaleidoscopic scene dull his sense of horror. He fought the memory of Rock’s words. But their meaning froze the edges of his soul.

When I go back and rub that letter in Ryerson’s fat mug, he admitted, I’m throwing away the one chance I’ll get to do anything about Rock’s death.

The hollow feeling grew, a dazzle of confusion danced in his brain.

After I quit I could squat on the side lines and pester the cops and they’ll tell me to get lost and if I raise too much hell they’ll throw me in the can for interfering with an officer in the performance of duty.

Now where in hell did that idea come from?

Of course I want to quit.

… someday you’ll be glad. … Glad?

“I must be crazy.”

“No, you’re not.”

The voice was husky, feminine, flippant. Vic found a face gazing into his, rouged lips pouting. Lashes gooed with mascara. Eyes which didn’t quite focus and a smell of whisky. Behind the mask there must be a human being. Above the girl’s head he suddenly noticed the neon outline of a giraffe.

“Vic!”

“Hello, Boots.”

“My God, you remembered me. You were pretty drunkie yesterday. I wasn’t sure you’d know me the next time.” She wore a gray coat over a green silk dress. Her hair looked lifeless under the thin foggy light. There were dark smudges under her eyes and the skin there had a fevered tightness. She lurched against him, clutching his arm. “How about an eye opener, Vic?”

“You said it.” He took her elbow. Her arm was thin inside the sleeve and she was shaking. Above all the confusion in his thoughts he felt a surge of anger that this girl’s life should come to this.

They went into the HighBoy Room and there was the same man in what looked like the same white pants and white canvas apron, with the same gold ring in his ear.

In the booth she moved close. “Chilly this morning. Vic, look, I like you, and if you want a … a favor, don’t hesitate to ask.” Her tone hurried and trembled over the words. “I mean, gee, I appreciate you getting me a drink. And I’m … I’m all right.”

He took her hand in his. The fingers were cold at the tips like the fingers of someone dying. He could guess that last night she’d been brassy, raucous, conniving; might even have helped roll a drunk or two; had passed into a state of walking catalepsy in which she neither knew nor cared what happened to her. Now she was like a beaten animal.

“I’ll take a rain check.”

She pressed him, shivering. “I think I saw your friend last night.”

“My friend?” His thought was for Rock.

“That Mr. Davidson you were so keen on meeting.”

Eight

The kitchen was warm and close, moist with the smell of recent dishwashing. Cigarette smoke floated against the bare bulb in the ceiling. The girl at the sink took a last dawdling swipe at the drainboard, then wrung the cloth, hung it neatly across the faucet. As if regretful that the task had ended, she did not turn away at once. The window blind above the sink lacked about six inches of meeting the sill, and through this space she could see the sloping yard below the house and the fences of neighboring property. In the foggy light the uncared-for yard had an air of abandonment. The lawn was dead, a little rocky fish pond lay half buried in trash and weeds, a carton of old bottles and cans had burst and spilled in the corner next to the garage. The only signs of life were some red geraniums, watered through a neighbor’s bounty, huddled against the fence.

At the other end of the narrow kitchen a second woman sat in a straight chair, knitting something of red wool. She paused in her work to shift the needles, freeing a hand. She took up a cigarette from an ash tray, drew on it, expelled smoke, crushed out the cigarette. “What do you see out there?”

The girl started slightly. “Nothing. It’s getting lighter.”

“I think you had better draw the blind.”

The girl pulled down the blind and moved away from the sink. From some other room came the sound of a baby’s fretting. The girl stood still until the sound died; the other woman went on knitting. She was in her early thirties, slender, dark-haired. She wore a plain black dress. Her appearance was quite neat, almost stark. She worked at the knitting as if at the end of some certain row of stitches something was bound to interrupt; and she must first get through as much as possible.

The girl who had turned from the sink and now stood listening for the baby’s cry was a blonde, not more than twenty, shorter and less slender than the other woman. She had fine fair skin, pink now from the warmth of the kitchen. Her hair had been pulled back carelessly, tied with a ribbon; it showed a lack of attention. There had been a permanent, months ago, and it had grown out so that now there was only a faint curl at the ends. Her unnaturally heavy breasts strained at the buttons of the cheap cotton print. A pocket was tom, and the dishwater had left a damp line across her belly. As she moved nearer the door the seated woman gave her a single summarizing glance, in her eyes a mixture of sly contempt and cruel amusement. The girl shrank under that look.

“Maybe I’d better peek at him.”

“Let him sleep. You nursed him. You dried him.” She made it sound like the doings of an animal. The knitting needles flashed in the light.

“Well, maybe I’d better turn him over.”

“He’s big enough to turn himself when he feels like it.”

The girl in the cotton print stared into the other room, the room beyond the door, plucking at the wet spot over her navel. Obviously she wanted to cross that threshold, to escape the small immaculate woman in the chair, “I’ll get a magazine to look at.”

“Sit down. I want to talk to you.”

There were three chairs pushed in against the table; the girl looked them over carefully. All at once the woman in black kicked one out. “Here.” The girl sat down. “I heard you talking to Willy about an hour ago. Then he went out.”

The girl said nothing.

“Was he drinking?”

The girl wove her fingers together and stared into her cupped palms. “I never can tell whether he is or not.”

“You’ve got to help watch him. What did he talk about?”

“The same things he always talks about. The railroad. How he saved the bridge that time. The men he remembers from the road gangs.”

The woman in black dropped the knitting in her lap, took a pack of cigarettes off the table, selected one, lit it from a book of matches. She smoked in silence, looking at the girl. “Has he ever offered you a drink?”

The girl shook her head without looking up.

“He has bottles hidden all over the place. You know that, don’t you?”

“I—I find them sometimes.”

A thin, pinched kind of smile touched the woman’s mouth. “You’re not tempted?”

“I have to think of my milk,” said the girl.

“So you do.” The woman put the cigarette on the ash tray.

It was quiet in the kitchen, a muffled stillness compounded by the fog outdoors. The girl sat without moving. She seemed withdrawn into a shell, forcing herself to be calm, awaiting the older woman’s dismissal.

After a while the woman looked over her knitting to remark, “When the weather warms up you must take the baby out in a carriage.”

The girl nodded warily.

“It will be nice to push him in the sunshine. Good for him too.”

The girl looked off into the other room. It was furnished with an old living-room suite, gray velour with tassels hanging from the armrests, a faded pink rug, a big old-fashioned round dining table in the middle of the floor with a big lamp on a lace doily. The lamp was lit and cast a circle of brightness in the middle of the closed gloomy room.

The knitting needles clicked in the silence. “I’ll help you choose a nice carriage for him. Sometime soon.” The tone was warmer but the girl showed no response to it. She seemed terrifically contained within herself, locked off, her manner humble and at the same time guarded, as if refusing some contest offered by the other woman.

The other woman seemed to wait, disapproval gathering in her manner, her gaze on her knitting. “Well … don’t you have anything to say?”

The girl answered promptly. “No, ma’am.”

“I don’t like that phrase. You sound stupid. Like a servant.”

“I forgot.” The baby whimpered suddenly and the girl jumped from the chair. “I’m going to look at him.” She flew from the kitchen, crossed the inner room, disappeared through a door beyond. The muffled crying ceased.

The woman in black appeared to listen, then to dismiss it from her attention. In a few minutes she put her knitting carefully on the table, thrust the needles into it. She cupped her eyes with her palms briefly. Then she stood up and moved over to a cupboard by the sink. She took down a tall bottle of yellowish liqueur and a tiny glass. She measured slowly, filling the glass to the last drop.

She turned quickly. Heavier footsteps than those of the girl were crossing the other room. For a moment her face tensed and brightened. Then a man of perhaps sixty, gray and stooped, came to the kitchen doorway. He wore a brown suit. It was a cheap suit but it was neatly brushed and pressed. He had on a plain white shirt, a black tie, and a brown felt hat pushed to the back of his head. At some time he had suffered an injury to the left side of his face; a scar cut across his ear and the flesh was drawn there by a red mark. Even with this he was not a noticeable kind of man. His general appearance was work-worn and dull. The woman gave him a single cold, fixed glance and went back to the chair by the table, carrying the tiny glass of liquid.

He watched her. When she sat down he said in a slightly uneven tone, “Want some whisky to chase that?”

“I never drink whisky.” She sipped at the liqueur. “Didn’t I see you go out a while ago?”

“Go in and out all the time, any time I please.” Suddenly, as if noticing her displeasure with him, a look of sly mischief crossed his face. “Who wants to know?”

“Well, you know how David feels.”

“I didn’t think David had time to think about me.” He waited, a slight smile pinching his lips; but when she made no answer he walked over to the sink, took a water tumbler from the cupboard, then stooped and fished in a pile of pots below and brought up a fifth of bourbon. He brought the whisky and the glass to the table, sat down, poured a drink.

“Now that’s worth drinking.” He exhaled loudly. The slim woman turned her head. He went on, “You know, David’s got a nice setup here but I can’t see that the rest of us are doing so well. The girl’s stuck with the baby. He’s a cute bugger, but he’s a liability just the same. Now you—you got practically nothing. No fancy clothes. Not even a diamond wedding ring.” He paused to stare at her slyly.

She glanced automatically at her hand, at the plain gold band on her finger.

“But look what David rates!” he went on. “Look what he rates here, under one roof. Under one roof.”

He waited; a faint color stung her cheeks; the needles clicked and flashed.

“David doesn’t want you going to bars,” she said finally.

“David says—” He grinned. “What was David when I looked him up? A pencil-pushing clerk, that’s what.”

An odd look crossed her face, as if some memory had touched her.

“At any rate,” Willy continued, “you’ll have to admit we all know what he is now.” He jerked his head toward the door to the inner room.

She knitted without looking up, pretending not to hear.

In the small back bedroom, which was nothing but an old screened porch boarded in, the girl knelt by the wicker basket and listened to the breathing of the baby. She couldn’t see much of him—just the pale button-tip of his nose and a couple of fingers left standing straight when he had dropped off to sleep. The folded blanket shaded the rest. She could smell him. He had a washed, powdered, and freshly sweating smell that she loved. Something, she thought, like warm milk and flowers, blended together.

As she knelt she could feel the heaviness in her breasts, the pressure of the tight cotton frock David had bought long ago. It would soon be time to nurse him again. Kneeling there, listening to his breath, she was aware of what a storehouse she represented for her son, the food for his body, the meticulous care and love. He needed her with such urgency; and she had such riches to offer. She rubbed a hand against the wicker, glad that he was asleep and yet yearning for him to wake. Eager to offer the arms, the breast, the belly in which he had lain, now a cushion for his softness….

If he and I could be alone, she thought.

I wouldn’t ever tell him who his father was, she told herself. I’d pretend. I’d take another name. Not the old one. Not Pitts.

Merna Pitts. She mouthed it, hating it, linking it to the slatternly rooming house and her father’s snuff and her mother’s eternal backaches. On the back porch there had always been a pail of gray water with a scum of filth, and her mother’s wet mop beside it. There must have been times when the pail had been empty; she’d just never seen it that way.

Her white kitten, the one pet she’d ever owned, had climbed the mop in a playful moment, had drowned in the gray murk.

She’d been twelve then. Already filling out. Already attracting the stares of the roomers.

Merna laid her forehead on the wicker rim lightly and thought how nice it was in here, how peaceful, and how removed from the kitchen and the strange scornful woman who was always knitting, or patching, or crocheting something she never seemed to finish. Every time she thought of the other woman she felt queer inside, as if something terribly strong had gripped her heart and squeezed all the blood out of it, and as if the drained organ sucked and gasped and struggled before it could go on beating.

It was a horrible feeling and she had no control over it. She couldn’t even keep her mind away from the woman. It always occurred to her, too, that Fay was the real one, and she was … just something else.

The rooming house with the eternal pail of filthy water on the back porch had been bad enough. Her father’s spittoon and her mother’s backaches included. But this was worse. This was even worse than Jansen’s.

When Merna was thirteen her mother had died from something not at all connected with the back which had tormented her for so long. Merna’s father had put her with a family who had let her work for her room and board. At Jansen’s she was supposed to go to school, too, but after the first few weeks they had made her drop out. It was away out in the country in the scrubby hills behind San Diego, and no one had ever come to see why she no longer went to school.

She had learned to work in the alfalfa fields and with the stock. Some bad things had happened to her—she shut them out of her mind quickly—and then Mrs. Jansen had made her sleep in the attic and had put a padlock on the outside of the door and had worn the key on a string around her neck. Mrs. Jansen locked her in at night and let her out in the morning exactly as she did the chickens in the hen house.

At night on the pallet in the attic she could hear the Jansens in the room below. There was always a big argument as they prepared for bed, something to do with the running of the farm or why Mr. Jansen wouldn’t go to church and be saved, or perhaps why he shouldn’t go into San Diego and get a job in one of the aircraft factories.

Afterward, there were snores.

There had been a young man working for them, too, but when Merna had begun to be locked in the attic he had gone away.

When Mr. Jansen finally pulled out and found a job in San Diego and only came home every other weekend, Mrs. Jansen worked herself and the girl so hard that they became sick. Some sort of virus was going around. Mrs. Jansen got great hollow places under her eyes and her breath smelled hot and musty. She began to have waking religious nightmares. In her delirium she put the sick girl into the attic and locked her up and forgot her. Merna spent several days up there with nothing but a glass of water. When she began to feel better she found she couldn’t get out. She could hear Mrs. Jansen below, raving in fever.

Her puzzlement gave way to panic. Seeing she was going to starve to death anyway, she smashed out the attic window with a broken chair and tried to climb down the steeply pitched roof. She fell off and broke her arm.

A curious neighbor had finally looked in on them, had taken them both to the hospital. Mrs. Jansen was dying of pneumonia and Merna had something the doctors called malnutrition, in addition to the broken arm. The hospital interlude had been one of fascinating kindness and adventure to Merna. She had hated to leave, to go back to her father.

After a year with him, helping him and a woman named Sherry run a rooming house which was practically a duplicate of her mother’s, she had walked out and found a job as a waitress. And working in that café, she had met David Bryant.

She often tried, these days, to think of him as he had seemed to her then; but the image was getting harder and harder to recapture. Mixed up with the romantic dazzlement were all the truths she had learned since. And the face of the woman in the kitchen rose, white and threatening, against the background of her muddled thoughts.

Her hands tightened on the wicker. Behind the white face and the cold eyes was an evil that meant to destroy the helpless young thing in the basket. She knew it, sensed it. Her fright was an icy sickness, grown into the marrow of her bones. It was a taste, like the smell of Mrs. Jansen’s breath, on the back of her tongue. It was an ache behind her eyes.

The baby stirred and whimpered in his bed. She unbuttoned the cotton frock as she reached for the blanket to pull it away.

In the simple primal act of nursing the child she was at peace.

In the kitchen Willy was staring at the ceiling. He had his hands locked about the glass on the table, as if to keep it from spilling, or as if someone might snatch it away. The woman beside the table knitted in silence.

“What are you making?” Willy asked suddenly.

She shrugged. “Oh … I’m just practicing some stitches that are difficult for me. It’s … nothing.”

“I thought maybe you were making something for him.” His nod toward the other room indicated the baby, who had whimpered a moment ago but now was still.

“I’m not.”

“What do you think of him? Think he looks like David?”

She lifted a glance toward him; he lowered his own eyes in embarrassment. “Don’t ever say that to me again.”

“Okay. Okay.”

She lapsed for a while into silence; and then, as if speaking of another matter entirely, and in a different sort of voice, she said, “He needs a carriage. You go into town quite a bit. Look around for something. Along Main Street—”

He made some muffled protest.

“Of course you do. I know you do. The thing is, along Main, along with the honky-tonk bars, there are a lot of pawnshops and secondhand stores. I want you to look in them for a secondhand baby carriage.”

He rubbed his face. “All of a sudden.”

She assumed a smile which Willy realized was entirely false. “Oh no. Babies need sunshine and air. He needs to get out.”

“What about money?”

“Here.” She put a hand into the pocket of the black shirt and pulled out a couple of five-dollar bills. “You should get a carriage for three or four dollars. It doesn’t have to be fancy. Spend the rest any way you please.”

He picked up the money, twisted it in his fingers. “Do you mean it?”

“Of course I mean it.”

Willy stuck the money into the side pocket of his brown coat. He thought, she really does want me to bring home a baby carriage. At the same time he was under no delusion as to her motive. Though he lacked Merna’s humble awareness of evil, he was an old hand at suspicion. And what he suspected about Fay made a prickling run along his nerves.

Fay had figured out a way to destroy the baby, and the carriage figured in it somehow. Probably she meant to push the kid, carriage and all, under a truck.

You’d never know. Until she did it.

Nine

Vic said, “When was this you saw Davidson?”

“I kind of lost track of the time. It was late, though. Lots of people in here.”

“It happened here?”

“Sure. That’s what I said. Didn’t I?”

“Never mind. Go on.”

“Well, I was at the bar with a Navy feller. Kind of cute. On my other side was this old man and I noticed him staring at me in the mirror back of the bar, only of course I didn’t pay much attention.”

“Why not?”

Boots’s eyes were round. “I was with this Navy guy and he was buying the drinks. Why should I notice an old geezer in a brown suit?”

Vic nodded. The bartender brought the drinks, Vic paid; the man with the ring in his ear went away.

“Like I said—” She paused to down the whisky in a gulp. “There he was and there I was, at the bar, and then right behind me, from somebody at a table, I heard that name—Byron U. Davidson. And this old guy turned around. You know … the way you do when some-body speaks your name? At least, that’s what it looked like to me.”

Had she dreamed it? Admittedly, she’d lost track of time.

He said carefully, “Did he turn in the way you were sitting? That is, so that you got a better look at him?”

“Sure.” She looked restlessly over toward the bar and Vic signaled for another drink, a single. “He had a lot of spots … brown, mottled spots … on his face. The way old people have. Liver spots, my grandma called them. And there was something more, a kind of … of twistedness.” She squinted, puckered her mouth. “As if he’d hurt the side of his head. Or his ear. And the flesh had drawn up in the healing.”

Vic could scarcely believe what he had heard. He remembered so plainly what Mrs. Raines had said out at the beach when he and Towers, the Secret Service man, had interviewed her. The man who had rented the old isolated house at the beach had had an injured ear.

“What happened next?”

Boots was smiling dazedly. “You know … I forget! Honest, I do. I was talking to this Navy sailor and I sort of forgot about the old geezer and then we walked over to a table where a guy was treating. We talked to some other couples there. I guess that’s all I know.”

It sounded like something conjured up by alcohol—except for that item about the injured ear. Vic beckoned to the bartender, who came over fingering the gold ring in his ear. Vic suspected that the bartender had begun to spot him for a cop; and the suspicion deepened to certainty when the man showed no surprise at sight of the check photostats. Vic pulled out the one which had been passed here, offered it; and the bartender examined it closely after a brief look at Vic. There was little warmth in that look.

“She says he was in here last night.”

“Could be.” The bartender put down the photostat, shrugged. “I took a couple hours off. What time?” he demanded of Boots.

“I forget.”

The bartender glanced from her to Vic; his eyes warned Vic not to take it too seriously. “Well … this is going to bounce?” He tapped the photostat.

“It’s on its way back to you now.”

The bartender’s gaze took on a distant and thoughtful expression. “Like I said before—he had some identification, something about a railroad.”

“The ID was forged too.”

“That’s all I know then.” The bartender took their empty glasses back to the bar.

Vic took Rock’s sketch from his pocket and spread it on the table. “Look at this, Boots. Did you ever see this character?”

She inspected the sketch Rock had had made long ago. “It’s not a picture, I mean a camera picture, is it?”

“An artist made it.” He began to tell her about Rock, spilling out the story of the old man’s life, the facts of his death. All the while Boots’s eyes got bigger and bigger and she drew away farther into the corner of the booth.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone like that. Are you a cop, Vic?”

“I’m a railroad cop.”

She seemed stunned. Vic judged that she was thinking back, trying to recall all of their conversations, checking what she might have said. It was a difficult task; probably yesterday’s encounter was pretty fuzzy.

“What are you afraid of?” Vic asked irritably, “I’m just doing a job. I’m not going to drag you into anything. This Byron U. Davidson is a check artist. A paper hanger. What do you owe a forger, for God’s sake?”

She licked her dry mouth. Her eyes settled past him, as if he were too scary to look upon.

“As for Rock … well, it was just a wild hunch, thinking you might have seen that character, that bum he chased out of a boxcar years ago.”

“… killed a kid?” she muttered.

“That’s right. And Rock saw the kid afterward and never forgot.”

“I’ll … let you know. If I see him.” Vic’s bitter eyes must have stung her, for she reassured him quickly. “No, I mean that. I really will.”

“Sure you will, kid.” Vic patted her hand gently and stood up. He walked over to the bar and dropped a couple of dollars on the shiny mahogany. “Let her have two or three for the road.”

The black eyes bathed him in scorn. “For the road? Are you kiddin’? She’ll be right here at midnight.” He put down a polished glass and picked up a wet one.

“And don’t cash any more checks for Byron U. Davidson.”

There was no reply to this.

Walking south on Main, Vic passed a photographer’s shop, turned, went back. He left the sketch there to be copied; if he showed it many times, it would fall to pieces. The paper was old and brittle, the ink fading. He also left the photograph which showed Rock among others in the office group, with instructions for Rock’s head and shoulders to be cut out and enlarged, mug-shot style. When he had these to work with, he promised himself, he’d come back to skid row and try to track Rock’s route last night, try to find out if he might have run into that never-forgotten adversary.

With this out of the way, Vic walked to the office building, took the elevator to the basement garage and checked out a company car. For the next five hours he drove, and talked to market managers and checkout girls and box boys, and then drove again. He crossed Los Angeles from Rosemead to Santa Monica. A pattern began to develop; it was puzzling, frustrating. None of the markets where Davidson had passed his big checks had photo devices. He’d been too clever to be pinned down like that. However, some of the market employees had pretty fair memories. Some of the check-stand girls remembered Davidson for—of all things—his good looks. He had been, they assured Vic, a real handsome guy.

This was so far off Boots’s and Mrs. Raines’s descriptions of an older man with liver spots and a twisted ear that Vic was somewhat angered by it. Then he forced himself to settle down, wash his mind of preconceived ideas, and listen. He made notes of what he learned. It was aggravating.

A short while after four o’clock he returned to the office. He saw Pete giving him the high sign from across the room and shook his head, went directly into Ryerson’s den. The Chief glanced up. His shoulders stiffened; he spread his hands on the blotter. “Well—”

The tone invited dispute but Vic merely drew up a chair and dropped the photostats on the edge of the desk. “I toured all of the markets where Davidson cashed his big checks. Except, of course, what Brice got in today. What I’ve gathered is really weird. Davidson—the market Davidson—has no resemblance to the man who rented the house in Ventura. That Davidson seems to have cashed the checks on skid row.”

Ryerson was looking noticeably more friendly.

“The man who hit the markets is a big guy, six feet or so, about thirty, smooth sallow complexion, regular features. He identified himself with a driver’s license under the Davidson name and giving the Ventura beach address. In several of the stores he was asked to fill in an identity card, and in these cases he gave his business as that of a partner in an importing firm. The firm doesn’t exist. It was a good cover for the shipping losses and made the claims checks look logical. Several of the girl cashiers remembered him pretty clearly and remarked how good-looking he was.”

Ryerson leaned back in his chair; the swivel joint creaked.

“Now, Mrs. Raines’s description of her tenant corresponds to that of a man seen on skid row as late as last night. Twisted or injured ear, and all.”

“One’s a stooge working on a commission,” Ryerson surmised.

“Could be. I thought of it,” Vic said. “But then I remembered something else and it occurred to me that the partnership may be even closer. Mrs. Raines thinks that two men lived at the beach house, along with the two women. Towers didn’t go for her theory, or at least didn’t seem to go for it. I guess he figures nobody could live there without leaving fingerprints.”

“What gave her the idea of the two men?”

Vic told Ryerson about the bit of rug made out of strips of loud socks and Ryerson looked disappointed. “That’s not much. No wonder Towers didn’t buy it.”

“I’ve got a hunch she’s right,” Vic insisted. “It’s the kind of thing a woman would sense. And a man—even a sharp agent like Towers—might miss. She thought, for instance, because of sand in the sack along with the work, that the woman who started the rug had sat out on the beach to do it.”

Ryerson reached for the phone. “I’ll get hold of Towers.”

Vic waited, lighting a cigarette and smoking it, while Ryerson got Towers on the line. Then they had a sort of three-cornered conversation with Ryerson in the middle. Towers decided to go back to the beach house in the morning; and Vic agreed to go with him.

When Ryerson hung up he wore a satisfied look. “We’re going to get this cooky. Maybe it stacks up like this. The old guy is an old-line photoengraver; but he’s gone downhill, he’s a lush. Now he’s in the hands of a smart young crook.”

Vic nodded, got to his feet. Ryerson looked up at him.

“Do you want to hear about Rock?”

“Sure,” Vic said evenly.

Ryerson folded his hands on the blotter. His eyes got hard, as if he expected some sass from Vic. “We can’t find any sign that Rock’s accident took place in the East L.A. yards. There’s nothing on the ground, nothing on any car or Diesel.”

“I told you. It stinks.”

Ryerson took his hands off the blotter and swung in his chair so that he faced the light from the big air well that opened up the middle of the building. Across the way in another office a girl wearing a bright blue dress was punching away at an adding machine. “L.A.P.D. is going ahead on the assumption it’s homicide.”

Vic felt a great surge of relief. “I’m glad to hear it. What about the post-mortem?”

“Crushed chest. Skull fractures. They’re testing for alcohol in the blood.”

“Rock wasn’t drunk. He could hold his liquor; and besides, he’d had a big dinner. Somebody took him into the yards, put him by the tracks, to make it look like an accident.” Vic thought to himself, most of all somehow he resented the bottle of muscatel.

Ryerson beat a tattoo with his nails while he thought about something. “I don’t want to duplicate what L.A.P.D. is doing; but perhaps you’d better go out there and scout around the neighborhood. The bars might be your best bet. See if any customers left late, anybody they know that you can get hold of to talk to. Check what the barkeeps saw too; it might have happened around closing time. There aren’t any people living there to speak of—” He broke off, frowning, swung to face Vic again. “Well, there is Mrs. McAdams. And I want you to go see her. She says somebody climbed the fence again last night.”

“Sure he did. Burns must have left a report on it. The man’s in jail. He wanted a diner rug for his trailer.”

“No, that didn’t clear it up. This was later and there were two of them.”

It sounded crazy to Vic. He had long since dismissed the affair of Mrs. McAdams and her climbing men.

“She’s pretty positive now that they’re juveniles,” Ryerson added.

Vic wondered if the little old lady, in spite of her reasonable demeanor, might be touched in the head.

He drove east from Main and out to the yards. It was crowding the end of the afternoon now; the fog smelled stale and the thin sunlight was listless. He circled a few blocks. It was a district of warehouses, metal industries, wholesale-food operators and junk yards. There were only two bars whose homeward-bound customers might have been expected to notice any activity in the yards. The L.A. cops had already been to both but Vic asked his questions anyway. Neither barkeeper remembered any late customers whose identities were known. Each promised to keep an ear open for any significant talk during the evening ahead.

He described Rock’s appearance. It seemed Rock hadn’t been in either saloon.

It didn’t surprise him. His suspicions now were that Rock had at last run into the man he had hunted for so long, perhaps, in light of Ignacio’s statement, even had a clue to his whereabouts. He had tried to follow the quarry and had walked into an ambush. Probably not too far from here. The man was a hobo from away back, used to trains—look at the original crime—and his first impulse had been to put Rock where it might look as if a train had killed him.

Vic abandoned the bars and looked up a couple of the night watchmen in the area. One of them had noticed a car parked by the steel-link fence, at around 4 A.M. He thought it had been a gray sedan. He hadn’t gone across the street to investigate because the property bordering the fence belonged to the railroad and he had no desire to attract the attention of any yard patrolman who might think he was up to something.

This seemed to be all the available information, for the time being. Vic drove over to Mrs. McAdams’ house, parked at the curb, went up to the porch. He heard the dog’s big toenails on the floor inside before Mrs. McAdams opened the door a couple of inches.

“Who? Oh, Mr. Moine. Please come in.” She widened the entry and Vic followed her into the parlor. The dog seemed to remember him. There was even a faint wag of the tail. “Sit down there. Did the man in your office tell you about my phone call?”

“Yes. That’s why I came. Thanks for calling again, Mrs. McAdams. We arrested one man last night and if we hadn’t heard from you we would have thought the matter ended.” He explained about John Hadley and the new rug; she seemed to find it highly interesting. “Now it seems there must be others.”

She nodded vigorously. “I’m sure these are the ones I saw before.”

“You did get a better look at them?”

“Yes, I did. I also may have seen their car. At least, there was a car parked down the street. I—I don’t want to get innocent people into trouble, however. I couldn’t swear that the car belonged to the people I saw climbing the fence.”

“I understand. What make was it? What color?”

“I don’t know a great deal about automobiles. And the light out there isn’t too good. I would say, though, that the car was pale in color, either a very pale beige or a light gray. I haven’t any idea of the make, except that it wasn’t one of the big ones, not a Packard or Cadillac or anything like that.”

She hesitated, looking thoughtful. Vic said, “Anything else?”

“It had been—how can I explain?—remodeled. The carriage lowered in some way so that it sat very low to the ground. The way some of the young people fix them.”

“A hot rod.”

She nodded, smiling a little. “Yes, that’s what I mean.”

The house was full of the smell of food. Mrs. McAdams had something in the oven for dinner. A pork roast, Vic decided. Sweet potatoes and baked apples. He felt an intense surge of hunger and remembered all at once that all he had had during the day was the coffee he’d shared with Tony.

He forced his thoughts off the food. “What else did you notice?”

“I’m afraid that’s all.” Her wise old eyes drifted from him to the windows. The view was that of the big paved lot, the square behinds of trucks, the maze of the coach yards, and the commissary building in the distance. “I hope that you can clear this up soon, Mr. Moine. I’m getting very nervous over it.”

Under the nervousness, Vic thought, was a touch of excitement that was half pleasure. He told her that they would keep working on it, told her good-by, and left. He drove downtown again, checked the company car in for the last time. Before going up to the office he returned to the photographer’s place for the copies of Rock’s sketch and Rock’s mug shot. Upstairs, Ryerson was getting ready to leave for the day. He paused with his coat in his hands to listen to Vic’s report on Mrs. McAdams.

“Do you want another stake-out?” Vic asked in conclusion.

Ryerson pulled the coat on, took his hat off the tree. “No, I’ll put the patrolmen on it. You get a good night’s sleep. I want you on your toes tomorrow. You and Towers are going to dig up this Davidson cooky.” His tone promised they’d better. A few more checks and Brice might descend on them in person.

“Rock made a suggestion about the trespassers,” Vic said slowly, remembering that last talk between them. “He said we ought to check the shacks. They could be going in behind the commissary because it’s dark there, stealing something somewhere else.”

Ryerson nodded. “I’ll leave word for Burns to handle it.”

“What do you think of my dropping in at the HighBoy Room after dinner?”

“Good idea.” Ryerson was all thawed out now and had forgotten the bad time Vic had given him that morning. “Old or young, we’ve got to get them both.”

Vic took the elevator back to the basement, got into his own car and headed for home. When he started up the stairs to his flat he saw a figure crouched against the wall at the top, indistinct in the dim light. An irrational sense of danger, born of wariness, jarred him; and in a reflex motion his hand started for the holster under his left arm.

Then she stood up and he saw that it was June. She waited while he climbed the stairs. She looked drawn, he thought, as if she might have been waiting there for hours.

She put her arms around him and leaned against him. “Vic.”

He touched her hair. “I’m sorry about the phone call.”

“Don’t talk about it.”

It was quiet and dark on the small landing; June’s closeness, her warmth and fragrance, drove from his mind the frustrations of the day. It occurred to him that it might be easier now to slip back into the kind of life June and Arnold Grem wanted him to live. Rock wasn’t around to keep telling him he ought to be a cop.

Ten

They went into the dark flat and Vic turned on the lights, and after a single glance at him June said, “You look just dead, darling. Lie down on the couch while I make some coffee.”

“All right.” But instead he caught her, crushed her against him, and kissed her savagely. He put such pressure on her mouth that it seemed to him he could feel the frail bones of her face through the flesh; and this sensation was frightening, filling his mind with a knowledge of June’s mortality. She was, after all, a creature of flesh and bone who wouldn’t live forever—and he was throwing away the years.

She pulled away and said anxiously, “You’re not mad at me, somehow?”

“No.”

“That kiss felt … angry.”

“Try this then.”

They clung, his lips against her temple. She was warm and yielding. But Vic suddenly pushed her from him. He went to the couch and dropped on it, sat with his elbows on his knees, not looking at her. June brushed at her hair. Her manner was excited, there was a sparkle in her eyes and a flush of color in her skin. “Vic.”

“Make the coffee, will you?”

“Darling, we always seemed to be together in the middle of some party or other, or going somewhere important to please Dad, and we never did talk much about—sex.”

“We’re not going to talk about it now.” He stretched out and covered his eyes with an arm.

“No?”

“No.”

“Why not, then?”

“We just aren’t.”

She moved toward the door to the kitchen, then paused. “You don’t have to go out again, do you?”

“Yes.” He sat up, realizing that he still had all the stuff in his overcoat pockets. He removed the coat and went over to a table and began to empty the pockets, spreading Rock’s possessions under the light. June watched him for a moment, her excitement ebbing; then she dropped her own jacket on a chair and went into the kitchen. He heard her running water into the percolator.

He put Rock’s savings bonds and the personal papers into the table drawer. He found the folded sheet of newsprint with Rock’s doodling in the border. He had this spread on the table and was still staring at it when June came back with cups and saucers.

“What sort of job have they given you?”

“It’s a private affair.”

“Private, between you and the railroad?”

“Just a job of my own.”

She stopped, the cups in her hands. “Won’t it keep until tomorrow?”

“No.”

She went back for sugar and cream and spoons. She put this all on the corner of the table. Vic folded the newssheet and tucked it into the drawer with the other stuff. “Vic, let me go along.”

“Skid row?” He was about to refuse abruptly when it occurred to him that if he did turn up anything which might lead to danger, he could send her home in a cab. The whole idea was crazy, of course. “You won’t like it.”

“Take me with you,” she pleaded.

He put back into his coat pocket the mug shot he had had made of Rock and the photographic copy of the sketch. Over the coffee he explained to June what he meant to do. As he talked she grew quiet and her manner turned serious. Vic, sensing her withdrawal, thought to himself that this was all utterly strange to June. She had never before consciously considered his job, the kind of work he did, its seamy brutality or the kind of people with which it involved him.

There were some moments of silence. Then she said quietly, “Would you rather I went home now?”

“Yes, I would.”

“I’m not going to do it.” She stared into his eyes. “You think I’m a chickenhearted dunce, don’t you?”

He shrugged. “You never knew Rock. What’s all this to you?”

She put a small clenched fist on the table; and Vic realized that under the confused withdrawal she was reorienting herself. “He was your friend. Let’s just leave it that way, shall we?”

“Don’t get any glorified ideas about being a cop’s wife or any of that screwy rot,” Vic warned.

“You must introduce me to some cops’ wives sometime,” she said coolly.

Vic thought, now what did she mean by that? Sometimes June seemed as transparent as a child, almost simple—Daddy’s girl, interested in a new party dress or a charm bracelet or the possibility of a down payment on a convertible. And then again, she surprised him and baffled him; and he wondered what really went on inside her head.

At midnight they emerged from a honky-tonk on upper Main Street and Vic said, “That’s it. We’re going home.”

There was no sign of fatigue about her. She had kept her make-up in strict repair. Her eyes had the clearness of morning. “I can take a cab back to your place and get my car—if you want to go on.”

“No, it’s no use.” He felt stale and washed-out. The act of showing Rock’s picture and the sketch had become a mechanical gesture; the questions had settled into rote. His determination to hold an attitude of interest and authority was weakened by a growing hunch that he was somehow on the wrong track. “I’ve got to rest my feet and use my head.”

“Why were you so sure?”

They walked slowly toward the middle of the block. “I knew Rock’s routine.”

“These are awfully … ratty places.” She hesitated over the adjective and Vic sensed that she didn’t want him to feel that she was criticizing his friend.

“Well, it was like this. Rock had been married once, a long time ago, and then divorced; and in the years since, he had settled into a … a rut. He lived in hotels close to his job. In that case, here in L.A. it meant close to skid row. When the railroad retired him he didn’t move. Why should he? All his friends were here. He had a kind of social life, if you could call it that, in dropping in for a few drinks here and there during an evening when he felt like it.” Vic stopped speaking but he went on thinking about Rock. He knew June couldn’t understand why anyone would deliberately limit his life to a district like this. He thought, also, that in a way she was right, it was hard to comprehend the force of habit and of old associations; and that in a way Rock’s existence had been sterile and out of balance, everything about it cast in the rigid mold of years and of his bachelorhood. Then he remembered the letter from the Mother Superior of the orphanage. “He had some very private charities.”

“I wish I might have known him.”

They came to the corner and Vic touched her elbow to turn her toward the parking lot where he had left the car. She stood close while he unlocked the car door. “What will you do now?”

“Try to figure something else.”

“You don’t think he ran into this—this murderer last night?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you mind my asking questions about it?”

“I can’t answer them,” Vic said shortly.

When they reached the flat again Vic parked his car immediately behind hers and put her firmly in behind the wheel of the big convertible. Then he left his own car in the street, went upstairs, undressed and fell into bed. He had expected to lie awake, picking at the puzzle of Rock’s death; but exhaustion swept over him and he went almost immediately to sleep.

Sometime during the night he awakened briefly. He had not been dreaming but he found ready-made in his mind a vivid picture of the house outside Ventura where he was due to go that morning with Towers. He seemed to feel the damp sea air, to see the old house facing the beach; and then he was instantly inside looking at the shabby furnishings. In some way, too, he was connecting the old house with the people who had lived there, the two women, the baby, and the man with the injured ear. It was not a good place to keep a child, cold, damp, and drafty. Whoever picked out the place, he thought, didn’t give a damn about the kid.

A funny sense of danger ran across his mind and then he slept again. The next thing he knew was the alarm, jangling in his ear.

A sign said House For Sale, with a red arrow below it pointing down the road to the beach. Another For Sale sign was tacked to the porch railing. A patch of ice plant had been put in on either side of the steps and there was a new screen door, painted green. A smell of soap and disinfectant floated from within.

Mrs. Raines seemed glad to see them. Glad of company, Vic thought. She ushered them in and explained the sudden urge to sell the place. “I got a hunch, all at once, that I wasn’t going to rent it for ages, and as long as it’s vacant—why not try to unload it? I’ll never look better.” She giggled. Vic noticed that there were new slip covers on the couch and on one of the chairs, a cheerful flowery yellow fabric, and that the rug had had some sort of cleaner applied which had brought out its faded pattern. Mrs. Raines rubbed her hands, inspected them ruefully. “You’ve no idea what all this cleaning does to your skin. Raw. My hands are raw.”

Towers had a fresh assortment of mug shots and Vic had a selection of his own, men who had been in trouble on charges of falsifying claims and rebates. As before, Mrs. Raines went through them patiently. “Well … no. I don’t seem to find him here. Perhaps he’s never been in trouble before.”

“A second man helped him pass the checks,” Vic explained. “He’s young, dark, good-looking.”

She smiled a little, glanced at Towers as if remembering that he hadn’t been impressed with her story about the socks.

“He seems to be a part of the group without having lived here,” Vic went on, “since he didn’t leave any fingerprints.”

Mrs. Raines smoothed her skirt. She seemed thoughtful, hesitating. “Could he have … have hurt himself? His hands, perhaps?”

“Why do you ask that?”

“Well, when I first came out here to start cleaning, before I found the copper plates buried in the yard, there was a box of ashes and trash, stuff that I supposed had come from the fireplace—” She looked from one to another. “There were a lot of little thimble-shaped bandages in it. Black from the fire. And—pardon me—disgusting. I couldn’t stand them, never could stand anything like that. Ugh! I scraped them into a little heap at the top of the ashes and burned them right up.”

Towers sat without moving, his face betraying nothing, but Vic could imagine his feelings.

Mrs. Raines eyed the Secret Service man apologetically. “I should have mentioned it, shouldn’t I? Yes, I see that. You know, somehow I connected those little bandages with the baby. There had been other scraps, stained with baby food and … uh … other things.”

Vic knew how Mrs. Raines must have poked around, holding her nose, gathering the unpleasant debris left by the tenants.

Towers said smoothly, “Can you estimate how many of these bandages there were?”

“I—I guess a lot of them had been burned,” she said slowly. “The whole box was just …” She gave an unpleasant shiver. “It smelled.”

“Nothing left now?”

“I scattered it at the back of the lot.”

She led them through the house, out through the back yard. The strong sea wind blew sand from their tracks at every step. Vic was not surprised to find a faint black smudge and nothing more where Mrs. Raines had spread the ashes.

“It’s long gone.” A strand of dark hair threaded with silver had worked loose from under the bandanna she wore; it whipped across her face. She put her hands into the pockets of the overall apron and seemed to brace herself. “I have something else for you. It’s not much.”

Back inside the house she took an object from the mantle. It was moldy, shapeless, but she tugged it up between her fingers. A baby’s shoe.

“Did you see where I’d put in the ice plant by the steps? This was covered by the sand there.”

Towers pursed his lips and nodded. “We know they had a baby here.”

She offered it to Vic. “See that little rip at the edge of the heel? Feel inside there.”

Vic took the shoe. It had been soft once, he thought, the padded sole pliable. Now it was harsh, stiffened and dried by the sand and salt. The baby’s foot had fitted it tightly; he saw the impressions of toes, the faint rise of the arch, the eyelets pulled out of shape by the pressure of the tiny foot. He ran an experimental finger inside. A sharp prickle stung his fingertip. He put a thumbnail at the rip and pried it open. Inside was a rusted carpet tack.

“Isn’t it the ugliest thing you ever saw?” Mrs. Raines asked with a touch of heat. “I’ll bet the baby screamed its head off. And nobody guessed.”

A sudden stillness crept through Vic; he tried to pin down a previous sensation like it and could not. “This was buried?”

“I think it had been.”

Towers took the shoe and explored within it. “We’ll try to trace this. I don’t know what luck we’ll have. They didn’t shop in Ventura. And L.A.—well …” He put the shoe in his pocket.

She spread her hands against the apron. “But, don’t you see, there’s something bad going on.”

In the plain bony face, the gray eyes were thoughtful. “Let’s hope it doesn’t get any worse before we find them.”

She moistened her lips. “Yes. Let’s hope so.”

Vic and Towers spent the next half hour in the basement. There had been a gas furnace down here once, as Mrs. Raines had explained; but it had broken down and she had had it taken away. The basement was perhaps half the size of the floor of the house, a big room entirely cemented, with tiny windows on three sides, near the top of the wall. It was cold and dreary and, as far as Vic could see, bare of even a dropped pin.

Towers pointed out some dim stains on the cement floor. “They worked down here. They had at least two tables made of planks and just before they cleared out they burned them in the fireplace upstairs.—”

“What do you think they made first? The money?”

“It figures. But duplicating the bill was too complex a job. They turned to something simpler and came up with the railroad colophon.”

Vic was hunched inside his coat. “How did they stand the cold?”

“I don’t know. There’s the fireplace, of course, and Mrs. Raines has a few little portable gas heaters, plus the kitchen range. But I’ll bet everybody here had a runny nose.”

“What about those finger-tip bandages?”

Towers gave him a smile that seemed wolfish. “I guess you’ve run into that kind of thing before too.”

“Somebody was trying to change his fingerprints,” Vic decided.

“Or obliterate them.”

“There could have been two men here, then.”

Towers frowned. “Yes. There may have been.”

They stood for a while talking, smoking, while Mrs. Raines trotted around over their heads. They could hear her vacuum cleaner and the thump of furniture being shoved around. Then she came to the cellar stairs and called down to them. “The neighbor’s here. Mr. Fraley. He wants to see you.”

Mr. Fraley was a short heavy man who had grown bald in the middle of his head and had a dark fringe around the edge, which gave him the look of a monk. He shook hands with Vic and Towers, looked with interest at their credentials, then took time to fill a pipe.

“This here may not amount to much.” He inspected the tobacco again. “But the day one of your fellers was over to see us”—he jabbed the pipe toward Towers—“he said any time we remembered anything …”

Towers said, “Certainly. We’re interested in everything, Mr. Fraley.”

“When those folks was here, there was a clothesline out back. Strung from the wall of the house to a pole. Rickety-looking affair, I always used to think it was going to fall down with the laundry. Well, usually there were a few diapers and baby things on there.”

Mrs. Raines had shut off the cleaner and was standing beyond Towers, peering at Mr. Fraley.

“One day a carriage cover—my wife called it—blew down our way. Blew right off the line. My wife got it and took it to the house and rapped, and when nobody came to the door she left it on the porch. The thing was, this cover, or quilt, or whatever it was, had a name embroidered on it. The name was Davy.”

“Davy,” Towers repeated.

Across Vic’s memory a name suddenly scrawled itself. Byron U. Davidson. The phony-sounding alias assumed by the writer of all those checks. All along, he’d taken for granted that the thing had been cooked up in somebody’s imagination. Yet here was confirmation, lending it reality. The baby had been called Davy. A nickname, born of the father’s surname?

Towers was shaking Mr. Fraley’s hand. “I appreciate your coming. Any item you remember, no matter how small—”

“Sure, sure,” said Fraley, beaming.

In that instant the name flipped itself over in Vic’s mind; and he said to himself: David. David … something. And as Towers turned toward him, turning from Fraley, something in the bony face gave Vic the idea Towers had thought of it too.

Eleven

At the car Towers stopped to light a cigarette. “You know, the possibility of the younger man being here clears up one point that I worried over. The man Mrs. Raines described as her tenant seemed a little old to be starting a family.” He blew smoke into the air and the sea wind whipped it away.

Vic nodded. “And two women.”

“There were two couples,” Towers said. “This young good-looking guy and his wife are the ones with the baby.”

Something didn’t connect. Vic decided that his idea of the second woman, the woman who smoked Turkish cigarettes, drank chartreuse, and made a meticulously neat rug that wouldn’t clean, somehow wasn’t the wife he might have expected of the man Boots had described in the HighBoy Room. He filed the idea away.

They drove into Ventura and Towers said, “There’s no use waiting until we get back to L.A. Let’s rouse them off their fannies right now.” He parked before a drugstore and they went in. There were two phone booths at the rear. Vic entered the second.

When he had Ryerson he said, “This isn’t much. You remember there was a baby with this bunch. We think the baby’s name was David. Now it might be that the kid was Junior.”

“I see. David what?”

“Well, as I’ve heard, a crook isn’t any more original than anyone else. Less so, maybe. Lots of aliases resemble the real name. This could be a case of reversal. Let Personnel look for somebody named David Byronson, or Bryson, or something like that.”

“I’ll get Pete on it. What else?”

“It looks as if the younger man might have been here and kept his hands bandaged.”

“What for?”

“Could be he was monkeying with his fingerprints.”

Ryerson waited as if thinking it over and then said abruptly, “Say, when you get back to town will you go see Mrs. McAdams again?”

Vic was surprised. “Did she see something again last night?”

“No. But we’ve found out what was stolen.” There was the rustling of papers under Ryerson’s growl of anger. “One of the shanties was being used to store some new fire extinguishers. At least fifteen are missing.”

“I’ll see her.”

“I want to know more about that car she saw parked down the block.”

“I’ll try to find someone else who noticed it too.”

In the car, headed for L.A., he and Towers hashed over what they had learned from Mrs. Raines and from Fraley. Towers was disappointed that none of the mug shots had registered with the landlady. “The old boy must be the flunky, a kind of hanger-on.”

“I wonder. Or would the younger man bother with him unless he played an important part in the operation? It’s just a hunch, but I think the old man might be the photoengraving artist. I’s not a knack you just pick up overnight. He might be an old-time engraver, on the skids because of booze.” Vic smoked, watching the scenery stream by. Once they were away from the coast, the early-afternoon sun was bright and cheerful.

“One thing’s sure,” Towers said finally. “The young one’s got a record somewhere.” He was thinking of the attempt to obliterate fingerprints, Vic realized. “I’ll tell you what I’ve got to do this afternoon. I’ve got to get a fresh set of mugs and take them around to the markets.”

The mug shots Mrs. Raines had looked at had all been those of middle-aged men. Now Towers would be after somebody young and good-looking.

“Let me put in a few from the files in our office,” Vic said. “He just might be the cooky who worked for the railroad.”

“Fire extinguishers?”

Mrs. McAdams looked worriedly up into Vic’s face. “Why should anyone want to steal fifteen fire extinguishers? It’s odd.”

In the clear sunlight her old skin had a fine pattern of broken veins. Vic could see a mended spot on her cotton apron, done very neatly, the stitches tiny and uniform. The dog stood beside her in the yard. She had a hose running, watering some roses.

She looked at the parking lot, the trucks there, the big commissary beyond the fence. “I won’t rest now until you catch them.” She choked over the words. “They’re firebugs. Must be.”

He realized her confusion. “No, I doubt that. I don’t think they stole the extinguishers to put out any fires. This is typical juvenile vandalism.” In Vic’s memory were his years in the yards, the crazy kids he’d run out or turned in to Juvenile Hall. “No dealer would buy them. They’re marked with the company’s colophon. So it isn’t theft for profit. It’s just theft for the hell of it.”

She plucked at the bosom of the apron, twisted a thread there. Her pale old eyes glowed with fright.

Vic said, “We’re more interested than ever in that car you saw parked down the block. They had to have transportation to get those extinguishers away. The things are heavy.”

“If I—if I were mistaken—” Her hand trembled.

“When I talked to you before,” Vic said gently, “I had the impression that you might have noticed something more about the car than you mentioned. You’re trying to be fair, I know. But it won’t hurt innocent people to be investigated.”

Her hand had dropped from the loose thread to the apron pocket, and Vic heard the faint crackle of paper. Her nervousness increased.

“Mr. Moine … I— I want to make a suggestion. Before we go on with this, I’d like you to talk to someone else. There’s a night watchman in the neighborhood, an old friend of my husband’s, a man I’ve known for years. He’s employed by that tire factory in the next block. Sometimes late when I’m out with King, I walk that way and if he’s standing outside for a breath of air, I stop to talk.” She smoothed the apron pocket again and, as if aware of the crinkle of paper, jerked her hand away.

“You think he may have seen this car?”

“He has excellent eyesight. Besides, he notices everything. That’s his job, of course. To notice things.”

“He’s not at work now.”

She shook her head. “His room isn’t far. On Fulton Street. Not over three blocks.”

Vic felt sorry for her. For some reason she was afraid to further identify the car. He took out a pen and a card and wrote down the address of the watchman. When he found it, it was a house much like Mrs. McAdams’, only less cared for. The yard was weedy, the fence broken, and the house needed painting badly. The man she had sent him to see was in the kitchen, drinking coffee. He was small but stockily built; to Vic he looked like an ex-welterweight, a man who knew how to take care of himself in the clinches.

He knew all about Vic. Mrs. McAdams had told him.

“I’m Millikan. Glad to know you, Mr. Moine.” He wore a flannel bathrobe over pants and undershirt. His gray hair had just been dampened and combed and he was fresh-shaven. Vic took a quick look around. This was the community kitchen for the roomers here. A shelf above the stove had been divided into compartments which held individual collections of pots and pans, salts and peppers, sugar, coffee, grease. A row of little lockers lined the area below the sink. Each had its padlock.

Vic sat down. They talked. He discovered that Millikan had heard all about the fence climbers. He was also aware of Mrs. McAdams’ nervousness.

“She’s afraid that if she helps you catch them, that if it’s something she does, it might get into the papers. And some hoodlum pal of these characters might get ideas.” He lifted the small aluminum pot in Vic’s direction.

“I see.” Vic shook his head at the offer of coffee. “What does she have?”

“Part of a license number.”

“Do you know it?”

Millikan nodded. “She told me. You see, it doesn’t matter if the information comes from me. Not only can I take care of myself, but it’s expected. I’m a kind of cop to those rats, you might say.” He smiled tightly. Then he went into another room and came back with a slip of paper. “Here it is. Now remember, you got this here number from a night watchman.”

“I sure did,” said Vic.

Millikan looked into his cup. “Fire extinguishers, huh? What do you think they’re doing with them?”

“I hope they’re throwing them at each other.”

Millikan smiled again. “No such luck.”

Vic drove back to the middle of town and left the company car in the basement. Upstairs, he found Pete alone in the office at his desk with a stack of PR folders in front of him. When he saw Vic he beckoned. Vic nodded toward the phone on his own desk and sat down.

If he had had a complete license number he could have called the DMV and gotten what he needed at once. But since this was a matter of elimination, he got L.A.P.D. and asked for the Robbery Detail. He knew the man who came on the line. Vic gave him the prefix, HXZ, and the three numerals Mrs. McAdams may, or may not, have recognized. The last one was seven.

“It’s not new. She says it wasn’t one of the big ones so don’t look for a Cad or a Lincoln. I think even Mrs. McAdams would have known a Ford or Chev, so my guess is it might be along in the Dodge-Plymouth class. A hot rod. It’s been remodeled. Of course that won’t show on the license.”

Wheels would start to turn in Central Police Headquarters. Vic hung up and went over to Pete’s desk.

The Personnel Record forms had been filled in by the employees at the time they were hired. The handwriting varied from bold and legible to the practically unreadable. Pete had a couple of folders opened before him. He tapped the remaining stack as Vic sat down. “This is just a start. All young guys, dark-complexioned, five feet nine or over, and named David.”

Vic looked at the stack with respect. “That’s good pickings for the time you’ve had.”

“We’ve got some sharp girls in Personnel,” Pete agreed. “Here. Take a few and see if any of them look good.”

It was close to four. He and Pete spent the time until five-thirty reading PR forms and commenting on the lack of leads. These seemed to be all highly upright citizens.

Pete got up to stretch. “Well, we’ll have more tomorrow.”

“There’s one left.” Vic opened the folder at the bottom of the stack. He read for a minute or so and then said, “Listen to this. Here’s a cooky named David Bryant. Age—a year ago—thirty-one. Five feet eleven in his socks. Black hair. Brown eyes. Mother dead, father dead. No other living relatives.”

Pete walked to the window, lit a cigarette, brushed back the thinning hair over his temples. “Uh huh.”

“He worked in the San Bernardino station for fifty-odd days last spring. He was let out and the form is marked, Disapproved.”

“Reasons?”

Vic shook his head. “Nothing here. Cause must have been reported verbally.”

“Married?”

“Wife’s name is Merna Pitts Bryant. No children mentioned.”

“David Bryant,” said Pete thoughtfully.

“Byron U. Davidson,” Vic put in. A funny sense of excitement started up in him and he crushed it. This was too soon. Too lucky. There wasn’t anything here to jump at. He flipped through the sheets in the folder, found an address in San Bernardino.

“What was the job?” Pete asked.

Vic flipped back, found the entry. “Claims clerk.”

“Uh.” Pete added carefully, “You might have something there.”

Vic wouldn’t let himself believe it. “He wasn’t a permanent employee yet. They could have let him go for anything. Because he wore loud ties. Because his feet stunk. Or maybe he hummed under his breath and made the Super nervous.”

Pete smiled wryly. He turned from the window. Ryerson had just walked in the door. He looked like a grizzly in the vastness of his overcoat. Vic winked at Pete and picked up the folder on Bryant, and followed the Chief into the inner sanctum.

Ryerson sat down and moved stuff around on his desk, a sign that his temper was getting the best of him. “Brice called again.”

Vic put the folder in front of him. “This could be a break. Look it over.”

Ryerson’s eyes were flat and yellow, like a wolf’s. “David Bryant? Where’d you get this?”

“Pete got it from Personnel. Bryant worked for a short time last year in San Berdoo. April into May. Not long enough to become permanent.”

“Why was he canned?” Ryerson’s tone was staccato. He began to light a cigar, his gaze on Vic, his eyes savage.

“No cause given.”

“Goddamn, you can walk a hundred feet to Personnel, can’t you?”

Vic said evenly, “We just found this. Just before you came in.” His face had gone pale; and all the rage over the mess of Rock’s death suddenly swept through him. He could have killed Ryerson. This crud in the chair had kept him away from the official investigation, had stuck him on the tail of a check artist, for whose whereabouts he didn’t give a hoot in hell. And the same for Brice. Vic leaned on his fists. “Personally, damn you, I’d just as soon …” He elaborated on what Ryerson could do with the folder, the checks, and Mr. Brice together.

In the outer office, Pete was covering his typewriter. He looked up when he heard loud voices. He murmured to himself, “My God, they’re at it again. Vic’ll be canned now.” He made a faint regretful whistle through his teeth. Moine was kind of quiet but Pete found him likable.

In the inner office Ryerson was getting his legs under him. “Goddamn you, shut up. I’ve been out all afternoon about Rock. They found a spot … it could—near the yards. A brick wall in an alley. Somebody was caught there or propped up there and they think a car hit him. Several licks.” Ryerson was breathing through his teeth. He grabbed the front of Vic’s coat. “And if you ever by so much as a lifted eyebrow question my interest in what happened to Rock, I’ll beat your goddamn face in.”

Vic knocked his hands away. He strode out, slamming the door, and sat down at his desk and stared at the gray smoky twilight in the air well, and felt his stomach jump.

His mind had seized and accepted the picture raised by what Ryerson had said. He could imagine Rock, half conscious, knocked out, propped against the bricks. Spread there, unable to rise or even to lift an arm. A couple of headlights pinning him in their glow, re-fleeted in his glazing eyes. And then the smash of gears, the lurch of rubber on pavement.

Vic spread his hands on the desk but the fingers curled in at once again, making fists.

It had to be that old enemy of Rock’s. The man in the sketch. The man Rock had hunted all the last years of his life. Rock had found him at last.

It had to be——

He heard Ryerson’s step behind him. Vic straightened, wondering how long he’d sat there with his head propped by his fists, seeing nothing, wrapped up in that vision of Rock’s last moments.

Ryerson said, “I’m going to Personnel. Are you coming?”

Vic got up and they walked out together with Pete’s stare following them. The Personnel Chief, a tall man named Byerly who looked like an ambassador or a symphony conductor, met them at his office door. They went in and Ryerson showed him the folder. Byerly looked it over, thought about it, shook his head. He had on his overcoat and carried his hat; Ryerson had caught him just before leaving. The outer offices were being vacated fast. “I don’t remember anything about this man Bryant. You’ll have to contact San Bernardino.” He gave the folder back to Ryerson, who handed it to Vic.

Vic said, “You want me to go to San Berdoo?”

“I sure do,” Ryerson said coldly. “And not tomorrow. Now.”

“You’re pretty sure about Bryant? You’ve got a hunch?” Vic’s tone invited Ryerson to commit himself.

“Nothing,” Ryerson snapped. “But we’ve got to get this baby out of the way before we can go on.”

Vic followed Ryerson back into the hall. This thing meant a long drive, then hours of running down everybody at home. Some of them wouldn’t be home. The guy he needed most would be at a movie, or hopping bars, or playing bridge in Altadena.

Ryerson turned to look back at him. “Did you see Mrs. McAdams?”

“I got something. Or nothing. I don’t know.” Vic explained about the partial license. “I’ll see what L.A.P.D. comes up with.”

Ryerson said, “I want it finished up quick. I’ll put Collins on it with you, you can divide the possible leads and check them out. Tomorrow morning. Towers may have something by then on these checks. Maybe he’ll get an identification.” Ryerson had his mind on the forgeries; and all at once Vic remembered what Rock had said, that Ryerson was a good chief, a shrewd cop, better than the old Chief who had preceded him. One thing you could say for him, he didn’t get off on some other subject. When he had forgeries, he kept forgeries in his head. You couldn’t have knocked them out with a sledge hammer.

At the door Ryerson paused. There wasn’t a good light here; Vic was not sure just what expression Ryerson was wearing. His voice no longer had the grating quality. He spoke softly—for Ryerson. “I’m going back out there, that place in the alley. You want to come?”

Vic was so surprised he almost forgot to answer.

Twelve

The place was in an alley, against a brick wall, as Ryerson had said. But contrary to Vic’s expectations, it wasn’t in the direction of skid row from the yards. Of course, Vic thought, Rock could have trailed the quarry past the yards, the murderer aware and cunning, leading Rock into ambush. Vic realized that a certain pattern had become fixed in his mind, his belief that Rock had run into his old enemy in a bar on Main and had trailed him from there.

Rock could scarcely have come afoot. It was too far. He must have hopped a bus or a streetcar, perhaps on the heels of the man he wanted. And perhaps not too sure of his identification. Hanging on. Wanting to be convinced.

Vic walked around, trying to look at it coldly and reasonably. Some L.A.P.D. men were there, by the wall, still sifting the debris for evidence. There was a big scar, crushed plaster mostly, against the brick where the car had struck. In the dying gray light, the mark had an ugly luminosity, like something festering, putrescent. Below was a dribble of blood. Vic couldn’t look at it. He turned to examine the rest of the alley.

There were no large buildings near by. This was petty stuff on the fringes of the industrial city, little welding shops, metal specialties, used plumbing, garages. Shoestring outfits trying to wedge themselves into a spot secure enough to survive. Along the top of the brick wall a sign, almost obliterated, read Electroplating, and below, even dimmer, Silversmiths. In the distance, against the gray sky, Vic could see the roof of the commissary building. A Diesel hooted, blocks away, in the yards.

Ryerson had been talking to the L.A.P.D. men. He came back to Vic. “They’re pretty sure now. They found a lot of wool caught in that broken plaster. Looks like Rock’s coat.”

Vic still couldn’t look at the wall where Rock had died.

“They’ll send it to the lab, of course,” Ryerson went on. “They’ve typed the blood. It matches.”

There was a long space of silence. Ryerson seemed to be waiting for some significant remark on Vic’s part.

Vic looked directly into Ryerson’s eyes. “You were right,” he said. “I wouldn’t be any good here.”

Ryerson frowned and seemed embarrassed. He took out a fresh cigar and fiddled with it.

Vic shrugged. “I’d better head for San Berdoo.” He walked away. He had followed Ryerson here in a second car, a company car. He backed it away from the alley entrance and headed east. For a while he worked through the streets in the general direction of the Santa Ana Freeway, out past Boyle Heights, the old part of the city. He didn’t hurry. He let his mind coast, took in the sights, studied the street markers.

He didn’t feel any anger at Ryerson. That was all over. He didn’t torment himself with the idea that Ryerson had meant to show him up. It was quite possible that Ryerson might have hoped he’d come up with something, some theory based on his long friendship with Rock, his knowledge of Rock’s habits.

You just don’t get tough enough, Vic thought. Or at least I didn’t. And he recalled Rock’s pet theory—if you stay in long enough, you II be glad you’re a cop. Something will happen.

For me, Rock’s death ought to be it. But it isn’t.

“I’m one hell of a cop, Rock,” Vic said aloud. And for no reason, he wanted to laugh.

It was long past dark when he reached San Bernardino. He stopped at a diner for a hamburger and coffee. Ryerson had supplied the agent’s address on a slip of paper tucked into the PR folder. Vic took the slip into the café, asked directions of the waitress. She told him how to get there.

He drove into the outskirts of town, into quiet streets, well-lit, the houses spruce, the gardens prospering. The agent’s place was two-storied, white clapboard with a big carriage lantern burning on the porch. There were cars parked at the curb, several in the driveway. Vic parked and walked up the bricked path to the door. Inside, through sheer curtains, he could see a lot of people at bridge tables. When he punched the bell there was a sudden lull in the chatter.

The agent took him into a tiny den. Mr. Warwick had been with the company for thirty years. He was past fifty now, a tall genial man who showed signs of having lived comfortably for a long while. Vic sat down and put the folder on a coffee table in front of the couch.

“We need information on this man.”

Warwick put a hand down, took up the topmost sheet. “Bryant. Yes, I remember him.”

“We want to know why his application for employment was disapproved.”

A shade of discomfort crossed Warwick’s features. Vic waited. Warwick cleared his throat.

“Well … we had a complaint from a shipper.”

“Bryant was claims clerk?”

“That’s right. The man who came to me has a gift and antique shop downtown. He gets a lot of stuff from the East. Some of it is supposed to be pretty valuable. This affair concerned a small desk, a French antique, all gilt and inlay, ivory carvings—a very elaborate whatnot.”

“It was damaged in shipping?”

“Scratched,” Warwick corrected. “Not badly. I saw it. He wanted a small sum to pay for touching it up. He said that Bryant had urged him to put in a claim for total loss.”

“A kickback,” Vic said.

“Yes. They’d split the check. The dealer had a buyer, you see, who was willing to take it, damaged or not. Fix it up himself if necessary. No chance of it’s hanging around the shop unsold.”

“What did Bryant say to this charge?”

“I didn’t take it up with him.” Warwick reached for a fancy box on the table, lifted the lid. It was full of cigarettes. Vic helped himself and Warwick lit up for both of them with a silver table lighter. “He wasn’t yet on the permanent payroll. It was just … easier and simpler … to let him go.”

“You believed the shipper, then?”

“Well, frankly, at the time this idea occurred to me. The shipper made such a great thing of his being an honest man, above Bryant’s tricks. I couldn’t help wondering if he might be setting us up for something later on, some bigger claim he had in mind. But of course I couldn’t just ignore what he’d said about Bryant.”

Vic thought to himself, Warwick hadn’t wanted to give Bryant a black eye on the shipper’s unsupported word. That’s what it all amounted to.

“Since then,” Warwick continued, “I’ve kept careful track, and our relations with this antique dealer have been excellent. Nothing that even resembles funny business. I’m inclined to believe, now, that he was telling the truth about Bryant. I’m glad I let Bryant go.”

Vic stretched his legs. It had been a long drag from L.A. He felt the tiredness in the muscles across his back. But he forced himself to forget his discomfort. “Did Bryant have any special friends in the office force?”

“He was pretty well liked,” Warwick said slowly. “He wasn’t here long enough to form any deep attachments.”

“How about the girls in the office?”

Warwick smiled dryly. “They all liked him. He had a certain way with them. I used to tell Martha … my wife … that Bryant smoldered at them and they loved it.”

“We’re very eager to get hold of a picture if possible.”

Warwick started to shake his head and then stopped, an uncertain look spreading in his face. “Well … it’s funny. A coincidence. Just as you spoke I remembered another affair. Bryant went out one day, shortly before he left, to inspect a shipment of pianos. The shipper was raising hell. Bryant didn’t conclude the claim. That was done after he left, by the clerk who took his place.”

Vic waited, wondering what was coming.

“The shipper wanted the pianos unloaded, but he wanted evidence of the mess in the boxcar. The bracings had collapsed. So he took a snapshot. He had a flash attachment on his camera. And Bryant was there.”

“Where is this picture?”

“In the office. The night clerk can get it for you. I’ll telephone that you’re coming. One thing, though. It’s not exactly a good picture. Bryant wasn’t posing or facing the camera or anything like that. I don’t believe he knew he was even in the picture.”

Probably not, Vic agreed to himself, if he’s the cooky we’re looking for. He thanked Warwick for the information, left the house, headed downtown for the station. When he reached the office the clerk on night duty had the claim folder out for him. Vic was standing by a desk; he leaned over it, putting the picture under a lamp; and took a long look.

He felt a stab of disappointment. Against the jumble of boxes and broken wood, Bryant’s head was thimble-sized in the lower right corner. He was facing away from the camera. He seemed to be staring in at the crushed stuff in the boxcar. The back of his head, the left ear, the cheek were distinct; but the profile faded into shadow. Vic sat down heavily and cursed to himself. What had promised to be a break had blown up in his face.

The clerk was looking over his shoulder. “You fellows interested in those pianos?” His tone added: after all this time?

“No. This man. We need a picture of him.”

“Bryant? What for?”

“Nothing, probably. We’re working on a case, running down a lot of possible leads.”

“Well, Bryant’s a real good-looker. Made you think of a movie actor. Neat. Dark hair. The girls certainly were wild over him.”

“Any particular girl in this office?”

“Oh, he—” The clerk noticed a customer over at the ticket window. He excused himself. When he came back he went on: “He jollied them all. Had that knack. But nothing serious, no, not with any of our girl clerks. I guess he was too smart for that.” He waited a moment, looking wisely at Vic through his rimless glasses. “Hey, is that what this thing is all about? Some woman?”

“Oh, no.”

“Bryant was claims clerk,” the other man said, obviously fishing. “But he’s been gone a long time. Anything he handled should have been filed away long ago.”

Vic said, “He was married, wasn’t he?”

“That’s right.”

“Did you ever meet his wife?”

A thoughtful expression came over the other man. “Not to speak. I saw her quite a few times, days when she waited for Bryant to get off work. That was when he first came here. She’d wait across the street as if she was kind of timid and was afraid of interrupting something over here.”

“Can you describe her?”

“A young thing. Blond, reddish-blond. Wrapped herself up in a big old coat even on warm days. You know what I think? I think she was pregnant.”

Vic felt a renewal of interest and excitement. Here was something which matched the fact of the baby’s being in the house in Ventura.

“Then there was the other woman,” the clerk added, with a touch of dry humor. “Maybe she was Bryant’s lady friend. She was slim and dark, a small-boned little woman. She had a car. When she came for Bryant she always waited in it, parked by the door downstairs. When she started showing up, that’s when the young one quit.”

It was getting better and better.

“This little dark woman sure had a fad for fancywork. Always doing something with her hands. She’d sit down there and knit, or crochet—”

“Did she ever make any rugs?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised.”

Vic thought, that wraps it up. He thanked the clerk for the information and went out. In an effort to relieve the tiredness, the staleness, he had a couple of cups of coffee at a fountain. Then he drove to the San Bernardino police headquarters and checked their files. There was nothing on Bryant, however.

He had one more call to make. The home address, the place where Bryant and his young pregnant wife had lived in San Bernardino. But this lead was soon disposed of. The block, when Vic found it, had been devastated. Rubble remained, chunks of old foundations, a few trees. On one corner under a street lamp an old house stood jacked up on timbers, ready to roll. A big lighted sign informed the world that this was the site of the new county hospital.

Vic drove back to the highway, stopped shortly for gas, and used the phone at the service station to call Ryerson. “This is it. He’s our pal.”

“I’ll call Towers.” Ryerson sounded happy. Vic could hear music in the background, the chatter of young voices, and he could picture Ryerson at home, snug, surrounded by his family. He had four teenage daughters and the place must be jumping, “I’ll see you in the morning, Vic. And thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Vic said. He turned back to the car. As he pulled out into the street he was aware of a sudden feeling of letdown, compounded of his own tiredness, the deserted highway stretching off into the dark, a sense of failure over his efforts in Rock’s case. He wondered to himself, what in hell do I care about Byron U. Davidson and his phony checks? I’m not out a cent. To hell with it.

But then he found himself thinking about the house at the beach above Ventura, the old, lonely, shabby shell where two women had lived upstairs with a baby while the men had labored in the cellar.

The baby’s mother … a young thing. Not the woman who had sat on the beach making a rug. Not the woman who fancied odd liqueurs, Turkish cigarettes. Who was this second woman and where did she fit into the group? Her personality seemed to reach him, impress him, through the faint tag ends he knew of her.

All at once he wondered if the counterfeiting had been her idea.

On North Main Willy stepped off a bus and faced the neon glitter with a smile of pleasure. He was feeling fine. David had brought home a fifth and he had a half pint of it with him, on his hip, to sweeten his drinks. He wore a clean shirt. Merna had pressed it for him, pressed his pants, brushed his hat. Fay’s ten dollars rested in his breast pocket under a handkerchief. I’ll salvage seven out of it, he promised himself. Three for the buggy. He almost laughed with delight.

He walked slowly southward, savoring the sights, the crowd, the noise. He paused at a burlesque house to study the nudes in the lobby, printed on cardboard, bigger than life and more enticingly covered. “That blonde,” he said to the pimply guardian at the door.

“Buy a ticket,” said pimples. “She’s better inside.”

Willy wagged his head, still smiling, and walked away. Next door was a penny arcade and shooting gallery. Some sailors were having an argument. It began to turn into a fight, and then a couple of MPs showed up.

So much was free, Willy thought, feeling free himself, light as a bird, winging. So much was just there for the looking or feeling, no charge, just take it in. A wonderful world.

If only the booze was free. Regret stole through him.

He peeped into the next bar he came to, but the crowd was small, too quiet. Even the juke box was temporarily silent. Willy felt almost offended. He met the bartender’s eyes just before he turned to the door and let the fat man in the apron see his displeasure.

Outside, he found himself before the windows of a secondhand store. Suits and topcoats hung on racks against the pane, up high, and below at inspection level was an array of used watches, cigarette lighters, gold pins, lodge emblems, rings, plus a couple of mandolins. He walked past slowly and looked in. Away in the back was a clutter of big stuff, trunks and luggage, a velocipede.

Willy went in, keeping an air of hesitation about him. A man came out from behind the counter; he was quite fat, with small eyes behind heavy lenses, a drooping dirty mustache. “Yes, sir? What can I do for you, sir?” He seemed to be feeling the bones of one hand with the fingers of the other, as though something might be broken there.

“Got any baby buggies?”

The fat man laughed, a short bark of sound. “Down here we don’t get many calls for them. I can get you one from our uptown place. Nice one. Fifteen dollars.”

“You nuts?” Willy wondered. “I gotta get this cheap. Two dollars. Three.”

“What you putting in it?” the fat man wondered, examining Willy with curiosity. “Not a baby, surely. Not in a three-dollar buggy. You want the kid to break its back?”

Willy looked nervously behind him. “What’s the cheapest?”

The fat man studied Willy as if getting ready to buy him by the pound. “Well. Seven-fifty. It’s not fancy. Needs paint.”

“It’s too much,” said Willy stubbornly.

“I’ll tell you. I got an old wreck of a buggy out back,” the fat man suddenly admitted. “I use it for a wastebasket. Wheels, see, I can run it out to the bin when it gets full.”

“How much?”

“Come look at it.” The storekeeper shuffled off toward the rear, his bottom waggling, the expression on his face implying that Willy wouldn’t want this horrible buggy, that he was showing it to Willy so Willy could proclaim his desire for something better.

Willy, still hesitant, followed on feet grown suddenly silent.

Thirteen

It was a wicker affair with three wheels. Where the fourth wheel had once supported the frame, the fat man had propped it with a beer can. The canopy hung askew. The fat man stood back, disdainful. “Ain’t it awful?”

Willy went close and looked inside. The interior was deep and roomy. On a litter of paper, a mother cat and two kittens lay curled together, their yellow fur soft in the light, the sound of purring rising like incense. “It’s not too bad.”

The mother cat stretched and opened an eye. She thrust out a paw, the claws suddenly extended. The claws became entangled in the tatters of old brown corduroy which lined the inside of the carriage. She pulled free with a faint quarrelsome sound that brought the kittens’ heads up.

“You’d buy that for a baby?” the fat man demanded as if outraged.

“I’ll fix it up. How much?”

“Three dollars.”

Willy looked into the cunning stare and knew he was being robbed. This thing belonged on a junk heap. He licked his lips. “Two and a half.”

“My cats got to sleep somewhere and I’ll have to buy me a wastebasket,” the fat man informed him. “Three dollars, take it or leave it.”

Willy had no intention of letting the man see the bills Fay had given him. He counted out three dollars in nickels, dimes, and quarters. Plus sales tax. The fat man removed the cats. Willy went out with the three-wheeled carriage wabbling before him. He ducked into a nearby bar, and when the bartender demanded to see the contents of the buggy, lest minors be invading the premises, Willy in glee displayed the empty, tattered interior. He suddenly saw that fun could be had with the thing before taking it home to Fay.

Some time later, at the HighBoy Room, he found the stool next to his occupied by a tired blonde in a strapless pink satin dress. Willy thought she looked a trifle familiar, and remembering David’s warnings, this made him nervous. He found himself staring anxiously at her in the mirror behind the bar. She noticed it, too.

“The buggy’s something new for you,” she offered.

Willy nodded jerkily, watching himself and the girl in the mirror.

“If I didn’t know you better, I’d think you might have become a father.”

He swiveled his head to take a direct look at her. “You know me?”

“Sure.” She was smoking; through the haze her eyes had a pinched, off-center look about them, as if she were looking through Willy and out the back of his head. “You’re Byron. Byron U. Davidson.”

Willy laughed; he couldn’t help it. “Oh no. Gosh, no.”

“Well, you’re okay, even if you aren’t Bryon U. Davidson,” she said amiably. “I guess I got you mixed up with somebody else.”

He forgave her. “Buy you a drink?”

“Don’t mind if you do.”

“You come here often?”

“Any night. You can call me Boots.”

Ordinarily he had nothing to do with the girls who hung around the gin mills. Willy was a drinker. That other business was David’s line. Willy neither envied nor regretted. But this girl had a chummy air, a friendly attitude. Not sexy, exactly. She seemed to find something interesting about him, and Willy wondered all at once if she could smell those bills tucked away in his breast pocket.

She drank as if she was used to it. “Why the baby buggy?”

“My cats,” Willy lied, “need a place to sleep. Off the floor, where my old lady won’t step on their tails.”

She accepted this without question. “I’m glad it’s not for a kid.”

“Why?”

“It stinks.”

The fact that she could differentiate between the odor of the buggy and the other smells in the HighBoy Room seemed to Willy remarkable. He sweetened their drinks from his private bottle when the bartender’s back was turned. He even gave Boots a dime for the juke box.

But after a while some sense of worry dampened his pleasure, sent him out and away with the wabbling buggy. From the sidewalk he looked back into the bar. The girl named Boots was fishing a card from her small flat handbag. She stared at it for more than a minute, hunched forward over her drink, her bare shoulders glowing under the lights. Then a man in a dark suit took the place vacated by Willy, and she looked over at him and spoke. Willy went on.

He tried to get into a bus with the great wicker contraption but the driver refused to let him ride. Finally, stopping now and then for a nip from his bottle, Willy hiked on up Main, pushing the buggy before him. On an empty block he paused at the curb and began to thumb for a ride.

An old sedan filled with tough-looking kids rolled by; there were yells of derision; and Willy, in fright, went on for a way.

But he got a ride at last. A Mexican in a pickup truck offered him a lift, let Willy out later about three blocks from the house.

He made plenty of noise on the porch, in case any of them were asleep. When he got the buggy inside, the living room was dark, but the old-fashioned ceiling globe in the dining room beyond was lit, as well as the lamp in the middle of the table. Fay sat at the table, cards spread in a game of solitaire, a tiny glass of chartreuse at one side, a Turkish cigarette smoking on a tray. She looked at Willy and the horrible buggy in perfect composure.

In the back-bedroom doorway, Merna stood sleepy-eyed. She had on an old pair of David’s pajamas, and they fit her queerly. Her big thighs bulged the pants, her breasts threatened to pop the buttons. Fay turned, gave her one glance. Merna rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “What’s that?”

“Baby buggy.” Willy pushed it into the room. The missing wheel gave it a crippled, lopsided gait. The interior tatters had the look of frowsy hair.

Merna sucked in her breath. “What?”

“For Davy.” Willy was grinning crookedly from Fay to Merna, savoring the joke.

“You’re drunk,” Fay said coolly.

Merna’s face was white, her hands shaking. “For … Davy?” Her eyes crossed and recrossed the old carriage. Not that she seemed to see much of it, actually. She seemed to be searching for something that wasn’t there. A meaning. A motive. “Why did you bring it? It’s old and dirty.”

Willy shrugged, jeering at Fay with his stare. Daring her to explain. But Fay merely picked up the cigarette for a long drag.

The baby whimpered in the dark room beyond; and then David spoke. He didn’t speak loudly; he never did, not even to Merna in her slower moments. Merna turned in the doorway. “Huh?”

“Come back to bed,” David ordered.

All at once a look passed between the two women, a look that made Willy wonder what might have gone on here during his absence. Merna squeezed her breasts in with her elbows, tugged at the pajama buttons as if testing their security. Willy thought suddenly, She’s ashamed. She’s dying of shame. Poor nitwit kid.

Merna stepped back, shut the door. Fay exhaled smoke on a long breath.

“You were prompt, Willy. I like that.”

Now he was nervous about meeting her eyes. He was remembering, too, the strange thing the girl had said to him in the bar, calling him Byron U. Davidson. She knew something, that girl. She knew and she remembered him. It wouldn’t do to let David or Fay know of the encounter tonight. He shifted his glance around the room. More than once he had suspected Fay of mind reading.

Fay crushed out the cigarette, drank a sip of the chartreuse, shuffled the cards into a stack. Then she stood up slowly, something snakelike in the measured way she moved, and walked over to the buggy. She tipped it up from its crippled crouch, fingered the broken hinge on the canopy, inspected the rotten corduroy.

She went over to an old-fashioned sideboard, opened a small door, took out her elaborate sewing box. From the box she removed a tape measure and a small pair of scissors. She returned to the buggy, fished out the dirty papers, and then carefully cut away all the tattered lining. She took it out to the kitchen along with the papers and dumped it into the cardboard box they used for a trash container. She brought back a dustcloth. She dusted out the inside of the buggy. She measured for a new lining. She pried at the peeling paint with a nail. She looked happy, interested; and all at once she made Willy’s skin creep.

He had to admit, though, the buggy looked better already.

She knelt beside it. “We’ll need a wheel. Willy—you know, in the garage “She paused to make sure he was listening. “In the garage— are some boxes of stuff. Something left by other tenants. I think you might find a wheel out there.”

He stood there, blank-eyed, until he found her gaze pinning him. “You mean—now?”

“Why not?”

He found himself in the garage, under the light of a dusty twenty-watt bulb, dragging boxes of junk from a high shelf. And sure enough, among the rest of it were the discarded wheels of a baby carriage. Saved for some reason by a former tenant. Saved for Fay.

The kind of luck she had made you stop and think.

Vic put the car away and went upstairs to his flat. Inside, with the lights on, he saw that there was a note on the floor before the door. He picked it up. The words were scribbled on the back of a blank check.

Vic Darling, I waited for you. Your phone rang and rang and I couldn’t get inside to answer it. Call me when you come in.

June

He went into the bedroom and undressed. The apartment was cold. He started for the kitchen in his pajamas, then detoured to the table where he had put Rock’s stuff into the drawer. He found the newspaper sheet on which Rock had scribbled. He took it into the kitchen with him, put it on the kitchen table, stared at it while he drank a cup of stale, dreggy coffee.

Outside, the wind was rising. A few drops of rain struck the windows, a faint tattoo.

“I’ll think about it tomorrow.” He put the sheet of newsprint away and went to bed. He hadn’t even considered calling June. She was asleep by now. Tucked into the bed she’d described to him once, under a net canopy, under a taffeta comfort. A dim, speckled light from the rain-spattered windows. She was a rich man’s child. What kind of fool was he, to think of taking her away from that house to this?

He considered briefly, just before falling to sleep, who might have tried to reach him by phone. For some reason he thought of Boots in the HighBoy Room. Perhaps because he couldn’t recall giving the number to anyone else recently. Certainly everyone concerned with his job knew that he’d been far from home that night.

When he reached the office in the morning, he turned the folder on Bryant over to Ryerson.

“The Secret Service is checking, now’Ryerson told him. “We got nothing from the L.A.P.D. R and I file. Nothing from the sheriff’s office, either. Towers sent a wire to CII in Sacramento.”

Vic thought to himself that if Bryant had a record anywhere, the attorney general’s office should have something on it.

“What about Rock’s case?” Vic asked.

Ryerson looked grim. “That place in the alley was it. They propped him against that brick wall and ran into him. Then they put him back into the car and took him to the yards.”

“Possible damage to the car?”

“Might be. Bumper scratches. If we had even as much as a bolt jarred loose, a scrap of headlight—”

“Any tire prints?”

“Millions of them. Lots of traffic through there in the daytime.”

“What’s the next move?”

“They’re trying to trace Rock, what he did during the evening after he left the hotel. And they’re combing the neighborhood between the alley and the yards.”

Vic found himself staring out into the gray light beyond the windows. In the offices opposite, typewriters had begun to clatter. He thought of Rock as he’d seen him last, propped up in the bed in the Stull Hotel, and of the advice Rock had tried to impress upon him. Rock wanted him to feel this thing, and all it was was a job; and even Rock’s death hadn’t made that difference. And perhaps nothing else ever would.

Where do you go from here … on your tin rail?

Ryerson, as if anxious to change the subject, began to talk about the other affair, Mrs. McAdams and her climbing juveniles. He had a list of cars for Vic; L.A.P.D.’s Robbery Detail had already called and Pete had typed up the information. Ryerson slid a piece of paper across the desk to Vic. “Seven for you. Eight more here, I’m saving for Collins when he gets in. I’ve given you the ones in West L.A. and the Valley.”

Vic took the list out to his desk and read it through. There were three Dodges, two Buicks, two Pontiacs. None were younger than five years. All had the three-letter prefix described by Mrs. McAdams and a final number which was seven. Vic grabbed his hat and headed for the door.

He spent the day driving, looking at cars, talking to their owners. By three-thirty he was headed for number six, an eight-year-old Buick whose owner lived in North Hollywood. He found the house at the end of a tree-lined street, a blind block that ended at the Los Angeles River.

Vic parked and got out. It had sprinkled off and on all day; and now it suddenly came down in earnest. Vic scrunched himself inside his coat and walked from his car. At the last moment, on some hunch he couldn’t analyze, he turned from the driveway and the paved walk which led to the house and went down to the sandy wash bordering the river. On the opposite side were the green heights of Griffith Park; he heard the clop of a horse’s hoofs on the bridle path above, and a bird dropped a single disconsolate note as if oppressed by the wet weather.

There was the usual thin streak of water out in the middle of the sandy waste, dull silver under the cloudy light, lined by a sparse growth of grass and rushes. Nearer were clumps of wild shrubbery, a tangle of old lantana, a couple of palms, a stretch of embankment reinforced by stonework. Vic turned to glance back at the house.

It was a big house with a big garage adjoining. Behind the garage, out of sight of the street, sat an old car, probably the one on the list Pete had typed for him. It was gray and when Vic saw how it had been remodeled he sucked his breath in suddenly through his teeth. Then, still following the hunch, still guided by nothing more than a feeling for the sort of place a kid might want to play with those fire extinguishers, he plowed on across the bare earth, jumped down from the stonework.

It was almost anticlimax, finding three extinguishers under the tangle of lantana. Vic knelt, pulled away the thorny growth, turned the big metallic cylinders over. On their coppery coverings, all three bore the company’s colophon.

Leaving them there, Vic returned to the street above. Keeping the garage between himself and the house, he went around to the gray car. He looked in at the card on the steering post. The name on the owner’s certificate matched that on the list in the pocket—Ron Mallon—as did the license number. Vic glanced in through the window at the rear seat. A cylindrical object wrapped in a piece of gunny sack lay on the worn upholstery. On the floor were two more, not as well covered.

Vic returned the way he had come, climbed in his car, and drove off. He headed for Valley L.A.P.D. Headquarters.

In the yards or anywhere on railroad property he would have made the arrest himself. Or if there had been an emergency here, danger of the quarry escaping. But the railroad protected itself in myriad ways, and this finoodling was designed to ward off any possible suits for false arrest. Vic found an officer at Valley Headquarters whom he knew, an old hand named Dix; and Dix and he went back together to the house by the river.

They went to the front door and rang the bell. A blond girl opened the door; she was about twenty, in a blue shirt and faded denim pants, her hair tied back into a pony tail, no make-up except vivid lipstick. She wore an impatient look.

“Yes?”

Vic and the L.A.P.D officer took out their identifications and showed them to her. She examined them with complete indifference. “So?”

“We’d like to speak to Ron Mallon,” Vic explained.

She inched the door forward so that she filled the space and they couldn’t see past her. “What about?”

“The car out back.”

“It’s his car.” She was amused and impudent.

“We know that,” Vic explained. He took a stab at what might be the truth. “Will you call your brother to the door, please?”

Some of the amusement left her. She looked at Vic uncertainly. “I think you’d better let me know what it’s all about.”

“We’re investigating a robbery,” Vic said.

There was no fun in her, now. “I … he’s not home.”

She’d been impressed by his knowing Ron Mallon was her brother. Vic tried another stab. “You’ll never help him by hiding him. You ought to know that by now.”

“What do you mean by that?” She tried to stare him down angrily. A delaying action, Vic decided.

“If your brother isn’t at home, we’d like your permission to search the car,” Dix put in. “Will you come with us, please?”

She came out swiftly, shutting the door. She walked stiff-legged before them, her head up. She wouldn’t meet Vic’s eyes now. He wondered what was going on inside the house.

At the car she jerked open front and rear doors. “Help yourselves. Gentlemen.” She set the word apart, spat on it in speaking it. “And have fun.”

“Thank you.” Vic reached in, tossed the sacking off the metal cylinders and stepped back.

The girl stared, then laughed. “Is that all? Those things?”

Vic said, “Will you call your brother out here, please, Miss Mallon?”

“I’m right here, mister.” A kid of perhaps seventeen stepped out from the corner of the garage. He looked a lot like the girl, blond, fine-boned, clean. He wore a white T-shirt, jeans, tennis sneakers.

There was fuzz on his face and Vic thought, he hasn’t even started to shave yet.

“Are your parents at home?” Vic asked the girl.

“No, they’re not.”

“Can you reach them?”

“I’ll try.” She ran off toward the rear door of the big house. She didn’t look at her brother in passing.

The kid came over and leaned on the car and scratched idly at his chin with a fingernail. “What’s the beef?”

“We want to talk to you about these fire extinguishers.”

“Okay. Talk.”

“Where did you get them?”

“Never saw them before,” Ron said promptly. “Somebody framed me. You guys, maybe.” He smiled just a little, his glance lazy and curious.

A punk, Vic thought.

The nastiest job of all.

Fourteen

A sudden rain squall spattered the walk, the driveway, the roof of the garage, the gray paint of the Buick. “Will you come with us, please?” Vic asked of the punk.

They went down to the river bed and Vic pulled out the other extinguishers. They were light, easy to move; they’d been discharged. Ron Mallon pretended a great interest. He had a hazy memory, he thought, of seeing them here some time ago. As long as three weeks, maybe. He smiled and shook his head. He told Vic and Dix that since the car sat out in the open all the time, and since he scarcely ever drove it, it was obvious that the people who had abandoned the empty extinguishers here in the wash had also planted the others in his car. “To fool guys like you.” The tone implied that they were pretty easy to fool.

He even helped them carry the empties to Vic’s car, to stow them in the trunk. Then to put with them those in the Buick’s back seat.

“Why don’t you guys stake out here tonight? You might catch them, whoever they are.” He examined the chilly sky, where clouds drifted before the wind. “It’s cold out here. Come inside.”

They went in. There was no sign of the girl. The house was tastefully furnished, clean, cared-for.

Ron Mallon went into the dining room, to a mahogany cabinet. “Drink?”

“No thanks.” Vic gave his companion a glance. Dix’s expression was frozen.

Ron Mallon came back and sat down facing them. His attitude seemed that which he might display to boring friends of his father’s. Under the polite veneer, Vic knew, he was laughing.

“Tell us about the last time you drove your car,” Vic suggested.

“Well, let’s see.” Ron brushed at his wet hair; the crew cut sprang back as his hand passed over it. He pursed his lips thoughtfully; an act. “It must have been a couple of weeks ago. Yeah. I took Ma to a club affair. We left here around noon. She wanted to stop at a shop on Ventura Boulevard. Maple stuff. They had a hicky you hang on the wall. Shelves. You put knickknacks in it. Ma collects silver miniatures. Know what I mean? She looked at these shelves and I waited outside, and then she didn’t get the hicky after all. It had a scratch or something. I took her over to the clubhouse for a bridge hassle. Twelve-thirty by then. She asked me to come back by five.”

“Had you looked in the back of the car?”

“Nuh uh. Why should we? I had some time to kill then, and nobody I knew was out running around, so I drove over Laurel Canyon to Hollywood and took in a show. Grauman’s Chinese. I got back to the clubhouse at five and drove Ma home and parked the car where you see it. I haven’t been near it since.”

“How does it happen you’re not in school?”

“I graduated.” He spread his hands. “I’m trying to make up my mind. College … or what? And if college, what? It takes thinking about. I’m not a genius but I Jove music and I’d like to compose. But that’s a rough racket.”

Vic inspected a spot on his hand; he’d gouged a knuckle getting the extinguishers into the car trunk. “What was the next to last time you had the car out?”

“Let me think.” Ron slouched lower on his chair. This story didn’t come quite as glibly. The boy’s eyes had begun to jump around a bit. Vic took him through the second account twice, then returned to the first trip and had him describe a lot of details: his clothes, his mother’s outfit, the clubhouse, the show he’d seen in Hollywood, the condition of the Laurel Canyon road. Ron’s voice sounded as if his mouth were getting dry.

Vic kept his manner imperturbably courteous. Dix was silent and grave.

Ron stammered over a couple of points, caught himself. He looked neither at Vic nor at Dix. When his glance settled, it strayed to the floor.

They went back to other times he’d driven the car. Ron was perspiring now. His voice had taken on a breathless quality.

Vic was always surprised when it happened, when sheer monotonous repetition brought on this strange illogical fright. You’d think, he told himself, they’d be prepared. Ron Mallon was tough enough to go at night to a semideserted freight yard, climb a fence, rob the railroad of a bunch of fire extinguishers; but he wasn’t tough enough to go on talking in an ordinary tone about ordinary happenings. The day-to-day use of the car. His trips in it. Where he bought gas. How long since he’d needed a new tire. How the battery stood up under the long periods of disuse. And whether he’d ever noticed strangers in the river bed.

It must be, Vic thought, that the truth kept getting in the way. Ron sounded now as if his own voice, his own lies, frightened him; as if some phantom of which he dared not speak had scribbled other words on the floor just past his feet.

Vic let a space of silence go by. Then he said quietly, “You know we’ve got you. Why don’t you tell the truth?”

A strange look of near relief passed over Ron’s face. This, too, was familiar and still surprising.

“I guess I’d better.” Ron tried to laugh. “What the hell? What’s a few fire extinguishers? My old man’ll make it good.”

“You had someone with you,” Vic said.

“A kid I picked up. He’s okay, I don’t want to drag him into this.”

“We’d better go see him,” Vic said.

“Oh. Well … what about my folks?”

“I’ll tell your sister where they can meet us.” Vic rose and headed for the swinging door on the other side of the big dining room. He’d noted a slight movement there now and then during the interview with Ron. He pushed it open quickly; the girl sprang back. The face she turned on Vic held hatred and dismay.

“You’re taking him?”

“Tell your parents to come down to the Juvenile Bureau in Central Police Headquarters,” Vic suggested.

“You’ll … book him, and that sort of thing?”

Vic looked at her curiously. “What would you suggest?”

“We could pay,” she said quickly. “I could pay. Right now. It would just be between you and me. I’ve been saving money for a fur coat. I’ve got over a hundred and seventy-five dollars upstairs right now.”

“You’re a long way from mink,” Vic said, turning; and heard the hissing noise she sent after him.

They drove a mile or so to another street much like the one the Mallons lived on. The boy they wanted was in school. They drove to the nearby high school, talked to the vice-principal who acted as dean of boys, finally got the boy himself. He resembled Ron Mallon superficially; he was lean and clean-limbed, blond, with a fresh wisely innocent face. His name was Jack Parrott.

He readily admitted his part of what he obviously considered a great prank. He told Vic that the original idea in getting into the freight yards was to find fusees to play with. They could be used to create a lot of excitement at school. When the best that he and Ron could do was to find fire extinguishers, they’d taken these; and as he explained, whooshed them at each other down in the river bed. Great sport. He assured Vic that his father would pay half of the damage—if any—and was amazed and not pleased when he found that he had to go to Juvenile Bureau at Central Station.

They wound it up downtown, turning in the extinguishers, both the empties from the river bed and ones not yet discharged from the car, as evidence. Vic filed charges in the name of the railroad. Dix put his name in as witness and caught a ride back to Valley Headquarters.

Before Vic left the Juvenile Division, Mr. and Mrs. Mallon came in. Vic talked to them. They were a quiet, prosperous, middle-aged couple, now very worried and ashamed. Mr. Mallon promised restitution to the railroad. Ron’s mother cried; he’d never been in trouble before, she said. He was a bright boy, ahead of his schoolmates; they’d given him a little time to decide what he wanted to do with his life and he’d used it to make mischief.

They were nice people. Vic liked them.

Back at the office, he found he had time to dictate the report to Pete before knocking off for dinner. Pete took it down on the steno-type machine, his fingers flying; not half listening, it was all cut and dried. Vic, mouthing the appropriate phrases, realized that the account as written up for the brass had little resemblance to what had actually gone on. There was no need and no room to say that you hated working with punks; that a punk like Ron Mallon made you want to throw up. There was no point in mothers’ tears. There was no place to put down the look you had surprised on the girl’s face, that look of hate and fear; cop-hate and cop-fear, and under it some fundamental decency gone crazily askew; orderly reason, the idea of law, put aside.

Vic even knew how Ron’s sister thought about it. Law was a lousy cop out somewhere on a dark beat, waiting to shoot it out with gangsters so they wouldn’t bother decent people. You read about it in the papers all the time. Law didn’t belong on her street, in her house, standing flat-footed in her kitchen.

Nice work, Vic thought; and I’ve got it.

He was filled with sour disgust; and then he almost laughed aloud. Here he was, dead-end on his tin rail; and Arnold Grem offered such a beautiful out. And June, in all love and innocence, wanted him to quit.

Vic wound up the report, adding to Pete, “Will you call Stores Department and find out how much it will cost to recharge those empties?”

“Sure thing,” said Pete, turning to the phone.

“And then phone it in to Juvenile Division.” Vic picked up a pen, jotted down the name of the Juvenile officer in charge of this particular affair.

Pete nodded. As Vic rose, though, Pete paused with his hands on the phone. “I almost forgot. The Chief’s out with the Secret Service. He left a message for you. He wants you to go back to San Berdoo.”

“My God,” said Vic.

Pete shrugged in agreement. “He wants you to tackle the neighborhood where those characters lived. Find somebody who knew them.”

Vic dreaded the long drive; he said stubbornly, “Has he thought of trying to find out where the one woman buys her liqueur, the chartreuse, and those fancy cigarettes?”

“Oh, sure. They’re also working on the source of the counterfeiting supplies, the photoengraving stuff. You know”—Pete was staring upward through his lenses—“I’ve got a hunch they’re not going to get anywhere on that last angle. This cooky has covered himself.”

“He’s still cashing checks.”

“Not in L.A. It’s too hot now. I’ll bet the next batch shows up in Santa Barbara. Or Oceanside. Somewhere way out of town.”

Vic nodded. He didn’t disparage Pete’s theories. Pete was the nerve center of this place, the spider in the middle of the web. Though he was not actually an investigator, he did a lot of the telephone work, had his fingers in a dozen pies. “Better get out an A.P.B.”

“You think we haven’t?” Pete lifted the receiver.

Vic went out, dropped to street level in the elevator, walked over to Main, and turned north. Under the gloomy light the neon over the bars was brilliant. He turned in at the door of the HighBoy Room. There was Boots, as he had first seen her. This time the satin dress was red, though, with tiny straps crossing her shoulders, a deep V-cut above her breasts. She had a coat on the stool beside her.

Vic sat down. “Hello.”

She flicked a sidewise glance at him. “Hi.” Her lips formed the second word: copper.

“So they say,” Vic agreed. “What are you drinking?”

“Bourbon and water. You know.”

“It was scotch before.”

“Scotch gives me hangovers.”

Behind the bar Ben fingered his gold ring in his ear. His eyes were wary and distant. “What’ll you have?”

“Bourbon and water for the lady. How’s the coffee?”

Ben went out to a back room, came back with a mug of coffee, put it down before Vic, then stood leaning toward Boots. “How about them other drinks, kid?”

“How much does she owe you?”

“I don’t owe him a goddamn thing,” Boots said suddenly. “I bring him trade all the time. He owes me plenty.”

“I hate to say it,” Ben argued earnestly, “but you’re gettin’ to be a liability. Really, Boots.”

“I wasn’t no liability last night.” She stuck out her chin.

Ben looked at Vic and shrugged. It was an act, Vic thought. He put a five-dollar bill on the bar and Ben’s fat hand closed over it.

“Tell me about last night,” Vic said softly to Boots. “Why’d you call me?”

“How do you know I called you? Nobody answered.”

“Well … tell me.”

“He came in here with a damned baby buggy. It stunk. It stunk like cats. You know what I mean? Only he said he’d just bought it for cats.”

This made so little sense that Vic felt like walking out.

“I asked him, and that’s what he said. Three wheels. It was for cats. His wife stepped on their tails. Only he was laughing at me for asking.”

“This was the man you’d seen before? The man with the scar?”

“The scar didn’t look so bad last night. Or maybe I’m getting used to it. I acted like I knew him … you know … from before, and it scared him. He got real nervous for a minute.”

Ben brought her drink, bourbon with a water chaser. She tossed it off.

“Did you mention his name to him?”

“Yes, I did.”

“What did he say?”

“Said he wasn’t Byron U. Davidson.”

“This is when he acted nervous?”

She squinted at the water in the chaser glass. Vic beckoned for Ben to fill up the shot glass. "No. That wasn’t what scared him. In fact, that seemed to make him feel good. It was before, when I said I knew him. That’s when he was afraid.”

Vic sat with his elbow on the bar, the steam from the coffee rising before him. Some sailors came in and clustered around the juke box; the place filled with rock and roll. Thump, thimpity, thump, thump.

“Excuse me.” Boots touched his arm gratefully. "I see some friends. They look lonesome.” She slid off the bar stool and walked over to join the sailors. A couple of them greeted her with cries of friendly recognition and one of them whirled her in a few dance steps.

“Don’t dance in here!” Ben yelled. “I ain’t got a license!”

He wiped at the bar, then walked down to stand close to Vic. “What’s Boots been telling you?”

Vic shrugged. “Nothing.” He thought to himself that what Boots had told him had the sound of hallucination. Then he decided to take a chance. “Did anyone bring a baby buggy in here last night?”

“Old coot,” said Ben. “Nuts, if you ask me.”

“What kind of buggy was it?” Vic asked, fishing.

“A wreck. You know them old wicker deals … hell, I haven’t seen one on the street for twenty-five years.”

“What did he have in it?”

“Nothing. Oh, some scrap papers, I guess, a mess in the bottom that looked like trash.”

“Was this the man who gave you the Byron U. Davidson check?”

A surprised gleam flickered in Ben’s eye. He stroked the ring in his ear. “Could have been. I never gave it a thought.” Anger followed the surprise. “I’ll jump him next time.”

“Did you see which way he turned when he left?”

“Nope.”

Vic got off the stool and went over to Boots, interrupting her party with the sailors. She said, “Oh, hello,” and introduced him all around, an awkwardness that turned the sailors hostile.

Vic said, “Please, Boots. When the man went out with the baby buggy? which way did he turn?”

“That way.” She pointed north. “Only, he didn’t go on right away. He stood out there and watched me. Maybe he thought I was going to follow him.” She laughed; the young sailors grinned in sympathy. “I pretended I didn’t notice. You know—just because I’m kind of cockeyed—people think I don’t see so good.”

This was a joke on Boots by Boots. They were all expected to enjoy it. They chuckled in chorus and Vic felt a fool.

“Good-by, Vic,” Boots added.

Vic grinned; a real grin this time. She was so transparent, so obvious in her methods. She’d gotten a couple of drinks out of him and now she had the sailors and he must go gracefully. He wondered why he always felt so sorry for her; and decided that under the patina of toughness, the marks left by the life she led, that there was something quite simple and almost childlike; and that this was what appealed to what might be thought of as a sense of chivalry.

“Good-by, Boots.”

He went out of the HighBoy Room and, skipping lunch, spent the next forty minutes trying to trace the man with the baby buggy. He found the secondhand store where the buggy had been purchased. The proprietor took him into the rear room and showed him the new wastepaper basket and the box fixed up for the cats. But he knew nothing about the purchaser and expressed himself only on the buyer’s stubbornness.

“Wouldn’t look at a decent buggy! Too cheap!” The fat man chewed his lip. “Who’d put a baby in that thing?”

And from somewhere, dimly, Vic felt the stirrings of alarm.

Fifteen

He thought about the craziness of the baby buggy all the way to San Bernardino. Out of the accounts as given by Boots and the secondhand-store proprietor, he got a sense of harlequinade. Carnival. A rollicking joke. In his mind’s eye he could see the man with the scarred ear traipse up Main from bar to bar, exhibiting the wicker contraption, having fun with it.

Of course it wasn’t actually intended for Bryant’s baby.

Then he remembered the little shoe that Mrs. Raines had found in the sand at the beach house, and an odd coldness settled in him. At the same moment, without thinking about it, he jammed his foot on the gas pedal. The car seemed to leap under him. Vic himself was momentarily puzzled. It had been so completely automatic.

He passed beneath a long row of pepper trees. It was shading to dark now. His lights caught the ferny foliage of the trees and cast the flickering shadow beyond, over boles, limbs, the paleness of fences. Vic said, half aloud, “I’ve got to find out when the kid was born. How old he is now.”

Nobody had seen the baby at the beach house. It was odd, Vic thought. The weather hadn’t been good, of course, according to Mrs. Raines.

Usually, however, babies spent some time outside. In the shelter of a porch, perhaps. A sunny pocket in the yard. On his days off Vic had noticed, in his own neighborhood, buggies out with nets thrown over them, the babies sleeping in the fresh air.

This baby lived the life of a mole.

In San Bernardino Vic stopped at the same diner and had a hamburger, coffee, and pie. This was monotonous eating but Vic didn’t think about it. He ate quickly and drove on to the neighborhood where Bryant had lived with his young wife. He circled the block. The signs about the new hospital were lit. The one remaining house sat forlornly on its runners. The only thing Vic could see changed was the digging which had been done in the foundations of the old homes. Great blocks of cement lay upended, like the results of a blast.

On the street which had been Bryant’s, Vic parked the car and began to ring doorbells. He was embarrassed at his immediate good fortune. This was something he should have thought of last night.

The man who had answered the ring, who admitted having known the Bryants, was small, gray, and stooped. He looked like a retired watchmaker, or bookkeeper; his eyes had the wateriness left by long, close work. His clothes gave off a dry smell of moth repellant. “Looking for the Bryants? Well, let’s see. Maybe you’d best come in.”

Vic went into the lighted room. An elderly woman of about the same size and shape of the man sat in a rocker, looking at television. The man went to the set and turned off the volume. “Maggie, gentleman here wants to ask about the Bryants.” His gaze turned to Vic. “You a friend of theirs?”

Vic was tempted. Their attitude was friendly and he thought they may have liked those people. But he said, “No. I’m a railroad investigator. Here are my credentials.” He offered them the leather folder. They looked at it together, without expression.

The woman said, “Mr. Bryant worked for the railroad too. Is it something to do with his job?”

“In a way. We want to talk to Mr. Bryant. We’re looking for friends of theirs who might help us.”

“I wasn’t a friend to him,” the old man said promptly.

Vic nodded and sat down in the chair the man had placed for him. “How long did you know the Bryants?”

The wife said, “As long as they lived here. We were all in the same building. Four flats. Across the street. Deerectly smack-dab across the street from here.” She pointed with a knuckly finger. “We’d still be there, only they’re tearing it all up to make the hospital. It was nice. Nicer than this.”

“What did you think of them?”

“Aaaaah!” She threw her hands up. “That girl, that sloppy girl!”

“Now, Maggie!”

“Well, he asked, didn’t he?”

The old man bent on Vic a tremulous smile. “I haven’t introduced us. Your name’s Moine? Our name is Chatwick.”

“I’m pleased to meet you,” Vic said.

“Maggie never cared much for young Mrs. Bryant. She was a … oh, you’d say—maybe—kind of careless about things. Of course, as I told Maggie, she was pregnant. Awful big before she left.”

“No excuse,” sputtered Maggie Chatwick. “Her petticoat was always hanging. She never did anything with her hair. She was just… aaaaah! Even the house … just a mess!”

“And Mr. Bryant?”

“Oh, him!” Maggie Chatwick winked at Vic. “He was a looker!”

“No petticoats hanging?”

She laughed. “All dolled up. Wavy hair. Only, not too wavy, if you know what I mean. He could have been in the movies, I used to tell Ed. All his clothes were nice, a little loud maybe, but nice. Fancy socks.”

Vic thought of the socks Mrs. Raines had unraveled from the bit of rug.

Vic tried to think of some line of inquiry which might give a lead on the Bryants’ present whereabouts. “Bryant had a car?”

“Chevvie. Not bad. Two or three years old.”

“Do you remember the license number?”

“Sure don’t.”

Vic sat silent, and all at once Maggie Chatwick leaned over to tap her husband’s knee. “Tell him about the other one.”

Mr. Chatwick gave an embarrassed cough. Vic waited.

Finally Chatwick said, “Well, toward the end … a few weeks before they left, this other woman showed up and moved in.”

“Nothing at all like that sloppy girl,” Maggie added.

“No, she was very neat. Neat and quiet. Maggie liked her. Maggie wanted to get acquainted.”

Maggie was sitting straight, smiling. “She was just the nicest little woman. Always neat as a pin, her hair brushed, clothes pressed, shoes shined. Didn’t wear junk jewelry like the girl did sometimes. Made me think of a quiet little bird, somehow. A quiet bird in its nest, everything orderly.”

“What was her name?” Vic asked.

Maggie let out a gust of laughter. “Bryant. Fay Bryant. You know, for the longest time I thought she must be a cousin or something, and then at the last I got the craziest idea that she was his wife too!”

Mr. Chatwick tittered, an obbligato to his wife’s mirth. They looked at Vic, inviting him to join in their laughter at this outrageous delusion. Vic smiled, but the coldness was running through him again. The old buggy seemed to lurk in the far corner of the room and, between him and it, the tiny shoe with its hidden tack floated like a ghost.

“What do you think of that?” Mr. Chatwick demanded.

Vic was possessed of sudden conviction; but he didn’t voice it. “Well, something must have given her that impression. What was it?”

“Oh, the way she acted.” Maggie was smiling at the memory. “She thought she owned that man. And she treated the girl like a stranger. Like, maybe, the girl didn’t belong there with them.”

“Where do you think they went?” Vic asked suddenly.

“I asked Fay Bryant, when I saw they were packing, and she said they expected to head for San Diego or thereabouts.”

South, Vic thought. A lie, covering their tracks. Wherever they’d gone, it hadn’t been San Diego. That could be depended upon. He asked, “Did you ever notice an older man with them? A man with an injured or scarred ear?”

They were wide-eyed, consulting with each other. “Don’t remember anyone like that,” Mr. Chatwick decided.

“They had furniture?” Vic hazarded, hoping that a moving van may have been involved.

“Few sticks. Sold them to the junk store.” Maggie suddenly noticed the television set, leaned over to turn up the volume. “Got my favorite program right now. Excuse me, will you, Mr. Moine?”

“Maybe I’d better take him around to Etta,” Mr. Chatwick said to his wife.

Maggie didn’t remove her gaze from the screen. “Yes, do.” She threw over her shoulder at Vic, “Etta liked the girl. Said she was sweet. Etta might tell you something.”

Mr. Chatwick led the way outdoors, guided Vic to a path that ran along the side of the house to the rear. A small cottage sat next to the alley, smothered in a terrific jungle of vines and shrubs. Mr. Chatwick took Vic into a pitch-black porch, where he rapped on an invisible door. The whitest creature Vic had ever seen opened it to greet them. About four feet six inches, snowy-haired, she had the withered benignity of a saint. She said softly, “Yes, Ed?”

“Gentleman here to ask about the Bryants.”

She stepped back from the door. “Come in.”

The room was narrow and had a lot of old-fashioned furniture in it. A tiny fireplace held a bed of coals. An old cabinet radio murmured its music from a corner, and a canary who should have been asleep was trying to give it competition. Mr. Chatwick said, “Etta, this is Mr. Moine. He’s an investigator for the railroad. Mr. Moine, Mrs. Darbury.”

Etta Darbury looked Vic over. In her withered face the blue eyes were unexpectedly brilliant. Vic offered his credentials. She seemed more interested in his appearance; and he decided she was sizing him up, wondering if he meant trouble for the girl she liked.

“What do you want to know about the Bryants?”

“Where they are now.”

She went over to turn off the radio. The canary gave a final shrill bleat and tucked its head under its wing as if exhausted. She threw a black cotton sack over the cage. “Why do you want to see them?”

“We’re making a routine investigation of some claims.” In a way, Vic thought, it was true. “We need to talk to David Bryant about them.”

She sat down, indicating a chair for Vic. For an instant she glanced at Ed Chatwick. Vic couldn’t read any unfriendliness in her manner, but Ed shook his head at her and said, “Yeah, I’m going.” To Vic: “She won’t talk about them in front of Maggie or me. Says we weren’t fair.” He went out and shut the door behind him.

“They weren’t fair,” Etta Darbury said to Vic. Then, briskly, “What about Merna … Mrs. Bryant? Is this something to do with her?”

“I don’t think so.”

“David Bryant’s in trouble, isn’t he?”

Vic shrugged. “I couldn’t say … yet.” He met her gaze steadily. “The Chatwicks seemed to think you might know where the Bryants are living.”

She didn’t deny it. She sat without speaking, obviously thinking something over. Then she said, “I’d like to explain how I met Merna.”

“Sure,” Vic agreed. “I’m very interested.”

She made him think of a white moth in the cocoon of the dark little house. A moth with human, intelligent eyes. “When you get old, as old as I, and you’re alone all of the time, it’s easy to imagine things. Sights, sounds. So on that first of May, nearly a year ago, when I heard someone crying out in the alley I thought I was having one of my … dreams.” She smiled at Vic. “Often I think I hear the bird singing, and then I look at him and he’s eating or sleeping. So you see—”

“I understand.”

“I hope you never do,” she corrected. “Anyway, after a while, when the dream persisted, I went to have a look. I always quit hearing the bird when I see he’s doing something else.”

A coal popped in the grate, and the hooded cage rocked a little in its stand as if the canary had jerked his head from under his feathers. He was a nervous bird, Vic decided.

“Merna Bryant was out there. There was a wooden box—someone had used it to put trash in, though it was empty then. She was sitting on that. She’d pushed it into my shrubbery, almost out of sight. I don’t think she knew there was a house here. People often don’t. Things have grown up so and I’ve … just let them grow.”

Remembering the tangle, half visible under the night sky, Vic silently agreed.

“She was scared when I spoke. She wanted to run. But I was in the way. And there was an innate politeness about her. I didn’t know it then, of course.”

“How old did you think she was?” Vic asked.

“Couldn’t have been twenty yet. Just a child. Pregnant. I guess Ed and Maggie told you that.”

“You liked her,” Vic said.

“Oh, not in those first minutes, no. Merna wasn’t a girl who kept herself pretty. Never will be. If you’re going to judge people by how pressed and brushed they are, she’ll repel you. It wasn’t until later, after I’d coaxed her into the house and given her a cup of tea, and talked a while …” Her voice trailed off into silence. She was remembering that other day, the girl who may have sat where Vic sat now.

“Did she tell you why she was crying?”

“No. Never. I saw, though. There was another woman living over there with them. Hadn’t been there long, or at least I hadn’t noticed her before. A little dark woman. Very prim and tidy.”

“Who was she?”

“I don’t know. Maggie says she was David Bryant’s other wife, but it seems so impossible. People don’t do that. I mean, you hear of bigamy, of course. But they keep them separate.” She studied Vic as if seeing him for a police officer. “Don’t they?”

“Mostly,” he agreed. “Perhaps this girl was in no position to kick up a fuss. Had you thought of that?”

She tapped her white fingers on the chair arm. “It’s true.”

“What did she talk to you about?”

“Her baby. It was due in about a month or so. She wanted it to be a boy. She said girls had a kind of rough time, sometimes. She said boys could get out and go. I don’t think she’d had an easy time of it, either before or after she married David Bryant.”

“David Bryant has been described as an exceptionally handsome man,” Vic said. “Did you ever decide why he chose to marry this girl?”

She was nodding. “Yes, I’ve thought a lot about it. I think he found in her something he lacked utterly. By that I mean the most crystalline perfect honesty I’ve ever known. She is literally a person who cannot tell a lie. She can refuse to speak, as she did about her trouble at home. But she’d never consider a falsehood. And that’s rare. These days.”

Vic returned her smile. “Where do you think they are now?”

“I know where they are now. Or at least, where they went when they moved from the house across the street.” She watched Vic for a moment and he waited, wondering if he’d ever get it out of her. “They went to Hermosa Beach.”

Well, it had been a stopping place on the way to Ventura, Vic thought.

Mrs. Darbury stood up suddenly. “I’m going to show you something. I’ve never let anyone else see it. None of them liked her, or understood her.” She was moving to a little desk which was crammed in between a bookcase and a china cabinet. “She sent me a card when the baby came. I made her promise to, before she left.”

She opened the desk and fished around among some papers.

The card was the ordinary kind you buy in post offices. Merna’s hand was small, neat, clear; and something about its plainness spoke of the honesty Mrs. Darbury had found in the girl.

Dear Friend,

The baby came. He was born at home on the twelfth of July. He weighed over seven pounds. I am nursing him. I have lots of milk. We are all fine. I hope to see you someday.

Your friend, Merna Bryant

On the bottom of the card was the Hermosa Beach address.

Vic tapped the card. “May I borrow this? I’ll see that you get it back safely.”

“You may have it, Mr. Moine. I don’t want it back. I know what it says.”

“Did you hear from her afterward?”

“No.” She moved her hands restlessly, and Vic wondered if she were lying.

Vic said, “I’m going to be honest, Mrs. Darbury; I think Merna Bryant is unhappy and that her baby may be in danger. If you can help us find her it may be very much for the better.”

“I know Merna must be unhappy if that woman is still with them.”

“She is with them.”

“I would help if I could. I don’t know anything more, Mr. Moine.”

“If you hear from Merna Bryant again at any time, will you call me collect at this number? Leave a message with our office man if I’m not in.” He put one of his cards on her table. “Day or night. Someone will be there.”

Mrs. Darbury was staring thoughtfully at a point past Vic’s shoulder, her gaze absent and troubled. “When you find them … if Merna needs a place to live”—her smile deprecated the possibility of that need—“let her know she’s always welcome here. The baby too.”

“I’ll tell her,” Vic said. He decided in that moment that Mrs. Darbury was telling the truth and that she would have informed him of the Bryants’ whereabouts if she had known it.

Sixteen

Merna leaned toward the table to look at the check. It lay in the bright pool of light cast by the lamp. It was an entirely respectable piece of paper, all in order, the railroad colophon shining black and authoritative in the upper left corner. Merna trembled.

“You have to get it right,” David said. “You’re Mrs. Byron U. Davidson.

“Never cared for the name, myself,” said Willy from the kitchen doorway. “Sounds phony. Easy to remefnber.”

Only Fay glanced his way. Merna was staring at the check and David had his eyes fixed on her face. “Do you understand?” he asked.

“Mrs. Byron U. Davidson,” she whispered.

He flipped it over. “I’ve endorsed it. When you give it to the grocer, he’ll ask you to sign, too, just beneath. You sign it … oh, Penelope Davidson.”

“How do you spell it?”

Fay smiled into the fleecy stuff she was knitting.

“Forget it.” David’s voice had roughened. He walked to the other side of the table, came back. “Sign it Merna Davidson. It doesn’t matter.”

“It might,” Willy said.

“Shut up,” David told him. David was sharp with Willy now. Whenever he looked at Willy it was with open aversion. “Now, listen. We’ll go into the store … no, I mean you’ll go in, just before nine-thirty. He stays open late. It’s a little place and he’s careless. He’ll think you live in the neighborhood. We’ll pick out an address when we get there.”

“Where is it?” Merna wondered.

“Over in Boyle Heights. A Mexican joint. If he jabbers in Spanish, just smile and go on holding out the check.”

Shivers ran through her. Her tongue was thick, the words seemed garbled. “Maybe I’ll d-do something wrong.”

David’s eyes grew quite still. “Like what?”

She put her hands in her coat pockets to hide their shaking. “I might forget the name. Suppose I sign it Merna Bryant?”

“You’d better not,” he warned.

“Take a slug of liquor before you go, and a couple along the way,” Willy advised jovially. “That’ll buck you up something fierce. I got a bottle of whisky. You’re welcome to some of that. Or even”—a sly look crossed his face—“take a jolt of chartreuse.”

“I can’t stand it,” Merna said in distraction.

Fay botched a couple of stitches.

David touched Merna’s shoulder. The touch was gentle but Merna stood suddenly quiet, like a creature frozen in fear. “Listen, Merna. He’ll want to know a few things. He may ask what the check is for, and you’re to say, “They broke our furniture.’ Can you remember?”

“They broke our furniture,” she echoed in a whisper.

“You see, this is a claims check. It means that we shipped something on the railroad and they damaged it and paid for it.”

“Yes. Yes, I know.”

“Now this old guy doesn’t speak English too well. You’ll have to talk slowly and distinctly.”

There was a trembling in her throat. She squeezed it down long enough to gasp, “They broke our furniture.”

“That’s it.”

“You poor devil,” Willy said in sudden pity.

“If you don’t shut up I’ll kick your teeth in,” David told him. Then, as if in afterthought, he added in a more friendly tone, “Maybe you’re right about the drink. Let’s have it.”

He and Willy went out into the kitchen and there were liquid clankings. Then David brought her the drink, whisky with a little water in it. She got it down, past the terrible knot in her throat; it was hot-tasting, sickish. It did nothing for the trembling within her.

When she had caught her breath she said, “I’ll carry the baby. The baby will make everything look … real.” She clung to the vision, the baby in her arms, warm, sleepy and soft. Please. Please.

The light slanted on David’s cheekbones, throwing his eyes in shadow. And still patient, still almost friendly, “You’ll—what?”

“Carry Davy.” All her breath ran out. She tried to meet his gaze but this was like staring at a mask. Under the politeness she’d once taken for love, the machinelike charm, was something else. It defied her analysis.

“Of course you won’t. You’ll have enough to think of, enough to do. Keeping your wits about you. Without the kid.”

“He’ll wake. He’ll cry.” She wrung her hands. She wouldn’t look at Fay, though she sensed the other woman’s watchful stillness. “Let me take him in the car. You’ll keep him while I’m inside.”

“I don’t know where you picked up this crazy idea,” David said, “but forget it. Understand?”

Three pairs of eyes waited to see whether she understood. A terrible fright buffeted Merna. She tried to think of an alternative to submission. She cried, all in a rush, “How can I think about cashing the check if I’m afraid for him?”

“Afraid? Of what?”

David seemed almost on the verge of laughter. Willy chuckled from the doorway. Fay’s knitting needles clicked and glittered.

“I don’t know,” Merna stammered helplessly. “I just feel—I feel like something might happen to him. Something awful.”

“We won’t be gone an hour. Go nurse him now,” David commanded, “and he’ll be fine.”

“And dry his bottom,” Willy put in. “What else is there?”

A great fount of scalding amusement seemed to splash over her from these other three. She felt heavy, stupid. A cow, bovine, oxlike. She stole cringing into the back bedroom, the drafty small room which had been a porch. The baby woke, nuzzling as she lifted him from the basket. The moment had no joy in it, none of the act of loving and giving. She would fill him up so he would be still, so that he wouldn’t attract the attention of the two left here with him.

The baby was growing bigger; he was becoming strong and active. He pinched her breast with small sharp fingers. His heels dug her thighs as she sat on the side of the bed. She was terrified and at the same time incapable of self-defense. When David looked in at her and said, “That’s enough,” she laid the baby obediently into his basket She buttoned her blouse and took the old coat from the closet. The frayed cuffs caught her fingers as she slipped them through the sleeves.

She came back into the light. Fay gave her a quick look.

“Put a scarf on your head,” David commanded. “Something bright, something he’ll look at instead of looking at your face.”

She was baffled. “I don’t have anything like that.”

Fay got up without speaking, put the knitting on the table, went over to the old-fashioned sideboard and opened one of the drawers. This piece of furniture was understood to be Fay’s territory; nobody else ever touched it. Fay took out a blue scarf on which a Mardi Gras scene whirled in orange and green. She came back to the table, put the scarf down in front of the girl. “I don’t want it back,” she said carefully.

She sat down and picked up the knitting.

The implications of her words sank in upon Merna slowly. Fay didn’t want the scarf again because once it had been worn by the cow, it would stink of nursing and diapers. Though Merna was little given to flashes of insight, she wondered in this moment if Fay were paying her back for her remark about the chartreuse.

She tied the scarf on her head, pushed the hair out of sight.

“Okay,” David said. “Let’s go.”

They walked toward the door. The last thing Merna looked at was the buggy. It was a much improved affair. The filthy and tattered lining was gone, replaced by a pale blue oilcloth. The wicker had been painted a soft cream color; the spokes of the wheels were gray. Fay had talked that evening of taking Davy out in it soon. When the smell of the new paint had worn off, for instance. Or when the next sunny day arrived. Merna looked so intently at the buggy that when she was outside, in the night, she could see the image of it on the dark.

But in the car other images crowded this one aside. She was remembering—unwillingly—the day Fay had come. It had happened at the flat in San Bernardino. She had been in the kitchen baking something, trying to please David with something different in the way of food, since she had begun to realize in a lost uncertain way that she was failing to please him otherwise. There had been steps on the porch out front; then the door of the flat had opened and the steps had come inside. One, she knew, was David. She had run to the swinging door and pushed it open to look.

And Fay had looked back, unsmiling.

This was the one time she could recall having seen David with his poise ruffled. There had been an angry discomfiture in the stare he’d bent on Merna. “This is … is Fay.” He’d made some gesture then, offering them as it were to each other.

“I am David’s wife,” Fay had said clearly.

The words were unmistakable. The door, forgotten, had swung to and hit Merna in the face.

She had found herself alone in the kitchen, and though this had been the accident of a moment, it had definitely marked the beginning of a pattern. She was shut off. She had looked around her at the usual stove, icebox, cupboards, the faded linoleum, the potted begonia in the window, the scrim curtains she had made, and all of the comfortable familiarity was gone; it was as strange as if she had wakened a million miles from home. The door had baffled her too. She didn’t know what to do about it. On its other side was a small neat woman with the eyes of a fox.

David’s wife.

The vision washed away in a sudden burst of tears. Lights speeding past made a bursting glitter. Merna choked over the lump in her throat. She couldn’t even remember, just then, what had happened next. Had David opened the door and come into the kitchen to talk to her?

Had he explained it all then? Or afterward?

“It’s just for a little while—”

Had he said that?

“She’s mad now, cross because I left her to marry you—”

The little dim hope had grown for a while that Fay would give David up and go away; and then the hope had died. One thing remained, the marriage license, the San Bernardino County Marriage License, tucked away in Merna’s battered old suitcase. And then one day that, too, was gone.

“Now, look,” David said suddenly, “here’s a good spot for an address. Pick out a number.”

She woke to stare at the blowsy street. It was deserted, poorly lit. The houses were old, the yards shabby. In the vacant lots, dead weeds lay packed down by the recent rain. “What do you want me to do?”

He said with the strange air of patience, “You need an address for the grocer. Remember?”

“Oh. Yes.”

“Pick any number and we’ll change it by one or two.”

“Two … two … forty-four,” she read, squinting.

“Let’s call it twenty-two forty-eight,” he said. “Next house is twenty-two fifty, so we’re safe. Vail Street. Got that?”

She stammered through it again. They came to a corner, turned into a brighter thoroughfare. There were a few idlers on the sidewalks but not many. David pulled into the curb and stopped. He took the check from his coat pocket. “It’s up to you now.”

The paper was cold in her fingers. “Where is the … the place?”

“Right up there.” He pointed to an open lighted store front, perhaps fifty feet beyond. “Walk in. Do some picking. Bread, milk, margarine. Don’t act as if you’re just grabbing something, anything. Be choosy. If you can find a bent can … beans, milk … take it over and ask if he’ll let it go for half.”

Her mouth was dry, her throat aching, and fright shivered through her like bolts of ice. “I can’t argue in Spanish.”

“Oh, hell, he knows some English. What I’m trying to get over to you is this: the check is money. Act as if it’s money. You’re spending it, not tossing some junk into a sack to get rid of a piece of paper.”

She tried to let his words in, tried to fix them in her memory; but the fear had been there first and was now much stronger.

She put a hand on the door handle.

David touched her. “Got it straight? What’s the address?”

She couldn’t remember the address. “I don’t know.”

His voice roughened as it had at home. “Twenty-two forty-eight Vail Street.”

She repeated it breathlessly, got out, stuffing the check into her small shabby bag. She walked down the street, past other store fronts, most of them closed, to the open door of the grocery. The smell of the place came out to meet her; a musk compounded of coffee, chilies, sourr-dough bread, and bacon. There was an open place at the end of the counter to the left, and here, in a rocking chair, sat an ancient mummy of a woman. Behind the counter, leaning on it and looking at a newspaper, was a man of about forty, black-haired, quite stout. On the floor, just visible at the end of the counter, was a small electric heater. It was turned to warm the old lady.

Merna went in, stood there uncertain. The man had looked up at her, was nodding. The old lady hissed something in Spanish.

“Good evening,” Merna said. She had no idea of what to do next. This was no supermarket with wheeled carts, aisles in which to roll them, neat stacks of food. It was a miniature jungle of a store, and a lot of the wares hung overhead like dark stalactites. Stumblingly, she went toward a row of cans of milk. She looked for a bent can. It seemed to her that they were all bent. She turned back, baffled, to the man at the counter.

“How much for the milk?”

“Fifteen cents.”

The old lady hissed again in Spanish and Merna stared at her, wondering what she had said.

“They’re bent,” Merna pointed out lamely.

“Not broken, however,” he said.

It seemed to close the conversation. Merna couldn’t think of anything else to say. She picked up two cans of milk, cradled them against her bosom, chose a loaf of bread in a white sack, then went to the small meat case.

He came over, smiling. “Yes, señora?”

“Some … some baloney.” She watched as he took out a length of sausage. It was dark, old-looking, red with chilies. “Half of that.”

He operated upon the sausage out of sight, tossed it upon the scales, told her the price. She took the wrapped package, cradled it along with the milk and the bread, looked around for something else.

“Something more?”

“Beans,” she gasped. A terrible pressure constricted her lungs, made her voice queer and breathy. “Beans,” she said, more loudly.

She thought he was staring at her with some curiosity. “Dried or canned?”

“Canned.”

He showed her the row of beans and she picked some out quickly, not looking to see what sort they were. Then she went to the counter near where the old lady sat, put down the bread, the sausage, the cans of milk, and the can of beans. She opened the handbag and removed the check. Her fingers shook; she dropped the check to the counter. The old lady rattled off a spate of Spanish words and the man frowned.

Merna controlled the trembling in her throat long enough to say hoarsely, “They broke our furniture.” Then, because of the incomprehension in the man’s eyes, she knew that she had made a mistake. She should have waited, holding out the check to him, letting him see the railroad colophon, until he asked her the question. She tried to correct this error. “I mean, the check is for … is for the damage. We shipped our furniture and they broke it.” Sweat stood on her face now; he must notice it.

“I see, señora.” He picked up the check with what seemed an odd reluctance. Over it he spoke in Spanish to the old lady and she chattered back. Then he said to Merna, “Where do you live, please?” She tried to recall the number. Her head was cotton. She blinked her eyes at her own lack of wits. “Vail Street.” The number returned to her suddenly. “Twenty-two forty-eight.”

The two behind the counter exchanged a glance. Merna waited in panic. The man pursed his lips, plucked at his chin, meanwhile studying the check. Merna began to experience a nightmare sensation of floating off balance, of teetering through empty space in his direction, willy-nilly, and on the verge of toppling. She put out a hand. Misunderstanding, he offered her the check. Perhaps he expected her endorsement or the jotting down of the address; but it seemed to Merna that he was rejecting the worthless piece of paper, and in that moment an almost frightening relief and joy shot through her. She was reprieved. He had refused the check and she needn’t pass it after all. She swung around with the check in her hand and ran for the door.

David reached for her as she climbed into the car, poked her upright in the seat. “Where are the groceries? What happened?”

“He wouldn’t … wouldn’t’” She rolled her eyes, met his glare.

David hit her across the mouth; her lips seemed to burst; and when she crouched over in agony, he rained blows on the back of her head. Then he grabbed her by the scarf, almost tearing it from her head, and jammed her against the window. “Tell me. What went wrong?”

“I don’t know!” She yowled it through tears and phlegm.

Gripping her hair, he pounded her head against the steel frame of the car window. It was fury such as Merna had never expected. He was not, she sensed, enraged only because of her failure with the check.

This was more than that.

He was beating her, she sensed, simply for being.

Her senses rang. She lay against the window, unaware for a few moments that he had stopped abusing her, had taken the check and was going back into the store.

She looked in terrified longing at the key hanging in the switch.

She would have left him then; but she had never learned to drive a car.

Seventeen

He came back shortly, tossing in the sack of food before seating himself behind the wheel. She cringed away, expecting further cruelty; but he made no move toward her. His manner was remote, contained. He started the motor, drew out into the street. As they passed the store, Merna saw the grocer step out upon the sidewalk. He had a pencil and a paper pad of some sort; she knew that he was writing down the license number of the car. She licked her lips, turned her head cautiously to look at David. He was engrossed in driving.

The car was Fay’s, registered in her name.

She thought about telling him about the grocer, and then decided against it. He might get angry and hit her again. She knew vaguely that the car had been registered in Fay’s name as a measure of protection. But talking about it might rouse his wrath.

It was the second secret she had kept from him.

Earlier in the week she had gone into the front bedroom, to the closet, to hang up some shirts she had ironed for him. She disliked the room and entered it as seldom as possible. It was Fay’s room. David’s, too, in the way he shared the back bedroom with her when it pleased him. In this alien territory she had walked softly.

Fay and David had been gone. She had forgotten about Willy.

Willy had been there. He had taken some of the things from the closet, the package of printed checks, the check-writing machine, the name stamp with which the checks had to be signed. He was squatted on the floor, all the paraphernalia spread out around him. When she had surprised him he’d jumped to his feet, then grinned.

“Scared me to hell and gone,” he’d panted, still grinning. "Thought it was David.”

His breath had rattled in his throat and he’d been pale, as if a bleach had washed his skin, leaving all the little broken veins distinct, like red scratches on a piece of white paper. Even his hands had had the sudden unnatural pallor, Merna noticed. The nails had seemed bluish, their broken edges dark with dirt.

He’d leaned closer, his whisky breath in her face. “You going to tell him?”

She had looked at the stuff on the floor. “What are you doing?”

“I want to go out for a little fun, that’s all. I got to have me some bar money.”

She had known that David would not approve. David didn’t like for Willy to drink, not even at home.

“I made the plates for him, didn’t I?” Willy had asked cunningly.

“Yes, I guess you did.”

She had held the fresh shirts closer, trying to crowd down the whisky smell with the fresh smells of soap and starch.

“He won’t ever know it,” Willy had argued.

“I suppose he won’t.”

Willy had winked at her. “You’re a good kid, Merna. I like you fine. I know I can trust you not to tell David.”

She’d been scared, all at once. David would be angry at Willy, even more angry at her for keeping silent. She’d hung the shirts up and hurried back into the other part of the house, where she had sat for a while, trying to think of something to do. She understood David and Fay and Willy about as well as she had comprehended Mrs. Jansen in her waking nightmares, when she’d talked about eternal damnation and the saving waters of Jordan.

In the end, in fear, she had kept still, hiding Willy’s secret as her own.

The car jolted off the street and into the ruts of the unpaved drive. The headlights picked the dilapidated garage from the gloom. “Open the doors,” David commanded, putting on the brakes.

She jumped from the car, pulled the wooden peg from its hasp, got the sagging double doors apart, propped them wide with the broken bricks kept for the purpose. She didn’t wait for David; she ran for the porch, all her thoughts fixed on the baby. In her recent fright and pain she’d almost forgotten him, almost forgotten the helpless small one who depended on her for his very life.

She sped into the house. Fay sat as she had when they’d gone, by the table, calmly knitting. Willy wasn’t to be seen. Merna controlled her hurry, tried to seem small, quiet, as she went into the bedroom past Fay’s cool stare. She bent above the sleeping baby. For a moment she hung there, savoring his nearness; and then alarm stung her.

She threw herself at the light switch, then tore back to the basket. The baby’s face was blue.

Screams shattered the quiet. Merna didn’t attempt to pick up her child. She squatted on her heels, shriek after shriek pouring from her throat. She wasn’t even aware that it was she who screamed. It seemed to her shocked mind that the noise came from without, from someone else, and that in the midst of horrified grief she neither moved nor spoke.

Steps pounded into the room. David’s form swam before her in the midst of an exploding glitter. Then something lifted her … a blow … and a harsh voice commanded her to be silent. She hit the wall, slid down against it, rolled over. The screaming had stopped. She herself was only one great ache of pain but this was unimportant. The important thing was what had happened in the basket.

Merna lay breathless, almost unconscious, as David Bryant bent over the sleeping child. He lifted the edge of the cotton comfort, touched the small hands, found them warm. “What the hell." He spat on a fingertip and rubbed at the blue stain on the baby’s face. It came off upon his finger.

Fay was in the doorway now, Willy peering over her shoulder.

David squatted, went on poking in the basket, came up with a bear made of blue plush on which the baby apparently had sucked. It was quite damp. David rose to his feet. He went over to Merna on the floor, squatted again, let the bear swing before her eyes.

“It didn’t amount to a damn. The color came off.”

She pushed herself into a sitting position.

“The thing is, you might have gotten us all in a lot of trouble,” David went on. “Screaming like that. The neighbors might have heard you and decided to call the cops. We can’t have cops.”

He dropped the small toy on the floor in front of her and stood up, walked out. Fay went with him. At the table she stopped; he went on, then looked back.

“She’s not under very good control,” Fay said quietly.

David looked into her eyes. “The next time you try anything like that, I’ll beat you up.”

“I?” She mocked him, her face composed. Her fingers touched the soft wool in which her knitting needles were embedded; and she stroked the strands as she might have petted a cat. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“You wanted to scare her.” He was uncertain, though; he looked past Fay at Willy, gaggling in the doorway.

In the bedroom, Merna bent again above the basket. She’d hurt her head, somehow; it throbbed darkly, a pain that seemed to go crunch, crunch, in the flesh behind her eyes. The basket, the baby inside it, wavered in a splotch of reddish light. She touched the baby with hands that seemed disconnected from her, that brought back no message of warmth and well-being. She was still convinced that the baby was dead.

Willy came in, knelt beside her. “I’ll bring a washcloth. A warm one. We’ll wash him. It’s just bluing.”

She wanted to ask him how he knew, but she was too confused and too surprised at his sudden kindness. She waited on her knees while he went and returned; and then she watched while he sponged the blue color from the baby’s face. At the touch of the wet cloth the wide bright eyes opened; and only then was Merna assured that Davy lived.

Merna was blindingly grateful to Willy. But at the same time she put no trust in his future kindness. Willy was like a child. He was prankish. It wouldn’t have surprised her to know that he’d helped Fay paint the baby’s skin.

When Vic turned into his street late that night, he saw June’s car parked at the curb, lights out, and a sudden unreasoning impatience filled him. He had the feeling that she was unfair, that she waited until he was tired, disgusted with himself and therefore the job; most of all, that she knew in time she would win him over.

He pulled in behind the big convertible, doused his lights. He heard her car door open and slam. Then she was outside, a slim dark figure only half visible in the poor light. “Vic?”

“You know damn well it’s Vic.”

“You’re cross.”

She was quick to grasp his mood and now this too was irritating.

“I’ve been driving all day.” He climbed from the car, shut the door. He felt cramped and stale. “Frankly, I’m beat to the socks. Whatever it is, won’t it wait?”

“It’s sweet of you to think only of me,” she answered. “But I haven’t minded the long lonely hours. Knowing you’d be here eventually.”

They were quarreling. He touched her arm. “Come upstairs.”

They went up and Vic turned on the lights. Without asking him about it she went into the kitchen and put the coffeepot on. Then she came back to the small living room. She didn’t take off her coat. Vic thought she looked tired, as tired as he felt; and then he had the familiar panic, the thought that time was rushing past them, that June wouldn’t be there forever for him to choose when he was ready. June was mortal. She could be tired, she could get sick. She could die.

He had his arms around her, her soft hair under his chin. “I get scared sometimes. I don’t know why.”

“I’m scared too. Only I know why. You can lose people. You can give up, forget, drift apart.”

June didn’t have his peculiar fear, then. He was glad of that.

She put her head back. “I’ll make it short, Vic. Dad asked me to come see you. He has some friends and their son’s in trouble.”

Vic looked down at her, only half listening. He was reassuring himself youth was still in her face, not age or sickness.

“Their name is Parrott,” she went on.

It still didn’t register. Vic was stroking her hair.

“You arrested their son, some minor thing about some fire extinguishers. Don’t you know what I’m talking about, Vic?”

He pushed her away. “Yes, what are you talking about?”

She watched him, must have seen the anger spreading in his face. “They’re very nice people, Vic.”

“I can’t say the same for their punk son.” He went over to the couch, shed his overcoat on it, then dropped his coat, unstrapped the harness that held the gun, dropped that too. He turned to glance at her. “What does your father want me to do?”

She was voiceless. Searching for words, Vic thought.

He put it into words for her. “He wants me to fix it. That’s all, isn’t it?”

She nodded mutely, then put in: “They don’t want their son to have a police record. It’ll follow him forever.”

“He should have thought of that.”

“Vic, when you were young like that, when you were a kid, a thoughtless kid—”

“My old man was a cop. Remember?”

He went into the kitchen to check up on the coffee. She didn’t follow him; he began to hope that the subject was finished. He got cream from the little refrigerator, sugar from the cupboard, a couple of cups. Then she was standing in the doorway. She looked as if the job Grem had given her was making her a little sick; but he was her dad, after all, and if June had anything it was spunk.

“Please think about it, Vic.”

“There’s nothing to think about. What can I do?” He turned on her a stare of fury. “If I even tried anything funny I’d get kicked out of Ryerson’s office so fast my head would swim. It’s a job, June.” He was close to her and she backed away a little. “It’s work, work for a living, like your old man used to do before he took up with City Hall and his other cronies.”

She licked her lips. “You hate him. You hate my father.”

“That has nothing to do with this.”

“The … the boy’s parents are terribly frightened.”

“I’m sorry for them. The kid deserves just what he got.”

June stamped her foot, a completely childish and uncontrolled gesture that made Vic want to smile in the midst of his anger. “Even if Dad wanted you back and even if you wanted to come back—even if you changed your mind overnight—I wouldn’t let him take you into his office.”

“That’s fine,” Vic said levelly.

She turned and went into the other room; he heard her open the front door. A sudden empty loneliness rushed through him.

She spoke then, her voice soft with distance. “Don’t think I’m giving up, Vic. It’s just Dad I’m cutting you loose from. I’ll never quit. I’ll never change.” The door shut and she was gone.

He poured a cup of coffee, put in sugar and cream, went into the other room. There was a faint fragrance in the air, left by June. It was a rich smell, Vic reminded himself. He sat down and sipped at the coffee. There was no use in June clinging to him; he could never afford perfume like that.

Thinking of Grem, of his money, his arrogance, Vic got mad all over again at the preposterous errand Grem had sent June on. Grem had no thought of June, actually. He didn’t care a hoot for her pride. Let her humble herself, let her beg the man she loved to be dishonest, so that some influential friend of his might be served.

So that a lousy punk could go on stealing. Or worse.

If they got away with it at the beginning, it always got worse.

Vic put down the coffee, stood up, went over to the table and opened the drawer and took out the sheet of newsprint Rock had doodled on. It seemed visibly more yellow and crackling.

The little stick boys climbing the fence gave off a puppetly mischief.

Vic frowned, studying the scribbles Rock had made while lying abed, the hours heavy, his sick heart laboring. Of course when he’d done this doodling the conversation with Vic had been fresh in his mind. His interest was genuine, more than just a goad for Vic; Rock had simply never quit being a cop. Vic was uneasy now, wondering if he might have overlooked something important here. Most aptly, he remembered June’s remark: The parents are terribly frightened.

Vic turned his eyes from the scratchy doodling. Why should the Parrotts be so scared … over a minor charge of theft, which, with any promise of good behavior, would probably be reduced to trespassing, the kid let off with a warning? Was there something else more serious?

June had given something away. Unintentionally, perhaps. No. He crossed that idea off before it even got started. June was no party to that kind of trick.

He began to walk around the room.

Perhaps his fixed idea that Rock had met his old quarry was wrong. Perhaps Rock had not even been looking for the child’s murderer on that particular evening. Perhaps he’d gone out still full of interest in Vic’s two cases, the trespassers seen by Mrs. McAdams at the commissary, the phony checks passed by Byron U. Davidson.

This line of thought opened up a whole new territory. Vic finally went to bed, lay awake in the dark, still thinking about it.

When he arose in the morning, all doubt was gone. He knew what he had to do. He ate breakfast slowly. The coffee, scrambled eggs, stale roll, might have been so much sawdust. He didn’t taste it. He took the page of newsprint with him, stuck it into his overcoat pocket as he went out.

The street that ended on the river bed was bright with sun, and it all looked newly washed and clean from the rain. Vic parked beyond the garage. He walked up the driveway to the Mallon house, rang the bell. The door opened after a couple of minutes and Ron Mallon stood there, obviously surprised, looking out at him. The kid’s hair was tousled. He wore a pajama top over his jeans. His feet were bare.

Vic grabbed the neck of the pajama top and yanked him out through the door. The kid let out a yelp. Vic backhanded him sharply across the face.

“Hey! Hey! I didn’t do anything—”

“Tell me about the old guy who caught you climbing the fence. The one you ran over with the car. Come on.”

It took a little while for the Mallon punk to get it straight. He kept his arms up over his face, ducked, while Vic punched at him and demanded answers.

“You nuts or something? We didn’t hurt anybody.”

“Come with me, punk.” Vic jerked Ron off the porch, marched him to the car out past the garage, thrust him into the front seat, past the wheel, then got in to drive. “Tell me,” he said almost agreeably, “Tell me a good place to take a rotten punk to beat the truth out of him.”

“I don’t know—what do you mean? I’m telling the truth!”

“The old man you killed was a friend of mine,” Vic said quietly. “I’d known him all my life.”

“We didn’t kill him!” Ron yelped.

“You propped him up against a brick wall and banged him around with your heap. Shall we go have a look at your bumpers?”

“Yeah. Yeah.”

“Shut up.” Vic lifted his fist. Ron Mallon cowered away from the expected blow. For a moment he looked awfully young, terribly afraid. Not knowing-afraid, just scared, the way he might look if a thunder-bolt had hit him out of a clear sky.

Eighteen

Vic turned the key in the switch, started the motor. Above the hum Ron Mallon stammered, “Why won’t you listen to me? I have a right to speak up. You’ve got to listen.”

“Do I?” Vic was thinly amused.

Ron’s voice shook with fear. “This is America.” He made it sound like a prayer, a last-ditch litany.

Vic put his head back to laugh. “Sure. It’s America. Where punks like you get away with murder. Almost.”

“Wait. Wait a minute.” Sweat had burst out on Mallon’s face. “You said you’d look at the bumpers.”

“I’ve changed my mind. You’ve had a lot of time to polish up.”

“But I haven’t. Why should I? What was there to hide?” His fright, the terrified honesty he’d squeezed into his words, made Vic impatient.

But all at once he remembered what had happened here before. Ron had cracked under patient, prolonged questioning. His own rage over Rock’s death had made him hasty, forgetful. Vic leaned forward, turned off the switch. The motor died in company with a whistling breath of relief from the punk. “Okay. We’ll talk. You start.”

Ron’s eyes were like a rabbit’s, unfocused, glazed. “What can I say?”

“I don’t know.” Vic began to relax. “Just say something.”

“We … we admitted taking the fire extinguishers.”

“Sure. Crazy kid stuff. What’d you want them for?”

“Just … kicks.”

“You kill for kicks too?”

Ron Mallon shook his head. “Nobody ever caught us. Until you came. We never ran into any old guy at the yards, like the one you’re talking about.”

“Well, just who did you see out there?”

Ron rubbed his shaking hands over his hair. “We noticed an old lady and a dog. A hell of a big dog. They used to come out late, sometimes as late as midnight, an old house near the yards, and walk around. It’s lonesome out there. I used to wonder if she wasn’t scared.”

Not with that dog, Vic thought. “Talk about someone being scared, what are the Parrotts so afraid of?”

“Uuuh?” The question seemed to catch Mallon off guard. He made no attempt to answer.

Vic bored in. “Your pal’s folks are in a hell of a swivet. They’re trying to put in a fix. Don’t tell me it’s just this business with the fire extinguishers.”

“I don’t know anything about it.” Mallon was staring at the floor of the car, at the beam of sunlight which penetrated there to make a dollar-sized spot next to his bare toes. He seemed as baffled, no more frightened, than before.

“Come on,” Vic coaxed, feeling the block behind the stunned manner. “You know something. What’s got them pleading for mercy?”

“The only thing I can think of—” Ron Mallon drew a deep breath; his tone was uncertain. “Jack’s dad is a lawyer. He’s tied up with a big aircraft company, handles a lot of government contracts. He makes a whale of a lot of dough, but he’s got to be clean. Real clean. Anyway, that’s what Jack said once.”

“And he’s jumping over this affair?”

“Well, Mr. Parrott’s always been determined that Jack will take up that line when he’s through school. Jack’s dad has been with the company for years. You can see what a big boost he could give Jack when the time came. Only, Jack would have to pass the Bar exams. And I guess he’d have to be pretty clean, himself, too.” Mallon stole a glance at Vic, as if to see whether Vic believed it.

It was a lie, of course; a bald line of baloney. And Vic tried to reject it, even as he began to believe it. There were jobs like that, so sensitive, so open to scrutiny from jealous competitors, that a man’s reputation couldn’t stand a single smirch. Then Vic thought, I can check this yam through June; she’ll ask Grem about it. He leaned across Mallon suddenly, snapped the door open on the other side. “Get out.”

The kid climbed out, stood on the curb. He looked kind of pale in the sunlight.

“You knocked me around for nothing,” he said to Vic. “Just because you’re a cop, maybe. And you need a pigeon. And maybe I could raise hell over it and get you into some trouble. But I won’t. Because I’m not just a punk, like you think.” He swallowed. He put his hands in his jeans pockets. “Sure, I got out of line. And you caught us. But we didn’t kill anybody.” He started to walk away, then looked back. “I hope you catch the guy that did.”

Vic turned the key in the switch again, started the motor. “The little bastard’s human,” he muttered to himself. There was a kind of relief in believing it, in thinking that Ron Mallon had something more in him than idleness and mischief. He wondered briefly how Mallon would turn out. In twenty years, he thought, the kid will be a middle-aged businessman and you won’t be able to tell him from the rest of the solid citizens. Maybe.

In the office Pete looked at him across the typewriter. “Those kids were released to their parents,” he said. “Damages paid for.”

Vic nodded. He could see Ryerson in his private cubbyhole, beyond the glass. He opened the connecting door and went in.

Ryerson said, “Hello, Vic. Towers is coming over here. What did you find out last night in San Bernardino?”

Vic took the sheet of newsprint from his topcoat pocket. “Do you mind talking about Rock for a minute?”

Ryerson showed his surprise, recovered quickly. “Of course not.”

“This was in Rock’s room, some doodling he must have done to pass the time. I took it to my place with the rest of his personal stuff.”

Ryerson nodded, reached for the sheet, spread it before him on his desk. He grunted, running his eyes over it.

“You know,” Vic went on, “how Rock usually had that other thing on his mind, that affair of the kid killed in the reefer. He wouldn’t let it alone”—Ryerson looked up, nodded again—“and I took for granted that he might have run into that fellow at last, followed him, got killed for it. But now I’m beginning to think he might have had something else on his mind, instead. Something I’d told him.”

Vic scratched a nail along the elaborate, penciled lettering which spelled Byron U. Davidson.

“Could have been. Or this?” Ryerson tapped the sketchy figures on the fence.

“I’ve just come from the Mallon place. He may be a better liar than I think, but Ron Mallon has fairly well convinced me they didn’t do it.”

Ryerson tapped the page with thick stubby nails. “You didn’t like that pair much. Or so I thought.”

“I know. I just don’t believe they murdered Rock. I keep wondering now if Rock went out there at all under his own power, if he wasn’t already knocked out, sapped in some skid-row alley. Somebody knew him for a railroad dick and thought the yards would be the logical spot to dump him.”

“Along with the muscatel.”

Vic sat down slowly. “It’s funny how ideas come to you. I just thought—the man, or men, who dumped Rock in the yards didn’t know anything about his habits. You couldn’t be around Rock long, especially in a bar, and not know that he didn’t touch anything but irish whisky.”

A faint smile twitched Ryerson’s mouth. “I’ve seen him spit good scotch in the wastebasket.”

Rock had insulted the drinks at an office party, Vic decided, and the Chief hadn’t cared much for it.

Vic said, “Of course there are other possibilities. The murderer may have been too broke to buy a real bottle to leave there.”

“And he could be a wino and just dropped what was handy,” Ryerson put in. His gray eyes were cold and lynxlike. “I’ll tell you, though, what I figured all along, ever since you pointed out the mistake with the muscatel. I think we’ve got a cooky here who doesn’t know a damn about liquor. Don’t drink, doesn’t know muscatel from Old Grand Dad.”

Vic stretched his legs. “Doesn’t know liquor—on skid row?”

“You saying it couldn’t be?” Ryerson asked.

“It could be,” Vic answered without expression.

Ryerson bared his teeth in a cat’s grin. “So let’s keep an eye out for a guy who doesn’t drink. Okay?”

“We can cross off the Davidson crowd, then,” Vic said. “We found both whisky and liqueur bottles in that dump in Ventura.”

Ryerson blinked at it, trying to find a way through it. Vic didn’t think much of Ryerson’s hunch, this time at least. If Ryerson hadn’t been the boss, he’d have told him so.

There was a soft rap at the door and Towers came in.

The big, gray-haired Secret Service man looked alert, pleased over something. He had his usual brief case; he sat it on Ryerson’s desk and took out some papers, tossed a mug shot over to Vic.

“Well, we got some answers from Washington on the prints we took in Ventura,” Towers said. “Nothing on either of the women. But Willy Willmer comes in pretty as a picture.”

Vic glanced at the mug shot, found himself looking at a narrow faced man with thin gray hair, bad teeth, drooping eyes, a long childish jaw. The face was so exactly what he had expected, even to the mismatched ears, that he had the feeling of having seen it before.

Towers drew up a chair and sat down. “Willy has always been small time. The schemes in which he has been involved seemed to have fallen through just quick enough to keep him from some serious stretches in the jug. Like the job in Brawley. A couple of years ago a small gang worked out of Brawley, peddling forged work permits to Mexican nationals who wanted to get into the country. Willy was believed to have done the paper work for the outfit; but it was all nipped before it had much of a chance to get started. He got off.”

Ryerson was nodding in pleasure. “What’s his background? How’d he meet up with David Bryant?”

“David Bryant is his sister’s son.”

“What have you got on Bryant?”

“He’s wanted in Portland. He had a service station there, paid up his bills with rubber checks and skipped. A merchants’ association up there printed him when they insured him; that must be why he had the notion to doctor his fingers in Ventura. From what I’ve found out about Willy and his nephew, I’d say they were made to go into business with each other. Your bad luck they picked the railroad.”

The look of pleasure didn’t leave Ryerson’s face; obviously he relished this knitting of nets, the inevitable closing-in. “We’ll get’em.” He looked over at Vic. “Why don’t you flash that mug shot in a few bars on Main?”

Vic stood up, and Ryerson added sharply, “I want an address!”

Vic reached for the sheet of newsprint with Rock’s doodling on it but Ryerson planted his hands there. “I want to talk to L.A.P.D. about this. Leave it.”

“All right.”

Vic put the mug shot into his pocket and went out, downstairs, then over to Main Street. It was still early. A couple of desperate winos defied the smell of cop and hit him for quarters. The clerk in the penny arcade was yawning. The lights in the lobby of the all-night movie were pallid under the daylight, and the blowups along the walls seemed to concern the doings of sleepwalkers. Vic turned into Poppy’s Place, through the archway of dirty papier-mâché flowers, and found the same black-browed bartender busy with the glassware.

The bartender looked indifferently at the pictures of Willy. “Kind of familiar.”

“He ought to be. You cashed his check.”

“It must of looked pretty good,” the bartender decided.

“Don’t take any more claims checks on the railroad,” Vic suggested.

“We got a new policy. We don’t cash nothing.,” the bartender informed him with an air of virtue.

“Has this bird been back?”

“Not while I was here.”

“What about an address?”

“Some flophouse. It was on account of the check, it looked okay, see? It wasn’t him made an impression.”

Vic went on down to the HighBoy Room. Ben of the gold ring in his ear left some friends at the far end of the bar. “You looking for Boots? She’s sick.”

“Is that so? Where is she?”

“I guess they took her to the clinic.”

“What happened?”

Ben rubbed the gold ring around for a minute. “My guess, the booze got her. She had a fainting spell in here last night. A couple guys took her to her room. Later on a girl friend looked in on her and yelled for an ambulance.”

Vic said, “Where could I find her friend?”

Ben seemed cautious, a little worried. “You want to know where Boots is now, is that it?”

“Yes, I want to know.”

Ben waddled away to the rear of the room and used the telephone. When he came back he was rubbing his hands down the belly of the white apron and his face was far from cheerful. “They’ve got her in General. Think she’s pretty bad. You going over there?”

“Yeah, I’m going over.”

Ben went back to the cash register and returned with a dollar bill. “Get Boots something, a bouquet maybe, or candy. You know. I’d send her a drink because that’s what she’ll want, only they wouldn’t let her have it.”

“I guess not.” Vic took out the mug shot, turned it around so that Ben could look down upon Willy. “Know this one?”

Ben nodded. “that’s Byron U. Davidson, all right. Him with the railroad connections.”

“What about an address?”

Ben shook his head. “I thought the check was good. It looked good. Him I wouldn’t have trusted for fifteen cents.”

That was it, Vic thought; the check had done it. Anonymous Willy and his gorgeous paper had been good for a few drinks.

Vic went back to the building, to the basement garage, and checked out a company car. On the way to General Hospital he stopped near a florist’s and got out, but before entering the flower shop he noticed a display of cosmetics in a drugstore window. He had a sudden hunch, partly the memory of June’s fragrance, as to what Boots might cherish more than a bouquet.

He added three dollars of his own to Ben’s and got a bottle of cologne, a soft musky scent recommended by the girl clerk, and had it done up fancily in gift wrapping.

Only the fact that he was a police officer and wanted official information got him in to see the girl. And when he stood finally looking down at her he scarcely knew Boots. All color lent by lipstick and rouge was gone; her skin had a bluish, leaden hue that looked ominous. She lay on her back, her head sunk into the pillow, her eyes half shut as though she were only partially conscious. What struck Vic most frighteningly were her hands; they were like chicken claws curled at the hem of the sheet.

Vic said, “Boots. Can you hear me?”

She roused slightly, moving her eyes. She saw him and turned her head. “Hi. Copper.”

He put the gift-wrapped package beside her hands. She fingered it tentatively. “For me?”

“Ben sent it.”

She made no move to get it open. “Pretty.”

It had to be done. He took the mug shot from his pocket. “Boots, look at this. Do you know him?”

Her dull gaze settled on Willy. “Yeah. The funny guy. He had the baby buggy. Di’n’t I tell you?”

“Is there anything else you remember about him? Did he ever tell you where he was living? The part of town … anything?”

“He was scared,” she whispered. “Real scared.”

Vic remembered. In the bar, Willy had been scared because Boots had said that she knew him. Being known, recognized, was dangerous.

He hadn’t been scared, though, when she had called him Byron U. Davidson. That just wasn’t Willy’s name. It belonged, in a manner of speaking, to his nephew.

Vic sat down beside the bed and waited. Boots glanced his way, then studied the elaborately wrapped gift. “Open it,” she said.

He opened the cologne and dabbed some on her wrists and she sniffed at it weakly.

“It smells better than that baby carriage.”

“Why do you think he had the carriage, Boots?”

She thought about it. “Took it with him. Wanted it. Must have a baby somewhere. I di’n’t believe that crap about his wife and the cats.”

“You didn’t see where he went with the buggy?”

A sudden brightness came into her face. She roused, stirred on the pillow. “You know something? He thought I was going to follow him. He waited outside, he peeked in at me.” Her husky voice took on a stronger tone. “You know what I think? I think somebody has been following him, and that’s what he was wondering … was it me. …” She laughed, shaking a little, a breathless, soundless laughter.

“He thought you’d follow him when he left the bar?”

“Somebody has,” she corrected, “and he thought it might be me.”

Nineteen

Vic couldn’t make much of it. She seemed sure, almost cocky; but he saw how ravaged she looked and he wondered if she might be somewhat out of her head. “Do you think anyone else was interested in him?”

“Him and his buggy? Everybody gave it a look. Ol’ dirty thing.”

Vic chose a random idea. “How did he act about the buggy?”

“Real cute. He was having fun.”

“He was playing a joke,” Vic said. He had put away the mug shot of Willy Willmer, but its expression of vacuous mischief was fresh.

“Well … not altogether,” Boots whispered. “He really had the buggy for a purpose, for a baby somewhere.”

“A baby he doesn’t like,” Vic put in, thinking out loud.

“Oh, he wouldn’t take a dislike to a baby,” Boots corrected. Then she added dreamily, “Maybe he’ll fix it up.”

A nurse stuck her head into the tiny room and beckoned to Vic. Out in the corridor she said, “Can’t you let her rest now? She’s very ill.”

“What’s wrong with her, really?”

She put on the prim mask nurses always assume when somebody wants a piece of definite information. “You’ll have to ask Doctor.”

“Is he on the floor now?”

“Not just now.”

“Can anyone as young as that”—Vic jerked his head toward the closed door—“drink themselves to death?”

“Anyone can drink himself to death, I suppose, if he tries hard enough.” She wasn’t committing herself. She made Vic seem boorish for asking.

“I’ll call later and see how she’s getting along.”

“Yes, do that.” She swished away.

He drove back to the garage, dropped the car, walked up Main again to the HighBoy Room. It was getting along toward noon now and business was picking up. Ben stopped with an air of hurry, drinks in his hands, his brown eyes round as marbles in his dark face. “How is she?”

“Not good. How long has Boots been hanging around here?”

Ben gave him a funny look, as if wondering what business it was of his. He went to the other end of the bar, delivered the drinks, collected money, and rang it up in the register. Then he came back. “A year, maybe. Or maybe a little longer.”

“Every day?”

Ben shrugged, his face impassive.

“Do you know anything about her?”

“Sure. I knew her old man. He ran a shooting gallery two, three blocks from here. Her ma died when she was little.” Ben leaned on the bar, spread a hand flat before Vic as if in emphasis. “A couple of years ago she ran away from the Sisters’ school and got in with a real bad crowd. Tough. Hoods, maybe. You know?” Ben’s eyes were shuttered, his tone noncommittal. “The one Boots fell for was a hop. The big H. He died in about six months.”

“She was lucky he didn’t take her with him.”

Ben snorted through his nose. “He’s taking her. The slow route. What’d the doctors say?”

“I didn’t ask. I didn’t have to.”

Vic took the mug shot out and put it on the bar.

“She thinks he thought he was being followed.”

“I didn’t even take a good look at him,” Ben said, “or I’d have remembered about the check. I was looking at the buggy.”

Vic went back to the secondhand store where the buggy had been bought. The fat proprietor stroked his drooping mustache and said that Willy took a fine picture. Some fresh details occurred to him. He thought Willy had had some money hidden on him; he’d made such an act out of paying off in chicken feed. They did that when they wanted you to think they were broke.

“Did he try to give you a check?”

“Nope. I wouldn’t of took it,” the fat man said.

“Did you get any idea that someone might have been following him?”

The fat man shook his head.

“Did he act worried or nervous?”

“He just wanted a baby buggy cheap.”

“Did he say anything about how he was going to get it home?”

The fat man scratched his neck. “You know, I did kind of think about that. After you’d been here. You know. He must of had a car. They wouldn’t let you take a thing like that on a bus.”

Vic went to the office and did some telephoning on the bus angle, though, and found the driver who had refused Willy his passage. He went in to see Ryerson with the information about Willy and the buggy and the route the bus took through the northeastern fringes of town.

Ryerson got an L.A. city map out of his desk and they traced the bus route on it. “He’s in there somewhere,” Ryerson said, looking at the map as though searching for Willy through a rat hole. “A rundown place, like the house on the beach at Ventura. A neighborhood that keeps to itself, where a lot of people come and go, rentals. Dinky stores.”

“I’ll try some of the stores,” Vic said.

“We’ve got the district,” Ryerson added. “All we need is one good break.”

“Maybe he bought stuff to fix the buggy,” Vic suggested.

“Try it. Don’t forget the Turkish cigarettes or the liqueur.”

Vic nodded and went out again into the outer office, where Pete wagged a hand toward a phone. “Over there. Somebody wants you in San Berdoo.”

Vic walked to the desk, picked up the receiver. The voice was feminine, cracked and frail. And familiar. Etta Darbury. Into Vic’s mind sprang the image of the tiny little old woman, white as milk, in the house all buried in shrubbery. “Mr. Moine?”

“Speaking.”

“This is Mrs. Darbury. I talked to you last night about Merna Bryant.”

“Yes, I remember.”

“I’ve just had a telephone call from her.” Etta drew in a breath, and the rest of it came with a rush. “Oh, Mr. Moine, something terrible is happening to that girl! She’s almost incoherent with fear. She must be helpless. It seems that she and the baby are virtual prisoners!”

“Where was she when she phoned?” Vic felt all his senses go quiet, like a waiting animal’s; so much depended on what she might tell him.

“The address? No, she didn’t give that.”

“She’s with the others, her husband, the other woman?”

“And somebody named Willy too. She’s had some awful shock over the baby. Mr. Moine, can’t you find her and help her?”

“I could if I had the address,” Vic said, his voice roughening in spite of his gratitude for her co-operation. “What else did she tell you?”

“She just … just wondered if I might meet her some place and advise her what to do.”

“And where is this to be?”

“She stammered around so…. She’s going to try to go out for a walk. Taking the baby for air. I said I’d have to have time to get ready, then take a bus. It would be pretty late before I could get there.”

“Where?”

“Is there a … a Faust Street in Los Angeles, Mr. Moine?”

“I’ll look it up. Hold on.” Vic ran back into Ryerson’s office and yanked the L.A. map from under his nose and Ryerson looked up with a grunt. Vic rushed back to the phone, spread out the map; Faust Street seemed to leap at him from the sheet. For blocks and blocks the bus that Willy had tried to take ran along Faust Street.

“I’ve found it. Where is she going to be on Faust Street?”

“She said if I’d walk along Faust Street at the bottom of the hill, she’d try to meet me.”

“And you said you’d be there—when?”

“Oh, I didn’t say. I couldn’t, you see. She’s going to call back in a few minutes. Meanwhile I’m to decide whether I can make it today, or not.”

“Just a moment, Mrs. Darbury.”

Vic covered the mouthpiece. “Pete! Pete!” Pete took the cigarette out of his mouth and scratched his nose. “Have we got anybody out near San Berdoo?”

“Hoffman’s in Colton. He called in about”—Pete swung to look at the clock on the wall—“about forty minutes ago to see if I had anything for him.”

“Get him back! We’ve got an errand for him in San Berdoo!”

Vic took his hand off the mouthpiece. “We may be able to arrange a ride for you, Mrs. Darbury. I’ll call you in a few minutes.”

“What shall I tell Merna if she calls?”

“Tell her you’ll meet her at”—now Vic in his turn stared at the clock—“at two-thirty. On Faust Street.”

“At the bottom of the hill,” she reminded him.

Neither of them had ever seen Faust Street or the hill, but it was as real to Vic now as if he lived there; and he judged that Mrs. Darbury felt the same.

Vic crouched over Pete while Pete got Colton on the line and put in a rush call for Hoffman. It turned out that Hoffman was still somewhere in the yards, looking for some missing car seals. When Pete got Hoffman, he turned him over to Vic. Vic explained that they needed a witness rushed here in a hurry from San Bernardino.

Hoffman began to figure the time angle. “It’ll take me fifteen minutes to get to San Berdoo. Ten minutes more, maybe, to find that address.”

Vic gave him explicit instructions about finding the house.

Hoffman said, “Then an hour and a quarter, at least, to get to L.A.—”

“Don’t cut too many corners,” Vic said. “She’s an old lady and we don’t want her dying of heart failure. You don’t have to come down here; go on out to Faust Street and look for a hill. I’ll meet you there.”

Hoffman was dubious, afraid that there might be more than one hill, so Vic got the map again and they agreed on an intersection.

If Hoffman had any breaks in the traffic, Vic thought, he should make it easily by two-fifteen. He was turning from the phone, Pete had taken a final puff on his cigarette, crushed it out, and was preparing to tackle the typewriter again, when Vic was stopped by a new idea.

“Pete, I need something. Will you dig out Rock’s daily reports for the last May and June?”

“I’ll have to go to the record room.”

“A hunch. It may not amount to a damn.”

Pete nodded. “Sure.” He went out.

Vic sat down at his own desk, picked up the phone, asked the operator to get him Mrs. Darbury in San Bernardino. She answered at once. Merna hadn’t called back. Perhaps something had gone wrong. Mrs. Darbury sounded worried.

“We’re sending one of our investigators to pick you up,” Vic explained. “He should be there within twenty minutes.”

Her voice was scratchy with anxiety. “Suppose she hasn’t called by then?”

Vic saw how easily it could all fall through, in spite of his determination and Hoffman’s breakneck trip and her willingness; and he could imagine the long wait on Faust Street, the dreary afternoon; and he thought, oh, to hell with it. He wanted to slam the phone down. And it seemed to him then that he heard Rock: Show some interest, damn you.

Besides, there was the baby. The baby had begun to worry him, seriously, ever since the moment on the way to San Bernardino the night before when he’d thought of the shoe Mrs. Raines had found, the tack in it, and something automatic had pushed his foot to the floor and caused the car to take on a great burst of speed. The same sense of hurry rushed through him now. Something settled in him, too, as if all at once he’d found a motive, or a way, or a clear track.

I don’t even know the kid, Vic thought.

Maybe I’m getting off that tin rail. A little.

He said, “If Merna Bryant doesn’t call before you leave, could you find someone to wait there by the phone? Tell them to give Merna your message. You’ll meet her at two-thirty below the hill on Faust Street.”

She was silent, as if surprised, or thinking it over.

“What about the Chatwicks?”

“Mrs. Chatwick might be willing—”

“Go find out. I’ll wait.”

He heard the scratch of the chair as she rose, her footsteps leaving the room, the closing of a door in the distance. A couple of minutes ticked by. Pete came in with a couple of folders, walked over to Vic’s desk, put them down. Vic flipped up the cover of the top folder. Rock’s handwriting was big, plain, homely.

Vic began to turn pages.

Each investigator filed a sheet for every day, including rest days. The reports were brief, just enough to assure the railroad that it was getting the proper return for its money. On the first of May, he noted, Rock had been working on a theft. Someone had apparently helped himself to twenty cases of canned milk and twelve cartons of tooth paste from a car delivered to a wholesale grocery chain. Seals on the car were intact, Vic noted in passing. Rock had finally traced the shortage all the way back to the loading point. Vic flipped over more sheets. Rock had been in San Bernardino on the twenty-first of May.

Vic remembered this crazy case. He’d heard about it after he’d come back to work for the railroad.

A small power launch had been shipped by flatcar from the manufacturer in the East. In San Bernardino it was discovered that on the trip west it had been made the home of several hobos. Under the shelter of the canvas wrappings, two, or perhaps three, men had cooked, slept, drank wine, fought, and been sick. The interior of the boat was a wreck.

Rock had checked it in the San Bernardino yards, had accompanied it on the short remainder of the journey to Newport Beach. There an adjustment for damages had been arranged with the owner.

Mrs. Darbury’s voice quivered in the phone. “Mr. Moine?”

“Right here.”

“Mrs. Chatwick will wait and give Merna the message for me, in case Merna doesn’t call within the next few minutes.”

“Fine.” Vic thought, maybe I’ve spoiled it all by myself, hanging onto the wire while she spoke to Mrs. Chatwick. Maybe Merna is ready to give up now because she can’t get through. “I’ll see you by two-thirty. Good-by.”

He took Rock’s daily report folders and went into Ryerson’s inner sanctum.

Ryerson had the telephone to his ear. He looked up at Vic. “Towers on the line. Have you got anything more for him than that bus route?” Plainly Ryerson was wondering why he and Pete had been rushing around out there.

Vic nodded. “We have a lead on one of the women.” Ryerson offered him the phone. Vic put down the folders, said, “Towers? We may have a break coming. The young woman, the mother of the baby, has a friend in San Bernardino. She wants this friend to meet her out on Faust Street this afternoon.”

“Good, good!” Towers said, his voice warming with enthusiasm. “I want to be there.”

Vic explained the details and named the intersection where he and Hoffman and Mrs. Darbury were due to meet. At the end he added, “There’s nothing sure about it, you understand. Mrs. Bryant hasn’t called back to make sure Mrs. Darbury is coming.”

It didn’t dampen Towers. “I think we’re due for some luck. I’ll see you at two-fifteen.”

Vic felt like praying: Let the Bryant girl be phoning now. Let the date be tied up. He saw that Ryerson was caressing a new cigar, getting ready to light up. There was a slight smile on Ryerson’s mouth and he wore the wolfish expression. He was no doubt thinking of Mr. Brice and the hell that had been raised over those checks. He was probably seeing David Bryant and Willy Willmer behind bars.

He also hadn’t missed those folders. “What have you got there?”

Vic opened the folder for May of the previous year, leafed through to the case concerning the damaged boat. He put the page in front of the Chief. “Remember this?”

“Sure. Rock handled it.”

“Rock went out to San Bernardino on it. David Bryant was claims clerk there then. Rock must have met him and talked to him about the damaged boat.”

Ryerson put down the cigar. His face seemed to stretch, to lengthen, the cheeks grew slab-sided and all humor had vanished.

“On the night of Rock’s death,” Vic went on, “a girl in a bar heard the name Byron U. Davidson mentioned—and in Willy Willmer’s presence. I think the person who spoke that name was Rock. Rock’s usual haunts of an evening were the bars along Main Street. It was a habit of years, and that’s where he headed, of course, when he left Tompson’s Cafeteria. He’d already told Tony, the night clerk at the hotel, that he liked to keep his hand in.”

“That sounds like Rock, all right.”

“I’m sure in my own mind,” Vic said, “that Rock toured the bars that night and asked here and there among his cronies whether they knew any Byron U. Davidsons. Willy overheard the name and reacted to it, and Rock noticed it and when Willy left Rock went after him. But Rock wasn’t the only one who was watching Willy.”

“Willy’s the lush,” Ryerson said slowly.

“And not to be trusted,” Vic pointed out. “He passed the two checks in the bars. For petty cash, for just enough to drink on. Now, in talking it over with Rock, Rock said this: that the part that doesn’t fit is an accident. The two checks didn’t fit the pattern, and I’ll bet from David Bryant’s viewpoint they were accidents. Bad ones. He decided to check up on his careless partner. Now, Rock also said that he didn’t think we’d ever find the lush again in those same bars; but afterward, alone in his room and bored, Rock must have thought it worth a try.”

Ryerson sat heavy in his chair. “Yes. It figures that way. But you haven’t mentioned the most important fact yet.”

“I’m coming to it. I know what you mean. The most important item of all is Rock’s being found in the freight yards. That ties it straight to David Bryant.”

Ryerson’s mouth was puckered as if with pain. “I’m going to call L.A.P.D.,” he said, reaching for the phone.

Vic left the folders on the desk. He decided to go out for a little lunch. He had the feeling that he had a long afternoon ahead.

Twenty

Merna was dripping with sweat inside the shabby coat. There was a hot lump somewhere in her head that threatened to bulge her eyes. Her heart pounded. In the drugstore ceiling an old-fashioned four-bladed fan circled slowly. She looked up at it foggily, trying to sense some breeze, some coolness; but there was nothing, there was no relief from the prickling pulse of fright and heat that surged through her.

The druggist was behind the counter now, dipping glasses and drying them. He was a tall pale man, almost bald. His narrow shoulders didn’t fill out the white smock. He had a tic in his right eyelid.

He glanced at Merna and smiled a little. “Is there something I can get for you?”

“I’m … still waiting for the telephone.”

“Oh?” He looked briefly at the empty booth at the rear of the store.

“The line’s busy,” she explained. She waited, expecting him to reassure her that waiting here was all right, but he said nothing, merely pursed up his mouth and looked at the glass he was drying; and she wondered fearfully if he might order her to leave. “I’ll have a root beer,” she burst out, and fished in the old handbag for a dime. He nodded, not looking at her, put down the wet glass and the towel, took up another glass and squirted dark syrup into it.

His movements were deliberate. His hands were white, antiseptic-looking. He wasn’t being bothered by a thing, Merna thought in a daze. There was no sense of time, no hurt of minutes ticking off, inside his skull. The clock on the wall behind him was just a clock. Not an executioner.

He dropped ice into the glass with a liquid clink, then squirted soda from the fountain faucet, stirred it all with a spoon.

“I’m in such a terrible hurry!” she gasped, unable to contain the boiling fear any longer. In the little instant of silence while he looked up curiously, the clock on the wall gave a single loud tick. “Not … not about the root beer.” she stammered on. “The phone, I’ve got to phone.”

“Why don’t you try again?” he suggested kindly, putting the glass of root beer in front of her.

“It’s long distance. I have to ask the operator.” Should she have told him this? Would David come in and think to ask him about her, about her conversation? Would there be another frightening scene, a blow to send her reeling against the wall? The events of last night were still a blur, a jumble like a nightmare. “The operators get tired of trying. They say to wait a while.”

“Oh, well. It’s just a job with them. Don’t let them bluff you.”

He really was trying to be kind. A little of the terror drained away. There was still the terrible anxiety about little Davy, of course, left alone. Left alone—unless Fay came home. There was the pinching fear of discovery. She could be caught here, using the telephone, by Fay or Willy, even David himself. She had no idea where any of them were.

The druggist said, “I’d try again if it was something worrying me.”

She sipped at the root beer, not tasting it, her mouth dry as cotton in spite of the touch of the ice. Then she got off the stool and went again into the cubbyhole at the rear of the store. As she closed the door, someone came in from the street, a man, and for a moment the figure seemed like David’s and she froze.

A voice—not David’s voice—said, “Hello, Henry. I need a good cough syrup for the kids.”

Merna loosened like a broken puppet and tottered against the wall of the booth, eyes squeezed shut, fingers clutching for support. When she could control herself she got the receiver off the hook, dropped ten cents into the slot, dialed for the operator.

Mercifully, now, the line was open. She heard the click as Mrs. Darbury answered, then Mrs. Darbury’s patient voice. “Yes? Merna?”

“It’s me,” Merna said breathlessly. “Can you come?”

“I think so. A friend has offered me a ride to Los Angeles. Isn’t that lucky?”

There was something peculiar about Mrs. Darbury’s tone; Merna felt it but couldn’t identify it.

“Oh, I’m gladl Faust Street is …”

“You know … Merna …”

“Yes, Mrs. Darbury?”

“I had hoped, when you went away last year, that you might come back here to see me again.”

“Oh, I wanted to! I’d have loved to!”

“But you couldn’t, could you?”

“Oh, no! No, I couldn’t do that!”

“It was quite impossible?”

“Yes. Yes.”

A funny sense of warning or alarm fluttered in Merna’s mind. This was prying, and life with David had taught her to flee it. But she was at once reassured by the memory of the kind little old woman with the strange white skin and white hair, who had comforted her that bad day in the alley. Mrs. Darbury was her friend. She wouldn’t bring trouble upon her.

Merna tried to stammer an explanation. “I don’t drive a car and we’re quite a way from the middle of town. There are busses, but I —I just don’t get to use them much.”

“I don’t suppose you do,” Mrs. Darbury said. “Now listen, Merna. I’m to meet you on Faust Street—”

“At the bottom of the hill!”

“Yes. Be there at two-thirty. Bring your baby, do you understand?”

It was odd; Mrs. Darbury seemed to be giving orders. There was a plan, an arrangement. It was settled.

“Come alone with your baby,” Mrs. Darbury repeated distinctly.

Through the glass door of the booth Merna could see the clock on the wall above the fountain. This was taking too long. “I’ll see you! Good-by, I have to hurry now!” She was out of the booth the next moment, rushing for the door. At the corner a bus had stopped. Willy was getting off. Merna turned the corner quickly, ran up the block to the house, skittered up the steps, across the porch, and into the door. She shucked off her coat as she ran for the back bedroom.

Fay was in the back bedroom, standing beside the baby’s basket and looking down at him. Without turning to Merna she said, “He looks pale. He needs some air and sunlight.” Then she glanced behind her and took in the coat, the purse, and Merna’s air of guilt-struck haste. “Where have you been?” Merna didn’t answer, simply went to the closet with the coat. Fay added, “Have you been watching Willy?”

This was the one permissible reason for her to have gone out by herself. Watching Willy was the mouse game they all played. Willy was old, forgetful, and usually half drunk, not to mention his crazy idea of fun. Merna said carefully, “He’s coming in now.” Let Fay think that she’d been out seeing where Willy went.

“Where did he go?”

“Oh … to the drugstore.” Willy was secretive, not apt to give her lie away.

As Merna turned from the closet, Fay moved from the baby’s basket. There was a thoughtful, planning sort of look about her, and Merna wondered in sudden dread if Fay might prevent her meeting Mrs. Darbury at two-thirty. Before Fay could speak of whatever she was thinking, there was an interruption. Willy opened and shut the front door, dragged his feet in the living-dining room, and came to stand in the open doorway. Both women stared at him.

He had his hat in his hand and was rubbing or scratching the deformed ear, an unconscious habit which gave Merna the shivers.

He was quite sober, and there was no sign of the usual crackpot humor. “I got me a feeling,” Willy said. “Trouble’s coming.”

Fay smiled, a little tight smile, and said, “Well, you’re the expert.” They exchanged a glance, summing up some memories between them; memories, Merna realized, which had to do with the years before she had joined them.

“I always knew, before.” Willy looked around him at the walls as if the trouble he expected might emerge at any moment from beneath the wallpaper. “Cleared out. Burned and dumped. We ought to dump them checks.”

“You do it, then,” Fay said. “I want you to get killed when David comes home. Not me.”

They were talking over Merna’s head as if she didn’t exist.

“Well …” He swung on his heel to peer back at the other part of the house. “Don’t say I didn’t tell you.”

Merna’s heart was thumping. “What does he mean?”

Fay wound a finger beside her ear, a circle to indicate that Willy had a screw loose. “He’s just talking.”

“What did he mean—before?” Merna was worried now. She knew something of Willy’s history from his rambling conversations. He’d worked on a railroad gang in his youth, and these roistering years were his favorites. He had also, since, been a dishwasher, a janitor, a poolroom operator, and had once risen to the status of civil service as a park attendant in the city of Santa Barbara. For two years, sandwiched in somewhere along the line, he’d been general assistant and head sweeper in a photoengraving shop. But this was all she knew.

“Oh, Willy’s been in trouble here and there,” Fay said indifferently. She glanced again at the sleeping baby. “We ought to take him out.”

“I’ll have to feed and bathe him,” Merna lied quickly.

“It’s early.” Fay glanced at her wrist watch. “Let’s take him out about two. He’s always awake then.”

Merna tried to think of something to say. She had known, ever since the buggy had come, that Fay had some plan about taking the baby out in it. Merna entertained no delusions about Fay’s possible motives. She knew that Fay hated the baby with a chilling ferocity. But the thought of defying the small slim woman left her weak and frightened. Fay was like a steel spring, Merna sensed, and she herself was like mush. So now, instead of refusing to let the baby go out, she hesitated. Then the thought came that perhaps on such an outing she could get away from Fay and meet Mrs. Darbury.

Willy, in the kitchen, slammed cupboard doors in his search for a bottle.

“I’ll bathe him pretty soon,” Merna said lamely, going out into the other part of the house.

Willy came out of the kitchen. His face was blank, forlorn. “I got to have a drink. Fay … you got one of my bottles put away?”

“No, I haven’t,” Fay said crisply. “If you think trouble’s coming, why don’t you stay sober to meet it?”

“Can’t.”

Merna asked, “What kind of trouble, Willy? What’s going to happen?”

He squinted at her with dull eyes. “I don’t know. Where’s David?”

Fay went to the table and picked up her work, smoothed the portion she had knitted, put it down again. “He left the house about ten. I guess he’s sizing up a store.”

“He’d better look further’n Boyle Heights,” Willy grunted.

A kind of stillness seemed to creep into the house. Merna found herself listening, waiting for a sound from outside, an indication of the trouble Willy expected. She watched Fay fold the knitting and take it to the sideboard. She felt awkward and conspicuous. She wondered if she might give away a clue to her own plans, let Willy and Fay see her nervousness and awareness of time. She stole a look at Fay’s clock on the sideboard. Then, fearing that even this slight motion might rouse their suspicions, she went into the kitchen and inspected the preparations for dinner. Fay had peeled some potatoes, left them to soak in an enamel pan. She remembered Mrs. Jansen’s saying that soaking potatoes drew all the minerals out of them, made them unfit to eat. Merna looked at the potatoes, white and smooth under the water; and again she was aware of the listening sensation.

Willy’s talk had made her jumpy, she told herself. Willy was just an old drunk, full of fanciful mischief. He was teasing her and Fay.

If David were here he’d order Willy to keep his mouth shut. To take a nap, look at a comic book, wash the car.

Fay came into the kitchen. “While we’re out we’d better get some bread.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Merna.

Fay frowned at her. “Who taught you to say that?”

“What?”

‘That yes ma’am and no ma’am crap?”

Fay rarely used a word like crap, so Merna judged that she was quite put out. “I … I don’t remember. My folks, I guess.”

“Where did they come from?”

Merna stood with her head hanging, trying to remember. She seemed to be transported through time to the rooming house, to the snuff her father chewed and spat, to the pail of gray water on the back porch. Her mother’s whine about her lame back echoed in memory. The kitten climbed and drowned. Merna lifted her eyes. At that moment Fay was smiling. The smile stung and hurt, cowed and insensitive though Merna was. All at once she blurted, “Where did you come from?”

Fay got white around the mouth and went out of the kitchen. Merna knew that Fay was terribly angry, that in some way she had delivered a deadly insult. In effect, she had said: Here I was married to David, going to have his baby, and you show up. Where were you?

It was a point which really puzzled Merna. Where had Fay been during the year she’d known David and married him? Why hadn’t there been some hint of her existence? What explanations had been given and accepted before that moment when she had peered from the kitchen to find David and Fay in the front room of the flat in San Bernardino?

I should have made David tell me, she thought. I shouldn’t have let him put me off with a shrug, a few offhand remarks. A man’s real wife isn’t supposed to show up and move in, and the three of them live as we live. Through Merna’s mind rushed the shocked incredulity of those early weeks when she had examined her own situation and found it unbelievable.

What would Mrs. Darbury say if I told her the truth?

What would she tell me to do?

Leave? With the baby? Without a way to earn a living?

Merna stood in the kitchen, a torrent of helpless confusion in her mind. David had changed after Fay had come. He’d started acting like a criminal, like a real bad man. He’d been fired from the railroad job in San Bernardino. They’d moved several times, Fay with them, Willy appearing just before the move to Ventura. In the basement of the old house on the beach, experiments had been made in the cellar to which even Merna couldn’t remain blind. The days had taken on an increasing terror and strain. She had found pins in the baby’s bed, a tack in his shoe, dirt in his little hairbrush. The final madness to cap the nightmare was David’s decision to mutilate his own fingers. He’d skinned the tips, used acid; and now his fingers were scarred and crinkled. Like Willy’s ear.

Merna leaned against the sink cupboard and trembled at these memories. The potatoes glimmered through their water. One of the faucets dripped. Outside, the leafless branch of a rosebush scraped the side of the house as the breeze blew it, and made a noise like a mouse scratching at the old shingles.

In panic, Merna seemed to see her whole life stretching ahead, the abuse, the fear of Fay, her incomprehension of David’s behavior, Willy’s fun. Even to her slow and phlegmatic nature, the prospect was unendurable.

She ran back to the bedroom. The baby had awakened. She brought him to the kitchen, ran water into the sink, stripped his fat body, and plopped him into the water. Fay came to the door and looked in.

“You’re getting him ready to go?”

“Yes. Yes.” Merna slathered soap on the skimpy cloth, began to work with the baby’s fingers. He’d already had one bath today, he smelled sweet as usual. She was surprised that Fay hadn’t remembered the other bath, hadn’t objected at this delay. Then the thought came that Fay’s mind was on something else. So completely and so determinedly on something else that whatever Merna did in the way of distraction meant nothing at all.

The baby, sitting straight in the sink, his back firm and strong, found the water fascinating. He splashed and cooed. Then in a movement so deliberate that it seemed to have meaning behind it, he reached over toward his mother, laid a wet hand over her heart. Merna looked down. There on her left breast was the print of the little hand, five fingers outspread, as though a brand to claim her.

She shook with pride, fear, and love. She gathered the baby against her, oblivious of his wetness; and a fearful resolve overrode her dread of Fay.

If Fay hurt the baby, she would kill Fay. Somehow.

Her eyes dropped to a partially opened drawer where cutlery lay. It was all old and shabby, stuff supplied by the landlord. One of the knives had been used for so long, had made so many trips to the whetstone, that it was like a long, thin needle.

When Merna carried Davy back to the bedroom to dry, powder, and dress him, the long thin knife went along, wrapped in a blanket.

Twenty-One

Faust Street was many things to many neighborhoods. It changed almost from block to block. Here it was Mexican as chili peppers and there it seemed down-East as codfish. In one spot it made a trucking center, there was the roar of motors and the air was sooty with Diesel exhaust; and in another stretch little countrified houses lay sunlit behind white fences and ragged-robin roses. There were used-car lots, cafés, pawnshops and mortuaries. There were quiet blocks where the kids played with their tricycles on the pavement. There must have been fifty hills, especially out in the northeast where Faust Street petered out in the general direction of Pasadena.

In the final block, where weeds grew on the sidewalks, and where the only building was the ruin of an old brick winery, Vic stopped the car and got out to stretch his legs. He’d seen all there was of Faust Street; and he had looked at the city with new eyes. Looking for the shabby sections, he had seen how some neighborhoods grew so old that they fell down of their own rottenness and were replaced by the new, modern and lavish; and he sensed that by the time these places were middle-aged, others would have vanished in their turn to be replaced by something even more modern. It was a funny thing to think, but he had the idea that Faust Street was a thread across the face of time. Somewhere along its length, caught in this particular moment, were the people he wanted. Tomorrow they, and the house they lived in and all the houses surrounding them, would be gone. He had to find them before the glass-and-plastics towers covered them up.

He lit a cigarette and leaned against the car to smoke it while he thought over the route he had traveled. He had long since passed the imaginary boundary within which he believed David Bryant, the two women and Willy Willmer, existed. They were not the kind of people to live far out in a suburb, where neighbors noticed other neighbors. He thought of the first hill on Faust Street; and it occurred to him that if Merna Bryant had never been further from town than this one, she’d naturally call it the hill, not knowing of the others. It was a kind of run-down district too.

Vic got back into the car, turned around in the broken drive of the old winery. A sign on a metal pole, bright and new, read: This Entire Block for Sale. Ideal for Subdivision. Changes were coming here, too, Vic thought. The block would sell and there’d be a mad rush for the used brick in the winery; used brick was fashionable now. Pretty soon the block would be full of new houses and lawns, and who was he to think the tottering old winery was more picturesque?

Under this surface thinking was the memory of Rock; and something else he tried to keep his mind off of: what he might do to David Bryant when he got his hands on him.

He drove back toward town, through the tricycle blocks, the trucking madhouse, the mortuaries, the Mexican settlement; and came to the hill which was the first hill you’d come to, driving from town. He looked at his watch. He still had almost thirty minutes before Mrs. Darbury and Hoffman were due. That rendezvous was six blocks away. Vic parked on a side street, walked around to Faust, looked in a few store fronts. A liquor store caught his eye.

The clerk was a young guy, tall and reddish, with freckles on his hands. Vic showed him his identification. “Do you have any steady customers in the neighborhood who go for chartreuse?”

“I sold a bottle two or three weeks ago.” The clerk pointed to his shelf of liqueurs. The bottles looked dusty. “Lady up the block likes crème de cacao. Puts it in whipping cream. You know what? She’s got an old poodle and he goes for it too. Gets real woozy.”

Vic was nodding. “Who bought the chartreuse?”

The clerk looked blank. “Gosh, I don’t know.”

“A woman?”

“It usually is women who go for that kind of drinks.”

“What about Turkish cigarettes? Sell many of them?”

The clerk spread his hands. “We don’t carry any but the popular brands. Luckies, Camels, and so on. Who is this you’re looking for? Some crook?”

“It’s just a routine investigation,” Vic told him. “How many bottles of chartreuse do you have now?”

“I’ll look.” The clerk went to an out-of-the-way shelf near the corner, squatted on his heels and peered in at the stock. “Three here. That’s what we had left, I think, after that sale a while back.”

The woman who liked chartreuse was careful when she shopped, Vic thought; or else she spread her drinks over a length of time. “How do you happen to remember? Did they ask the amount of stock you carried?”

“They may have. I don’t recall.” He was eager to oblige. He came back to Vic with an air of apology.

Vic took out the mug shot of Willy Willmer, offered it across the counter. “Ever see him around?”

A quick smile touched the clerk’s lips; his brown eyes twinkled. “Sure. He’s a character too. Say, he’s not the one you want, is he?”

“We just want to locate him,” Vic said. “He lives around here? Where?”

“I don’t know where he lives. He’s been in here.”

“He bought the chartreuse?”

The clerk, still half smiling, shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. He’s quite a whisky drinker.”

Vic thanked him for the information, started for the door. The clerk called after him.

“I know one thing about him. He rides the bus to town. Gets off on the next corner.” The clerk nodded toward his right. “Maybe somebody up that way would know where he goes when he gets off.”

“Thanks.” Vic walked out, crossed the intersection, strolled slowly and examined the next block. The shops were small. He passed a cleaner’s, shoe-repair, a barber. The next two were vacant, signs in the window offering to rent. Next to the vacant stores was a baby shop, neat, new-looking. Vic turned in.

A rather prissy-looking middle-aged woman with gray hair and glasses hurried to wait on him. When he produced his identification and she learned that he was not a prospective customer, she quickly lost interest. She shook her head over Willy’s mug shot. He’d never been in her store, she said; she’d have remembered.

“We’re trying to locate some people who live in the neighborhood who have a baby with them. The baby’s name is Davy and he must be about seven months old.”

She continued to look disinterested. “I’m sure I can’t help you.”

“Someone bought a buggy for him recently.”

“What kind?”

“Wicker. Big, old-fashioned.”

Her nose rose higher. “I don’t carry anything like that, just the newest strollers and folding stock. Very light, easy to manage.”

“The buggy may have been renovated.”

“I had nothing to do with it.” She looked Vic in the eye, daring him to connect her smart little shop to anything like an old wicker monstrosity.

Vic was certain, in some obscure way, that she must have noticed the Bryant baby. A woman in her type of business would naturally have an eye for prospective customers. “The mother of the baby is pretty young. Doesn’t dress too well. Doesn’t—” Vic was stumped, wondering how to describe the frowsy girl pictured for him by the Chatwicks and Etta Darbury. “She hasn’t any knack for fixing herself up. Do you know what I mean?”

A cautious expression had settled in the woman’s eyes behind the glasses. “Yes. I know what you mean.” She hesitated, touched her lips with the tip of her tongue. “There is a young woman like that in the neighborhood. A blonde, young. Fat. I’ve never seen her with a baby, but I wondered —” Some color stole into her flat cheeks. “She’s so … developed.”

Vic remembered the phrase from Merna’s letter to Mrs. Darbury: I have lots of milk.

“Something about her made you wonder if she didn’t have a baby at home.”

“Yes.” Silence; she wasn’t going to say what it was.

“Where does she live?”

“In the next block or two, somewhere. I don’t know the house.”

“You’ve seen her—”

“Occasionally she goes past on some errand or other. Not very often.”

“Never with the baby?”

“As I said, I’ve never seen her with the baby.”

“With other people?”

“I’ve thought … well, just my opinion—she might be following someone.”

Willy, Vic told himself. Boots said that Willy had an air of having been followed and of having become suspicious about it.

Vic talked to her for a few minutes longer without learning anything more. He went next door then, to the corner drugstore. The tall pale man behind the soda fountain examined Vic’s credentials, listened to his descriptions of the people he wanted, began almost at once to nod his head.

“Oh, yes, I know these folks. The young woman, the plump one, was in here earlier today. Used the phone.” He indicated the booths in the rear of the store. “When she first came in she acted so peculiarly I wondered what was up. She ducked behind the rack of paperbacks and watched the door for a while. I thought maybe she’d had a fight at home. She looked scared and wild.”

“You don’t happen to know whom she phoned?”

“It was long distance.”

Vic thought, San Bernardino … Etta Darbury. Merna was frightened that one of her companions might discover her in that booth.

“Then I got worried, kind of,” the druggist went on. “She made me nervous. I wondered if she had something crazy on her mind, like a plan to hold me up. Some of these kids get pretty goofy. I watched her and I guess I wasn’t very friendly. She caught on, and I thought for a minute she was going to collapse. I was ready to draw her a drink of water and offer a bromide or something, when she ups and ordered a root beer.”

“This was before she phoned?”

“She made two calls. This was between calls,” the older man explained. “She had trouble getting through the second time. I guess that’s what got her so jittery, the waiting. She sure was nervous.” The druggist moved away from the fountain. A couple of women came in and began to look at the cosmetics display.

“Where does she live?” Vic asked.

The druggist said, “I’ll be right back.” He went over to the two customers. “Yes, ladies? See something you like?’

Vic looked at the clock. Time was passing. He had to meet Hoffman and Mrs. Darbury and Towers, the Secret Service man, in a few minutes. He walked over to the counter where the druggist was trying to sell one of the women a box of face powder. She was shaking her head. Vic thought, he doesn’t have what she wants so he’s trying to make her want what he’s got. Vic said, “Do you know where these people live?”

The druggist looked at him somewhat blankly. “Well, no, not exactly. It’s somewhere in the next block, around the corner, on the right-hand side of the street.”

“You don’t know the house nor the number?”

The two women, middle-aged housewives, were taking it in curiously.

“I don’t know the house,” the druggist said firmly.

Vic thanked him and went out. He figured that if he hadn’t tried to interrupt the sales talk he might have found out more from the druggist. But there wasn’t time to wait. He turned the corner, away from the row of shops. The street rose a little, along the flank of the hill. The yards were weedy and untended, the houses shabby. Old trees had cracked the sidewalks. Broken curbs had never been repaired. There were beer cans in the gutters. Someone had chalked dirty words on a fence.

When he looked at the street under its blight of neglect and age, he felt sorry for Merna and the baby.

The street was empty of pedestrians. Vic turned, read the name on the corner lamppost. Kane Avenue.

A sense of uneasiness ran through his mind. If Merna meant to come out with the baby to meet Etta Darbury, it was time she was on her way. Again he examined the street, half expecting the old wicker buggy, the plump blond woman, to materialize. But there was no movement except that of a few papers blowing against the curbs. The old trees were not leafed out; their twiggy barrenness heightened the desolation of Kane Avenue. Vic went back to his car.

Hoffman had parked near the corner and he and Etta Darbury were standing on the sidewalk, talking. Vic found an open spot near by, left the car, and walked over. Mrs. Darbury gave him a fluttery uneasy stare. “I hope we’re doing the right thing,” she said. “I hope nothing bad happens to Merna because of me.”

“We want to talk to her husband,” Vic said.

Hoffman’s big blocky shape made Etta Darbury look smaller and more moth-thin than ever. She had on a small dusty black hat and a blue coat. Fuzzy gray fur collar and cuffs. Knitted gloves. She looked all out of date, Vic thought; and at the same time realized she wouldn’t have looked right any other way. She looked like what she was, a little old lady who had lost track of time, living in a little dim house with a canary and a radio, buried in the greenery of a back yard in San Bernardino.

“I’ve decided that David Bryant must have done something serious,” she went on, still staring into Vic’s eyes. “You wouldn’t go to all this trouble over some minor thing.”

Vic didn’t argue the point. He said, “We’re going to have to go back about six blocks to the foot of the hill.”

“We noticed it,” Hoffman said.

Towers drove past, parked. Vic hurried over to meet him and to explain that Mrs. Darbury was to meet Merna at the other intersection. Towers got back into his car. He looked out at Vic. “How do you want to handle this?”

“I’ve been thinking it over,” Vic said. “What we want to know is the address and whether Bryant is home. I think we ought to pick up Merna Bryant and question her. From what I know of her, I think we might have a chance of getting her co-operation.”

Towers was smiling thinly. “Let’s find out whether Bryant keeps a gun handy. And what Willy’s doing. I don’t want Willy to slip out on us.”

“It’s important that she doesn’t warn the others.”

“Yes, that’s what we have to watch.”

Towers pulled away, turned into the traffic. Vic went to his own car. He pulled out just behind Hoffman and Mrs. Darbury. They turned into Faust Street and drove south. Suddenly, in the seat beside Hoffman, Mrs. Darbury began to gesture excitedly. She turned around to look back at Vic, her hands jerking. He dropped back until he had a clear view of whatever had excited her. At the next intersection, paused at the curb, were two women with a big wicker baby buggy. Vic jerked the car into the first open space, got out, shut the door behind him without taking his eyes off the quarry. He began to walk slowly. The women were crossing the street at the next corner, coming his way. They were in the sunlight; and then entering the shade cast by the store fronts. Neither seemed to be paying any attention to the shopwindows.

Vic thought all at once that, even without the buggy, he would have recognized these two. They were so precisely as he had heard them described. The small woman was meticulously neat, demure at first glance; but then Vic thought that there was something snakelike about her. The blonde was big, young, and frowsy. She kept brushing at her hair. She was pushing the buggy, though every once in a while the other woman also touched it, perhaps with an air of proprietorship, or as if wanting to keep it going straight.

With a glance Vic checked on Hoffman and Mrs. Darbury. Hoffman had turned left at the corner, getting out of sight of the two as quickly as possible. Now he and Mrs. Darbury had left the car and were at the curb on the opposite side of the street.

Looking at Merna’s companion, Vic thought, this changes things. He had planned on Merna’s being alone, on Mrs. Darbury’s being able to convince her that she should co-operate with him. This other woman offered unknown complications, though in sizing her up quickly Vic guessed that she would not be caught off guard, as Merna would be. She would keep a cool head; she’d react quickly and surely, and not to Vic’s advantage.

All at once Vic turned aside, crossed the street. Hoffman and Mrs. Darbury withdrew around the corner. Vic found them waiting, Mrs. Darbury looking very nervous.

“What do you want me to do, Mr. Moine?”

“I want to get Merna Bryant away from the other woman.”

“That may not be easy. I don’t think Merna wants me to approach her with Fay there.”

“How would it be if you were to make the meeting seem accidental?” She thought it over, her brilliant blue eyes darting about, her lips thin. “I’m not sure I could put it over.”

“The only other alternative is to wait until they go back to the house. I would prefer to have the women and the baby out of there before we try to get David Bryant.”

“I’ll try it, Mr. Moine. I’ll pretend to Fay I just ran into them by chance. Then I’ll try to get Merna to go with me for a soda or something like that. Fay never had any truck with me, nor I with her, so she won’t come with us. I’ll try to get Merna and the baby in that drugstore where you can talk to her.”

Towers was across the street now, playing the part of a casual pedestrian, a cautious eye on the others.

Vic patted Mrs. Darbury’s plain blue shoulder. “Good luck.”

She smiled slightly, then headed off across Faust Street in pursuit of the other women.

Twenty-Two

Mrs. Darbury was at the corner when Vic stepped out to follow. As the signal changed she hurried across to the other side; the shade of the store fronts swallowed her. Vic’s eye followed the patch of blue which was her coat. He found himself shaking his head unconsciously; she was in far too much of a rush, far too excited, to put over the story of having just accidentally caught sight of Merna on the street.

He moved over to the signal, crossed when it changed again.

All at once Vic was convinced that Fay Bryant wasn’t going to swallow the yarn, anyway. It didn’t matter what Mrs. Darbury said or did. Fay was quick; quick and shrewd. Vic began to walk faster. A sudden hunch kept him from the opposite sidewalk, though, and he walked up the outer side of the row of parked cars. A couple of passing motorists who were driving closer to the edge than they should have been, honked at him; he didn’t even look over.

Fay was going to take alarm and her first thought would be to warn David Bryant. Vic was as convinced of this as if the woman herself had told it to him.

Only a couple of cars separated him now from the women. Mrs. Darbury had caught up with Merna and Fay. Merna had half turned. Even at this distance Vic sensed the agony of fright and confusion which rushed through her. She moved her right hand in a gesture of pushing Mrs. Darbury away.

Vic had his eye on Fay. Fay had taken charge of the buggy. She too was looking at Mrs. Darbury but Vic sensed that she also explored the surroundings, took in the movements of other people, as well.

Sheltered by the parked cars, Vic moved slowly closer. He saw that just past the spot where the women had paused, a small car of foreign make occupied only part of a space, so that there was an opening of some size. He decided to get close enough to guard this natural escape route.

But now the group composed of the three women was changing.

Mrs. Darbury apparently made an effort to draw Merna over closer to a storewindow. Probably she was saying something about getting out of the way of passing pedestrians, an excuse to move away from Fay. Merna stumbled along with Mrs. Darbury, though with obvious unwillingness. There was a bovine quality about the girl, Vic saw in a flash; she moved slowly and thought slowly. She had no premonition concerning the actions of the next few moments, no understanding of Mrs. Darbury’s sudden appearance or what was expected of her as her part in the little play. She was literally struck dumb with surprise.

Fay had now taken complete charge of the buggy.

What happened next came quickly, and Vic was never sure afterward just what betrayed Fay’s intentions to him.

He saw her push the buggy before her over to the wide spot left by the small foreign car. She joggled the buggy’s wheels down over the curb and pushed the wicker contraption out toward the traffic. She turned her head to look at the cars and trucks speeding down the hill; and this was why she missed Vic. If she had looked to her right she must have seen him.

Later he wondered if her peculiar concentration, her obliviousness to everything but the juggernaut of speeding traffic, had warned him.

Fay gripped the handle of the baby buggy; her arms shook in a convulsive surge. The buggy rocketed outward.

Merna screamed.

Vic jumped after the careening wicker carriage, tried to control it; yanked it far enough around so that it threatened to topple. He heard the scream of brakes to his left. For a moment he thought, I’m going to fall here and the damn buggy and I will have to be picked apart with tweezers. The truck was almost on top of him.

What he did was automatic. He scooped an arm into the buggy, got hold of something warm and heavy and alive, and then threw himself backward. In that flash of a second he wouldn’t have given ten cents for his future chances of having any feet.

The truck rumbled by and Vic crawled first to a kneeling position, then stood. He was all here. So was the baby. The baby looked up at him, its big eyes reflecting the color of the sky; and a feeling he couldn’t explain, a great rush of affection and happiness, poured through him. He hadn’t known until then just how real the Bryant baby had become to him, nor how deep had been his foreboding of disaster.

The truck had thundered past with a blare of horns. Fay stood stockstill in the opening between cars. She seemed rooted by horror or rage; perhaps a little of both. Horror at her own impulse, rage at her failure. Her eyes met Vic’s and they were perfectly blank. But behind her things were happening.

Merna had taken from her purse a long needlelike knife and she was stumbling toward the smaller woman as if she were drunk.

Vic came forward quickly. He pushed down Merna’s hand. The knife clattered to the pavement. “Here he is. He’s okay.”

She put out her arms and the baby nestled against her.

Vic turned. Fay Bryant had disappeared.

Mrs. Darbury and Towers now joined the group. Mrs. Darbury was crying and shaking. Towers said to Merna, “Where do you live? What’s the address?”

“I won’t”;—Merna’s voice rose—“I won’t go back there!”

She was like a woman who struggles against being tied to the stake. “We don’t want you to go back, Mrs. Bryant. We just want the house number,” Vic said. He stared into her big pale eyes and tried to will into her his own desperate hurry. Fay was rushing to warn David Bryant now unless—if they were uncommonly lucky—Hoffman had her.

Merna looked from Vic to Towers, to Etta Darbury. Her lips trembled. To Etta she whispered, “What shall I do?”

“Tell them.” Etta was noticing the baby now, patting his disheveled blankets, tucking in a shoelace. “Just tell them what they want to know. And come with me.”

Merna said to Vic, “It’s about David, isn’t it?”

“Does your husband have a gun?” Towers said smoothly.

She blinked over it. “I don’t think so.”

“Where is he now? Is he at home?”

“I guess so. He came in as we were leaving.”

“And where is home?”

She stammered the number. “On Kane Avenue. Up that street, over there.” She nodded toward the corner drugstore. Suddenly tears began to fill her eyes. She buried her face against the baby’s wrappings and sobs rocked her. “Oh, I’m glad it’s over! I’m so glad!” As if sensing his mother’s fear and grief, the baby puckered up and began to whimper. Etta Darbury put her arms around them both.

Towers said, “Is Willy Willmer with your husband?”

“I think so. He was when we left.”

Towers said, “We’ve got to run. She may be there now.” As they turned, Vic’s glance fell on the old wicker buggy. He had expected to see it crushed in the street, but apparently the truck, for all its weight and speed, had only nudged it. It crouched against the fender of the small foreign car. One wheel was bent. In this split second Vic thought with a flash of amusement that the buggy was almost as big as the car. They were incongruous there together.

Towers was rushing down the block, but Vic snatched a moment to step over the curb, jockey the buggy back upon the sidewalk. Then he saw what had happened to the wicker. On the side where the truck had hit it, a great gash was tom; and inside the lining was pushed to a point and split. The lining still retained the shape of the edge of fender, or bumper, which had crushed through at a point about even with the baby’s head. Seeing this, Vic was aware again of that strange mixture of satisfaction and gratitude. He had actually saved the baby’s life.

He hurried after Towers, caught up with him at the corner. They crossed at a run, oblivious of the signal, darting between cars. They passed the drugstore, started up the low rise of Kane Avenue, past the fence with its dirty words and on into the next block.

There was no one out in the street, no sign of Fay Bryant or of Hoffman. Vic began to allow himself to hope that Hoffman might have her cornered somewhere.

Towers was staring at house numbers as he rushed along. Now he pointed. “There it is!”

The house was like its neighbors, old and decrepit. It had once been painted green, with a white trim. Vic took in a few details: the closed blinds, the neglected yard, the splintery steps that led up to the porch.

Towers said quickly, “I’ll go around to the back. Ring and count ten, and if they haven’t come by then, in we go. We can’t have evidence destroyed.” He rushed away, his long legs taking him out of sight in a hurry.

Vic ran up the unpainted steps of the porch. There had been a doorbell but the button was missing, the rusting wires hung from the socket. Vic jerked at the screen and was surprised when it opened. He beat a fist on the front door. “Open up!” A few flakes of old paint came off on his hand.

He was astonished, though, in the next instant, to have the door abruptly open inward. Willy Willmer, vague-eyed, stood there peering out at him. There was a frozen, dumb-struck instant. But as Vic put out a hand to push the door fully ajar, Willy came to life. He let out a surprised yelp, slammed the door in Vic’s face, and Vic heard the lock turn over. Steps pounded off inside. Vic knew what would happen next. He jerked out his gun. He hit the door with his full weight. The jamb tore loose and he pitched headlong into an empty living room. He caught himself against a chair; paused for a split second to listen. There were voices in another part of the house. He heard Willy’s high-pitched cries. A deeper and more masculine tone replied.

“Burn’em! Burn’em!” Willy was screeching.

Vic crossed the dining room on a run toward the rear of the house. He saw Towers’ shadow on the flimsy curtain at the kitchen door. The next instant he had the latch open and Towers was inside.

With Towers at his heels Vic ran for the other part of the house. At the first door he looked in. A dark, ruggedly handsome man was seated on the side of a bed. He had on pants, undershirt, and socks. He looked astounded, incapable of moving, as if he had been awakened from a nap by an explosion or a tornado. Vic hurried down the small hall past the bathroom into a front bedroom. Here was Willy and a pack of matches, on the floor a heap of checks and paraphernalia.

Willy gave forth a high whinny-like giggle. He dropped a lighted match toward the heap on the floor; when Vic stepped on it and ground out the flame, Willy went into hysterics.

All at once there were sounds from the room where Towers had remained with the other man. The walls reverberated with crashes and thumpings; and then Towers yelled a warning to Vic. Vic turned, not so far that he couldn’t still watch Willy. David Bryant stumbled through the door from the hall, Towers dragging at his knees. Bryant had wild eyes for the pile of checks.

“The match, you idiot!” he yelled at Willy.

But Willy was in the grip of confusion. His hands hung nerveless; he licked his lips. He watched while Bryant, infuriated, turned and chopped at Towers with his fists, and while Vic moved closer.

All at once Willy screamed, “He’s got a gun!”

David Bryant jerked free. He found himself staring into the muzzle of the gun in Vic’s hand. A kind of gray light seemed to cross Bryant’s face, paling and flattening his features. Vic was quite ready to shoot him. At that moment he was thinking of Rock, of Rock’s death in the alley. David Bryant tried to back away from danger and almost fell over Towers.

“Put the cuffs on him,” Vic said.

David Bryant fell against the wall. He shut his eyes. He looked tired. Towers got to his feet and took the handcuffs from his pocket. “This time let’s not have any funny business. Turn around. Put your hands, backs together, behind you.” There was the businesslike clink of steel.

Willy had retreated to the other side of the room. He seemed remote, almost indifferent, as if what happened to Bryant and to himself held little interest for him. When Vic looked at him, Willy mumbled, “Oh, all right. I’ll come peaceably.”

Vic stood guard while Towers made a quick trip for his car. Towers called in on his car radio; within fifteen minutes there were two more Secret Service men on hand, plus some men from L.A.P.D. Vic found a clean carton and put the checks, the check-writing machine, and Willy’s other technical equipment in it. Stacking the checks in the box, Vic had to admire them. It was strange to think that they had no real value. Crisp, new and green, they looked as spendable as money.

The L.A.P.D. men kept away the curious while the Secret Service investigated the premises. They found plates for five-dollar bills under a loose floor board. These were a much better set than those buried in the yard in Ventura, which was probably the reason Willy had risked keeping them.

Vic found Merna and the baby and Etta Darbury in the drugstore fountain. Merna had dried her tears, seemed fairly calm now. She listened while Vic explained that, as a material witness, she would have to be taken downtown to police headquarters. Whether she could escape charges of being an accessory was up to Towers and the federal prosecutor. Vic went on to explain that a counterfeit check was as much the Secret Service’s business as was phony money.

She began to look frightened. “What’s—accessory?”

“It means you participated in the crime.”

She was silent, stricken dumb with fear; and Mrs. Darbury began to offer objections.

“I can’t promise anything, but if you promise to help it’s possible that you might be released in Mrs. Darbury’s custody,” Vic put in.

She looked at Vic, the beginnings of trust showing in her eyes. Perhaps she was remembering that he had saved her baby’s life. “Thank you.”

Vic looked around, but there was no sign of the buggy. He had a hunch Merna had simply left it sitting on the sidewalk.

Later, from L.A.P.D. Headquarters, Vic called the office. Pete said Hoffman had telephoned. While Vic and Mrs. Darbury and Merna had stood together after the rescue of the baby, Fay had darted across the street. Hoffman had followed. Fay had first headed for Kane Avenue, but apparently she became aware of Hoffman’s pursuit. She had jumped aboard a bus which had pulled away before Hoffman could catch it. Hoffman had gone back to his car and taken up the chase; but when he had caught up with the bus Fay hadn’t been in it. She was loose in the city. Now Hoffman was backtracking, trying to find the bus stop where Fay had alighted, and someone who might have noticed where she went from there.

At six o’clock David Bryant was taken to a small room at Central Headquarters for questioning by homicide detectives.

Vic had filed his information and the check-writing equipment with the proper departments, hurrying so that he could sit in on the questioning about Rock’s murder.

David Bryant had already dictated and signed a confession concerning the forgeries. Willy had made the checks; he had filled them in and passed them. But when the homicide men began to talk about murder, he at first laughed and then grew quiet and sullen. He said flatly he’d never heard of Rock. The two L.A.P.D. men looked at Vic.

Vic said, “About a year ago you were the claims clerk at San Bernardino station.”

Bryant shot him a sneering glance. “And … so?”

“A boat maker in the East shipped a power launch to a customer in Newport Beach. When the boat got to San Bernardino damages were discovered. Some bums had traveled in it.”

Bryant shrugged guardedly. “Sure, I remember it.”

“One of our investigators went to San Bernardino and talked it over with you, then contacted the owner in Newport Beach for an adjustment.”

A puzzled and wary expression had come over Bryant. He decided to say nothing, just to watch Vic.

Vic said, “That man was Rockfort.”

Bryant tightened his lips. One of the homicide men said, “Do you still deny knowing Rockfort?”

Bryant said carefully, “Well, I must have met him. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him since.”

“How often did you follow Willy around at night?” Vic asked suddenly.

Bryant took his time, said finally, “Oh, now and then.”

A uniformed man stuck his head in at the door and said, “Somebody here named Moine?”

“Here.” Vic rose and went out and found Towers waiting for him in the hall.

Towers explained that he had been conferring with the federal prosecutor. They had come to a decision about Merna. “We don’t think she had anything to do with making any of the plates. Sure, she must have known, but she’s a sad-sack type of kid. She’s eager to co-operate, and she seems to have some hope of going home with Mrs. Darbury. If it’s all right with you—”

“She can go, as far as I’m concerned.”

They shook hands, thanked each other for mutual help, and Towers walked away. Vic went back into the room with the L.A.P.D. men and Bryant.

Bryant, in Vic’s brief absence, seemed to have grown angry. “What kind of rap is this, anyway?” he was demanding. “You know I didn’t kill anybody. Why should I? Why on earth should I murder a railroad dick because I’ve been passing claims checks? It’s nuts. You just want to saddle me with your unfinished business.”

Vic sat down again. He kept his tone calm. “Tell me about your meeting with Rockfort.” In the back of his mind was the memory of the kid, Ron Mallon. Perhaps the same technique—keep’em talking— might get him something here.

Bryant shrugged again. “It was … the way you said it was.”

“Well, give me some details. Where did you meet Rock? In the office? What time of day did he get there?”

Bryant seemed to collect his thoughts for a moment or so. “He’d been out on some other job. Some kids had been monkeying with a switch … something like that. He got to the office pretty late in the day and asked me to take him over to see the launch. It was on a flatcar on a siding. I typed up some stuff for him, the name of the firm who’d shipped it, the consignee in Newport Beach, all that sort of thing. Then we went over to the boat and looked it over. You couldn’t see much until you got down inside.”

“Rock got down inside?”

“Yeah, he looked it over pretty thoroughly.”

“And then what?”

Bryant tried to look bored and scornful, but under this veneer Vic sensed an increasing nervousness. Bryant was beginning to realize the seriousness of his position, and he must see how determined Vic was to get at the truth. “We went back to the office and talked for a couple of minutes. The only reason I remember all this is because of the boat. It was such a freakish kind of thing, the bums getting into the boat under the canvas cover and making such an unholy mess there.”

“What did Rock do then?”

“Left, I guess.”

“You said this was near the end of the day?”

“I knocked off when he had gone.”

“You went home?”

“Sure, I went home. What’s the idea back of all this?”

“Rockfort was following your friend Willy a few nights back. Somebody recognized him for a railroad cop. After he was dead his murderer planted him in the yards. That seems to put it right in your lap.”

Bryant started to say something and then apparently decided to think it over first. He sat forward in his chair, his hands locked on his knees, and stared at the floor. All at once a slight incredulous smile touched Bryant’s mouth and he glanced up swiftly. Vic expected him to speak. But Bryant’s glance fell and he seemed to sink into sullen apathy.

“You followed your friend Willy because he was a lush, and unreliable. He’d stolen a couple of checks for drinking money. This had made you nervous.”

Bryant didn’t react at all, and Vic realized that his mind was elsewhere.

“When you saw Rock on Willy’s trail you knew the situation was dangerous. You’d been passing bogus railroad checks and here was a railroad cop ready to clap Willy on the shoulder. You had to act fast.”

Bryant didn’t even seem to be listening. He seemed to be thinking about something else and to be shocked by some idea which was new to him.

Vic thought, He isn’t interested in Willy or in my idea that he’d been following Willy. He’s got something on his mind. Something connected with that other affair … Rock’s visit to his office…. Suddenly Vic sat straight and felt his hands clench. He said, “You went home—right away?”

A touch of fear crossed Bryant’s face. He nodded.

“How?”

“My car,” Bryant said huskily.

“It was parked there? Or someone came to pick you up in it?”

“My wife.”

For an instant Vic thought of Merna. But then he saw what the truth must be; and the L.A.P.D. men must have noted the same kind of incredulous smile on Vic as on Bryant. “Fay Bryant was there to pick you up?”

Again Bryant nodded. He waited fearfully; he knew exactly what Vic meant to ask next.

“She was there early,” Vic said. “She saw you and Rock together and when you got into the car she asked you who Rock was. Isn’t that it?”

Bryant cried huskily, “What are you asking me to do? Put a noose around her neck? Everything she did, she did for me. And I didn’t even deserve it. I ran away and left her when I got into trouble in Portland. It took her a year to find me.”

Vic stood up. “I don’t know why I didn’t figure it out sooner. Of all of you, she’s the one who’s capable of murder.”

Ready, willing, and able …

Vic thought of the baby buggy spinning out into the street.

Twenty-Three

At eleven-forty that night an attendant in one of the women’s rest rooms in the Union Depot realized that something was wrong in one of the cubicles. Stooping, she could see a sprawled figure and a spreading pool of blood. The attendant gave the alarm and members of the depot police—made up of officers from each of the railroads using the terminal—came to investigate. They found a small neatly dressed woman and a spilled pack of razor blades. The woman was unconscious from loss of blood; she was suffering from a slashed throat and wrists. Afterward, it always seemed evilly appropriate to Vic that Fay Bryant had attempted suicide in a railroad depot.

He was at General Hospital at five o’clock in the morning. Fay had first been taken to a receiving hospital and had had emergency surgery. Then she’d been identified from papers in her purse. The police had come. Now she was in the prison ward and not expected to live.

Vic never did get to talk to her about Rock’s death. She was too far gone for questioning by the time he got there. The L.A.P.D. detectives repeated what she had told them.

She had been following Willy that particular night because she, more than David, worried over Willy’s loose tongue and unending thirst. She had followed Willy from bar to bar, keeping out of his way; and she had heard Rock ask his friends if they knew anyone named Byron U. Davidson. She saw how Willy reacted and that Rock had noted it. Here her native shrewdness came to her rescue. She had approached Rock with a story that she had met him in San Bernardino. Now her car was down the street, a tire flat, and in a very unsavory neighborhood.

Rock, the gentleman, had instantly offered to change tires for her.

They had gone to her car. It was a dark deserted spot. Fay remembered a wrench left on the floor of the rear seat. When Rock had bent to examine the supposed flat tire, she’d hit him with the wrench. Getting him into the car had proved a tremendous exertion, almost beyond her strength.

She had driven around for a while, then, perhaps, starting in the general direction of Kane Avenue. She had tried to think of a way to involve Merna in the affair, then had given it up. The idea of putting Rock in the freight yards occurred to her next. She didn’t know that Rock was retired, that he wouldn’t have business out there at night.

To the detectives, she had stubbornly refused to talk about what she had done to Rock with the car in the alley. Perhaps the scene was too grisly even for Fay to dwell on. After she was sure that Rock was dead, however, she tried to get his body into the car to transfer it to the freight yards; she found that she was simply incapable of lifting and handling him again.

She had gone looking for help.

When Vic first heard this next part of the story he was inclined to dismiss it as a lie; but afterward he was willing to accept it. It was the only explanation which fit what had happened.

Fay claimed that she met a wino in a neighborhood bar and that he had helped her. She had paid him ten dollars. He had even supplied the pint of muscatel. She didn’t know his name; wouldn’t tell it if she had.

She had left Rock in the freight yards, paid off her assistant, and gone home feeling secure.

Fay died just before six o’clock. Vic was gone by then. He had stopped on his way and asked about Boots. Boots had died the night before.

Vic thought, I hope I never have to go back there again. It was a silly wish and he knew it. Scarcely a week passed but what he had business at General.

He went home and brewed coffee and showered, dressed again, thought about the day ahead. He had accumulated a lot of time on the Bryant case. Unless Ryerson had something special for him, he decided to ask for the day off.

He walked up to the front door of the Grem house at about ten. It was sunny and cheerful for a change; and there was a definite feeling of spring in the air. Grem’s gardener had some daffodils coming into bloom, plus some other flowers Vic couldn’t identify. He remembered Towers and his hobby of pelargoniums and smiled to himself.

He rang the doorbell. Mrs. Grem came. She was brisk and quite sober, dressed in a gray wool suit, a small black fur cape, a little black hat. She was obviously ready to go out somewhere. She smiled at Vic.”Come in. My, aren’t we working today?,”

“Not today,”Vic said.

“I guess you’ll want to see June.”

“Yes, I do.”

She took him into the living room. In contrast to the big game room at the rear, this faced the street. It was a coldly formal room, expensively furnished.”Wait here, Victor.”She hurried out.

Arnold Grem came down the hall, peered in at Vic. “Well, hello, there. How’re tricks?”He came in, went to a humidor on a table by the window, opened the canister and offered Vic one of his cigars. Vic thanked him but said he didn’t feel like smoking now.

Grem was eying him curiously, obviously wondering what Vic’s errand was.”You like the railroad job?”

“It’s okay.”

“I guess you’ve really made up your mind you’re not going to be a lawyer.”

“I guess I have,”Vic answered.

“Well … I don’t hold it against you. I was disappointed, sure, when you walked out. I wanted June to marry somebody who could come into the firm.” Grem bit off the end of his own cigar, lit it with a silver lighter from the table. “You can understand that, can’t you?”

Vic understood a lot of things, mostly Grem’s urge to power, his desire to run other people’s lives. He wasn’t going to get in an argument now. He merely nodded. June came in then, and Grem, with a half-puzzled glance at the two of them, went out.

Vic had risen. June came close and rubbed her cheek on his coat.”How are you, darling?” She smelled like the spring blooms outside.

“I’m lonely,” Vic admitted.

“Oh? Been thinking about us?”

“I’ve been thinking that life is a damned short proposition,” Vic said, “and that I’m not going to spend any more of it alone if I can help it. And if you will join me.”

“See?” She pushed him down into the chair and sat on his lap. “I told you I’d win out.” She pulled his face close between her hands and kissed his mouth lingeringly. Then she drew back. “What is it? What’s wrong?” She waited. Vic was trying to find words. “Something about the job?”

“I guess that’s it.” He told her a little about the Bryant case, about Fay’s confession and death. Talking to June, with June in his arms, gave him a kind of detachment toward it all. He could even think of Boots without the futile, helpless rage he’d felt before. True, he hadn’t found Rock’s old enemy, that sprinting horror Rock had chased from the reefer; perhaps never would; but he had saved another child.

When he had finished talking they were quiet together.

The only sound in the room was the ticking of a large clock on the wall above the mantle. June’s fingers cupped his cheek in a caress. Vic felt relaxed and at peace, as though he had solved something, or settled something, about his own life.

Well, Rock had said that someday he’d be glad to have been a cop.

Vic knew that he wasn’t ready, yet, to make that flat an announcement. He wasn’t even committed, as he had told Grem, not to go back to studying law.

Rock’s murder should have been the convincer if Rock had been right; but it hadn’t been. Vic felt no sense of victory about Fay Bryant.

There was just one thing he was sure of: he was glad that he had been a cop yesterday afternoon, on Faust Street, when a woman had stepped off the curb pushing a baby carriage.

About the Author

Dolores Hitchens (1907–1973) was a highly prolific mystery author who wrote under multiple pseudonyms and in a range of styles. A large number of her books were published under the moniker D. B. Olsen, and a few under the pseudonyms Noel Burke and Dolan Birkley, but she is perhaps best remembered today for her later novel, Fool’s Gold, published under her own name, which was adapted into the film Bande á part directed by Jean-Luc Godard.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1956 by Bert and Dolores Hitchens

Cover design by Ian Koviak

ISBN: 978-1-5040-6704-1

This edition published in 2021 by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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DOLORES HITCHENS

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