Design for Dying

I

Big-Time Crime

I LET HER GET OUT of the three-year-old coupe and into the vestibule of the upstairs flat. I went in, fast, just before the door swung shut again.

She didn't say anything. She leaned her shoulders back against the wall and let the bag of groceries slide down out of her hands, and that was all. I stood looking at her. Evening light crawled in through the glass window high in the door, and the empty steps went up beside us, smelling cold and musty, and it was quiet.

After a while she said, "What are you going to do?"

"I don't know."

She leaned against the wall, watching me with wide, still eyes. The greyish light caught in them and put a silvery wash over her hair.

They were exactly the same shade of golden-brown, her I i 1- and eyes. Her mouth was just the way I remembered it, red I and sulky above her round chin. Fourteen years had made a woman out of a girl, but she was still Jo—the Jo I married.

I got lost all of a sudden. It was like we were both standing in a shaft of still water, and I felt the way you do when you've been down on the bottom too long.

I heard her whisper, "You've changed, Chris."

"Sure," I said. "Why not?"

I put my hands flat on the wall each side of her shoulders. "Chris, what are you going to do?" Very quiet, looking up. Her skin had a film of sweat.

I brought my hands together, slowly, until there was only her neck between them. I laced my fingertips over the bone in back and set my thumbs together over the place in front where I could feel the breath going in and out. Her face was blurred.

Her hands came up very gently and lay on my cheeks. "Chris–kiss me, just once, like you used to."

I tightened my fingers. I think I laughed. Her hands went away from my cheeks and caught my wrists instead. There was thunder in the place.

Her lips came clear of the haze in front of me. Still red with the paint on them, parted, and hungry for breath.

I gave them breath. I gave them something else, too.

After a while she was crying on my shoulder, and I was holding her tight. And I was cursing her with everything I had.

"Fourteen years I sit in that stinkin' cell and think how I'm going to tear off your lyin' no-good head and kick it around the block. And now. . . . "

I pushed her off. She tripped on the steps and sat down hard. I blew the rest of my vocabulary out through the roof before I realized she wasn't listening to me. She was sobbing like a kid, with her hands over her face.

"I've been so worried, Chris–ever since the break. Every paper that came on the street, I'd think, this is it–they've gothim. I couldn't eat or sleep. Oh, honey, are you safe? Does anybody know you're here?" She turned those big eyes up, all shiny with tears.

"Oh, for God's sake! Turn off the act."

She crumpled over like she was very tired. "What are you going to do? I mean, have you got plans?"

"Why would I tell you?"

"No reason, I suppose. Chris, how did you find us?" "Kind of a shock, isn't it? You and your sweet brother, Slighyou felt so safe, with me in the can for more years than Methuselah could live out."

"I didn't have anything to do with that, Chris. Nothing!" "I heard that one before. Sure, you and Sligh were pretty well off. All my dough, no charges against either of you, your names changed . . . you even came out to the Coast, after Repeal, where nobody knew you from Adam. Yeah. Well, I had a little cash and one contact even Sligh didn't know about. I've known where you were from the beginning."

I glanced up the shabby steps and laughed. "Looks like my eighty grand didn't hold out so well."

She said tiredly, "It's been hell."

"That's tough."

She didn't fight back. She seemed to have no fight left in her. She got down and began picking up oranges that had rolled out of the bag.

"Sligh's in Las Vegas," she said.

"He'll come back."

She leaned back against the wall. Her hair fell soft and heavy around her face. I could see the warm curve of her throat a hove her yellow dress.

"Oh, God, how I've missed you, Chris! There hasn't been anyone else since I left you."

I didn't say anything. She let her head droop forward.

"Look, Jo. There are two guys I got business with. They'll come here, because they know the address. So I think I'll stick around. Besides, I never did like hotels."

She started picking up oranges again.

"You're a fool, Jo. Maybe as big a fool as I am."

She didn't answer that. I got down beside her and began heaving oranges in the bag.

Next morning around ten the bell rang, and when Jo called clown it was Ray Jardine's voice asking could he come up. I checked to make sure he was alone and then said into the speaker, "Come on in, Ray. You're expected." Jo was staring at me, looking like someone had just hit her in the stomach. "Yeah," I said pleasantly, "you heard right. Ray Jardine." I I had to laugh at the expression on her face.

Jardine was just like I remembered him, only more so. He'd put on about ten pounds, his grey suit was a little sloppier, his podgy blue-eyed face a little stupider looking. He had one of those soft, baggy necks that curves straight down from the jawbone and always looks a little dirty, like the skin was too tender to shave close.

"Well, well, well," he said. "The guy himself. Good ole Chris Owens, right in the ole groove. God, that was a beautiful break! I sure never thought you'd make it, even if I did fix t hi ngs for you myself."

"Thanks," I said sourly. "You remember Jo."

"Sure, sure! How are you, Jo?"

"I don't know yet," she told him. "You mean you've been in touch with Chris all this time?"

"And with you and Sligh, too. Just like the old days, ain't it?" He sat down like he owned the place and lit a cigar. "And now let's talk a little business."

Jo started to go out. I said, "Sit down, baby. I like you where I can see you." Jo's eyes spit sparks at me, and Jardine laughed.

"Same old Chris," he said. "Always the acid tongue."

Jo tossed her head. I sat down on the couch and, after a minute, she came over beside me, not very close but close enough. I grinned at her and then nodded to Jardine. "Yeah, Ray. Go ahead."

Jardine watched his cigar smoke, with dull eyes. He looked like a fourth-rate drummer out of a job, but he wasn't. He was one of the smartest private dicks that ever went on the crook. He was our fix man, back in the old days of the combine when Sligh and I kept half the U. S. from dying of thirst. There wasn't anything that slippery little rat couldn't do if he had a thick enough wad in his kick.

He said, "You owe me a lot of money, Chris."

"I know it."

"I'm a poor man. In fact, I'm flat busted. Crime ain't what it used to be, with the goddam FBI lousing things up. And I ain't in what business I got just because I like the people I meet."

"I know that, too."

"I figure, Chris, that you're sort of an investment."

"I figured that was what you figured. Go on."

Jardine waved his cigar slowly back and forth, not thinking about it. The shaky line of the smoke tipped off the fact that his hand wasn't steady.

"The way I look at it, Chris, you're clean so far. Ain't no record on Sligh–he's got you to thank for that because you handled things so smart–nor on your wife. They got different names out here, too. No reason for the cops to connect 'em with you, and a damn long job of tracing if they ever did get ideas. Fourteen years is a long time."

I said, "Yeah."

"I got a contact for you, Chris. Georgie Molino."

He watched me to see how I would take that. I dead-panned it, and he went on.

"Molino practically owns the southern part of this state. Every tin-pot gambling hall kicks in to him, and his own place takes in enough to pay off the war debt every week."

"Then what does he need of me?"

"It's like this, Chris. He's having trouble. The new administration looks like it might get tough, on account of beefs from the families of war workers who drop a lot of dough there. The big boys are yelping, too–say Georgie causes absenteeism at the plants. On top of that, a couple of Georgie's Own boys are fixing to split their britches. Georgie ain't a well man, and he don't care too much for rough stuff. He's like you there, Chris, only he ain't got the brains you have to get around it. So I figured there was an opening there for you." He grinned. "I sure gave you a build-up, Chris. Not that you needed one. The papers were doing it for me, anyhow."

I was still giving him the Great Stone Face. He began to sweat a little on his fat neck.

"What's the deal?" I said.

"A hideout, Chris. Takes a guy as big as Georgie Molino to ool off a guy as hot as you are. You're no penny-ante hood, Chris. You're big time. You was more than half the combine, and you know it. Why, back in the good old Volstead days, you could do with your brain what the other guys had to do with lead."

"Yeah," I said. "But just brains don't stand up so good against a Thompson, and I'm no lousy hot rod. That's why I tried to pull out when the going got too tough for just brains. That's why I got a frame nailed on me."

I got up and began walking around. I was shaking worse than Jardine and I felt like I was full of boiling water instead of blood.

"Yeah, a dirty rotten frame. They couldn't trust me to run loose and maybe change my mind–get tough and start up some competition they couldn't handle. They didn't quite dare to try shooting me. I was a hard guy to hit, and my boys would have thrown some lead around in my memory, and they didn't like that. Besides, they always thought maybe some day they could use me again. Me, and my big brain! Sure. So now I got stripes on me that'll never come off. I lost fourteen years in that stinkin' prison. And maybe. . . . "

I cursed and broke off short. I stood there trying to light a cigarette, and I caught a glimpse of Jardine's face, and then Jo's. I laughed.

"Like you said, Ray–fourteen years is a long time. A guy grows up in fourteen years." I sat down again.

Jo put her hand out and took it away again, like she would with a strange dog.

"That's right," said Jardine. "Well, Georgie is willing to do everything he can, than which there ain't no more to be had. All you have to do is take care of whatever business he wants you to. Georgie told me himself he'd rather have your brains and ability even if you were too hot for comfort, than anybody else."

"All right," I said. "So I'm very smart and I used to carry New York around in my pants pocket. But I was working for myself. I've been working for myself since before I was old enough to shave."

He made himself say it, and kept his eyes on me while he did. "Looks to me, Chris, like you ain't got any choice." And he was right.

"And what you get out of it," I said, "is a nice place in the country and the gold fillings out of my back teeth."

"Now, Chris, I ain't no gouger. I've worked hard for you. If it wasn't for me, you wouldn't have the chance of a snowball in hell to get by. . . . "

Jo got hold of me. "Chris, honey, don't be that way. You are in a spot, and this chance–well, it's wonderful! Chris, please. . . . "

Jardine waved his cigar. He was smiling. The sweat stood out on his soft neck, but he nailed that smile on his face and kept it there.

"The little lady's right, Chris. Times change, and you got to change with 'em. You got to take the realistic view."

He tried to see just what view I was taking, gave it up, and then came out flat-footed with what he'd been holding back.

"Don't you forget this. You're worth money to me, more money than I ever saw before. I got your neck right in the palm of my hand, and I got it fixed so if you kill me the cops'll be told just where to look for you."

He wasn't feeling so scared, now he'd said it. He was beginning to enjoy himself.

"Times change, Chris. We can't always be what we were once. I'll treat you right. I won't gouge you too deep."

I didn't say anything. I sat still, and Jo's hand on my wrist was as cold as a dead man's feet.

After a while I said, "Okay, Jardine. I'll take the realistic view." I got up and walked around some more, lighting a another smoke. This time the match flame didn't jerk too much.

"There's just one thing I got to take care of first."

Jo's copper-brown eyes looked at me, shiny as new-minted pennies and just as unreadable.

Jardine said, "Sligh."

"Yeah," I said. "Sligh."

Jardine chuckled. He leaned over and gentled an inch of ash into a tray; and just about then the buzzer went for the front door. Jo got up, slowly, and crossed over to the speaker. Jardine kept on looking at his cigar, very calm, but he was corpse-colored and sweating.

Jo turned around. She whispered. "I can stall him off. Get out the back way. If you kill him now, you'll be caught. The whole thing will come out. Chris, you can't get your money back, nor the years you've lost."

"Can I get you back?"

The blood crawled up in her face. She let her lids drop heavy over her eyes, and a ray of sunlight in her hair burned hot enough to sear you, like molten copper.

"You've got me back. You've always had me. You drove me away because you thought I helped frame you, after we split up. But I didn't. You know I didn't. And I've never loved anyone but you."

I laughed. She turned white and picked up a vase with flowers in it and let me have it. It missed, and in the middle of the racket it made smashing on the wall, Jardine let out a bray like a jackass.

"That ain't Sligh down there. He's got a key!"

And it wasn't Sligh. It was a girl from Western Union with a wire saying that Edward A. Mines–the name that Sligh was going under–had been killed in Las Vegas by a hit-run driver.

Jo turned white and sat down. I went over and got a handful of Jardine's collar.

He gasped, "You be careful, Chris."

I shook him. "Coincidences, Jardine. I don't like 'em."

He grinned. He felt safe enough to grin. "You'd be surprised what you can buy for a couple of bucks, when you know where to go. No risk, no kickbacks. Listen, Chris. I knew nothing could hold you off that dog. You think I want you hanging a murdered corpse out the window for cop bait?"

I held onto him, and all of a sudden you could tell from Jardine's face that he didn't feel so safe after all.

It was about then I felt a hell of a crack on the head and passed out cold. When things finally crawled back in focus again I was on the floor with my head in Jo's lap and she was rubbing it with ice wrapped up in a dishtowel and crying like a scared kid. Jardine was gone.

"I had to," Jo sobbed. "You were killing him. Oh, Chris honey, are you all right? I didn't mean to hit you so hard."

My head felt like the Green Bay Packers had been using it for kicking practice. All of a sudden I laughed.

"Hell, this is like old times, Jo!"

"We did have terrible fights, didn't we?"

"Yeah. But it was fun. I could never love a dame I couldn't enjoy fighting with."

"Chris. . . ."

I sat up, holding the pieces of my skull together. Jo was bent forward a little over her knees, her face hidden by her shining copper mop. There was nothing seductive about her now. She looked like a little girl that's been naughty, been punished to beat hell, and is too tired out even to cry.

"Chris, I've been dead ever since I left you."

"Yeah?"

"I never stopped loving you, not for a minute. But we'd been so unhappy, you and I, and things just got worse, and I guess I thought I hated you."

"I guess maybe you had a right to. I've got a rotten temper." "You should have trusted me, Chris. You should have let me stand by you."

I looked at her. I said quietly, "Should I?"

She shivered. "I guess I can't blame you," she whispered. "But I've been in prison, too, all these years. My brother wanted me around, to keep house for him, and to use as bait for his business deals. He told me what would happen to me if I left him. Besides, I always hoped that if I stayed with him I could find some proof that he framed you, and maybe then I could get you free again."

I didn't say anything. She let her hands go loose in her lap.

"You have your faults, Chris, but you're straight. You're a man. Sligh wasn't. He was crooked and rotten and hateful, and I can't cry because he's dead." She lifted her face up, all soft and open and young with tears. "But I can cry for you, Chris. I did a wrong thing to leave you, a wrong thing to let you stop me from coming back. I've paid for both those things."

The warm sunlight fell on her through the window and made the tears shine like little stars. I took her in my arms and kissed her, gently, the way you would a child. I felt a way I hadn't felt for years. Not since I used to stand in the choir stall of the cathedral and send my voice reaching up after the Gloria.

This Georgie Molino business looked like it was going to work out. The first thing he did was ship me secretly to his place in the desert–Jo had to stay behind and clear up the details of Sligh's funeral and everything, so it wouldn't look too funny.

Then Molino turned loose a couple of regiments of experts on me.

They fed and exercised me like a prize horse. They studied my mug, my clothes, my choice of colors, the things I like to eat, the games I play.

What they did about it was nothing short of murder.Design for Dying

I gained back about seventeen pounds, acquired a heavy tan, and got in the pink again, which was good. But the rest of it. . . . They changed my hairline, and made me grow a mustache. There was quite a lot of grey in my hair–you turn grey young in prison. Instead of dyeing it dark, they bleached it the rest of the way, to snow-white. It looked swell, with the tan, but it didn't look like me.

They did fancy needlework on my face to change the shape and the expression, not much, but enough. My clothes were designed to make my build look a little different. My shoes made me change my walk.

I like green and brown. They put me in blue and grey. They changed my food habits and my taste in drinks. They took me off golf and chess and put me on tennis and poker. They did things to my teeth, to change my mouth and even the way I talk. I'm a cigarette smoker, so they gave me a pipe. When they got through with me, I could have moved into one room with J. Edgar Hoover and slept easy.

Jo came out to join me after a while, there was no risk in that. The Eastern cops never had a picture of her, and the Western boys didn't know she was alive. She was just JoAnn Mines, another housewife. Nobody cared what she did.

The experts did some light work on her, though, just in case we should meet somebody who did know her. She looked swell with black hair, cut short and curly. She thought I looked swell, too. She said I looked like a combination of Ronald Colman and Humphrey Bogart, and I said that was a hell of a mixture, and she said I should worry as long as she loved inc. We were happy out there, like we used to be when we I first got married, when Old Man Volstead was making it easy for smart youngsters to clean up, and get a thrill out of it.

It was funny, to feel like a kid again, to think it's me and Jo I having fun together and then to remember that fourteen years bad dropped away behind us, and we were somebody else now. You think I'm just putting a mask on the present. Tomorrow it'll be pulled off. You get scared sometimes, thinking of time and years and the way life flows under your feet. That's how you know you aren't a kid any more. Life has a solid feel when you're young. It's only when you've been around it a while that you realize how shaky it is, like a swaying plank across a ditch, that may break or throw you any minute.

Jo felt that, too. I remember one night we were walking around, watching the desert stars swinging down so low you could almost feel the silver heat of them, and suddenly I realized Jo was staring up into my face with a funny, searching look.

"Who are you, Chris? Who are you, really?"

"Is the new map my fault? And who are you, with that black hair?"

"Don't laugh me off, honey. It isn't the way you look that I mean. It's the way you are, inside. Sometimes I think, he's still Chris, he hasn't changed at all. And then there'll be a note in your voice, a look in your eyes–and it isn't Chris at all."

"You've changed too, baby. Anybody does, in that length of time."

"That still isn't what I mean. You were always a businessman, Chris. You wouldn't kill, or strong-arm people like the others did. But now. . . . Chris, did we have to come back to the rackets? Couldn't we have gone away somewhere. . . . "

"Where? With what? And how could I make a living?" I laughed all of a sudden, not loud. "Besides, I'm no different from the others, now. I'm an escaped con, a guy with a record, a public enemy. They got what they wanted, Sligh and his pals."

"You're not Chris now," she whispered. "Chris couldn't have laughed that way. . . . Darling, couldn't we run away, now? Nobody'd know you."

"Think of Georgie. Think of Jardine. How long would you want to bet we'd live?"

She didn't say anything for a minute. Then she sighed. "I guess once you go wrong, really wrong, you can't ever find your way back." She took my hand in hers. "Let's go back to the house. I'm cold."

We never talked about that again.

This Georgie Molino was a right guy. We got along. He was a big man, well on in middle age, getting slow and pretty soft. He had a heart that threatened to quit on him any time, and his boys knew it. Some of them were getting big ideas. Like Jardine said, that's why he wanted me. And we both knew it was not going to be any soft job.

He let me know, just once, that if I ever got any ideas myself I wouldn't be around to enjoy them. I told him that was fair enough, and we both left it, right there. He paid well. Even after Jardine's cut came out, I had plenty to fool around with. Jardine kept clear of me. I sent a check every month to a phony name and a P. 0. box, and that was that.

After about three months I made my debut.

II

Showdown

MOLINO'S PLACE WAS CLASS A, and running wide open in a spot that formed the hub for two big towns and a hunch of defense projects. Molino owned what local law there was.

NO GOOD FROM A CORPSE

He walked Jo and me around the place, introducing us as Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Medbury from Saint Paul. The T. Medburys could stand a check-up in Saint Paul, too, if anybody wanted to try it. Molino wasn't the kind who left any loose ends lying around.

Jo left us presently to powder her nose, and Molino steered me into one of the big gambling rooms. "These are the guys," he said quietly. "Whatever trouble you have, they'll make it. The rest just follow."

We went over to the crap table and watched a while. Pretty soon a well-built, perfectly tailored young fellow with curly auburn hair and a nice face called his luck a couple of hard names and turned away, grinning.

Another guy turned right by his shoulder, like he might be a Siamese twin. He had straw-colored hair plastered onto a skull shaped like an egg and looking just as unsubstantial. His face was too small, and from the way his pale grey eyes looked he wasn't above hitting the hypo now and then.

The good-looking kid said, "Evening, Georgie. How goes it?" He had violet eyes, the kind you read about but never see. The kind of eyes you would trust with your last dime and your young daughter, and that would go on looking clear and sweet while they aimed the bullets into your guts.

Molino said, "Tom, this is Micky Shayne and Shadow. Boys, this is Tom Medbury, my new partner."

Shayne hadn't been much impressed up to then. Maybe it was the white hair. While he was shaking hands he took another look, and his grin got a little stiff around the edges. "Swell," he said. "I hope you like it here."

Shadow watched me like a dead fish, over his shoulder. Shayne's gaze moved over toward the door. He made a low whistle through his teeth.

"Pardon me, fellas. Some new business just came up."

He went off. I watched him, and the business turned out to be Jo. I didn't blame Shayne. In that green dress, with her chassis and her black hair and copper-brown eyes, I wouldn't have blamed anybody. I followed. The Shadow watched me. Probably he would watch me from now on, until one of us was dead.

I took Jo's arm. "Sorry, Shayne. This one's earmarked." He took it slow, easy, and smiling. "Sure," he said. "Funny. I knew that the minute she came in."

After he was gone Jo said, "Gee, he's nice."

She looked up at me and laughed. "The way you look now, there's no Ronald Colman. You'd scare the whole Warner Brothers' contract list!"

After he showed me the ropes, Molino took himself and his bum ticker out on the desert for a long rest, and I bought myself a bodyguard–four hired guns with no loyalties but their paychecks. I was all ready for trouble.

I didn't have any.

There's a lot of work to running a big gambling syndicate--the kind of work I take to like a pup to a pound of hamburger. A flock of tough babies to be kept in line, cops to be squared, collections to be made and checked, debts brought in, percentages figured. The collection and debt department belonged to Micky Shayne, and he was good at it, like me.

The funny thing was that Shayne and Shadow were very friendly, very cooperative. They went out of town on business a few weeks later, and we had a couple of drinks together before they left, all sweetness and light. I looked close, but I

couldn't see anything phony about it.

The new administration got a little muscular, but they turned out to be like most administrations. We got along fine, after I talked to them a few times. And the local cops were swell, dropping in for a beer and a hand or two of poker. I quit worrying too much about maybe catching a rumble. T. Medbury seemed to be standing up okay. Jo and I got a swell little house in one of the swank suburbs and settled in.

She wasn't happy, though. She kept looking at me like she wondered if she knew me, and I'd catch her sometimes sitting all by herself, staring out the window at nothing.

I'd ask her what was wrong, and she'd give me the old headache routine. And then all of a sudden she broke down and said, "Chris, I'm scared. Something's wrong. I don't know what, or why, but I know it. I dream about it nights."

"Just what do you mean, Jo?"

"Nothing. Just . . . Chris, why do you look at me like that?"

"Why do most guys look at you?"

"You weren't looking that way. . . . You still don't trust me, do you?"

"Sure I do."

"What could I do to you, Chris? I wouldn't have any way to hurt you, even if I wanted to." She came and put her arms around me. "If I could only make you trust me! I love you so much."

I patted her. "You got the meamies, hon. Of course I trust you. Trouble is, you lived around Sligh so much you think everybody's a double-crossing heel. But Sligh's dead now."

"Yeah. I saw him in the coffin. He's dead."

"Sure. So forget him." I kissed her. I guess we both forgot about Sligh, and everyone else, for a while. But that night I didn't sleep.

And all this time, like I said, Micky Shayne and his Shadow were out of town, and the rest of the guys just took it easy, waiting.

Waiting. Yeah. Toward the end, I just about decided that Molino was really a sick man and seeing bogies where there weren't any. A lot of guys go that way, when they begin to slip. I remember I was thinking that last night, when I went home.

Jo seemed funny all through dinner. Quiet, like a kid that's scared about some secret thing. It was different from those other moods she had. This was something alive and chewing on her. Finally I cuddled her up and told her to spill it.

"I guess I'll have to, Chris." She was curled up tight against me on the couch, and her fingers went around mine like she wanted to keep me from slipping away. She was trembling. "Jardine called me up this afternoon."

"Jardine! Say, has that little–"

"I didn't want you to know about it, honey. He's been getting money out of me, too. Chris, don't look like that! You got to keep your temper. You know what'll happen to us if anything happens to Jardine."

I began to shake, too. "Okay," I said. "Go on."

"He's never called me or come here before. I always met him downtown. But he said over the phone that he was in a spot and had to have the money fast, and it was more than I could give him. He sounded awful scared, and mean. Chris, what are we. . . ."

I kissed her. "We'll take care of it, baby. Don't worry." I got lip and started for the hall closet. Jo caught me. "Chris, you got to be careful!"

"I'll be careful. A set-up like this works two ways. I'm worth dough to Jardine, and that gives me a hold, too."

"I'm going, too."

"The hell you are!"

"You think I'm going to let you go alone and lose your temper and maybe do something terrible? I'm going, Chris!" She went.

I didn't take the bodyguard. There was no need of it around Jardine. And a deal like that you don't spread around. Even a hired gun can get ideas.

Jardine lived in a fairly secluded separate house. I guess he had his reasons. The neighborhood was what you'd expect, flashy with dough but still cheap. Jardine's lights were on behind drawn shades, and a throaty-voiced dame was singing How Sweet You Are out of a good radio.

I rang the bell. I rang it twice, and then the door opened.

It opened fast. I saw the guy's arm raised up, and the sap in the hand of it, and all of them slashing down. I tried to get out of the way, but Jo was beside me in the doorway, hampering any move I made, and the damn thing came too fast.

I took it square on the crown of my hat. I fell down, and on the way I saw a man standing in the living room. It wasn't Jardine. It was the Shadow, and he was holding a revolver with a silencer on its nose, looking high as a lark and four times as happy.

I heard Jo cry out. I tried to get up again. Something whacked me behind the ear, and then all the lights went out.

When I could see again I was sitting in a big chair all by itself in the middle of the room. My gun, even my pocket knife, had been taken. The radio was still on, but softer, and it was giving a Strauss waltz. The lamplight was nice, quiet and rosy, only I couldn't see much of it. My head ached, and the ache came with flashes like sheet lightning, so I was half blind–but between flashes, I saw enough.

Jo sat crumpled in the corner of an overstuffed couch. Her hands were palm up on her thighs, limp like a dead woman's hands. She stared at me, not moving her lids, and her copper-brown eyes had a flat, burnished shine.

The Shadow leaned against the wall, facing me, still with that distant, happy look. His gun hand was cradled in the crook of his left arm, but I knew how fast it could come out, if I moved.

Shadow was one of those rare things–an honest-to-God dead shot.

Micky Shayne was the only one that looked perfectly normal. He lounged on the couch arm, smoking. His violet eyes were clear and innocently pleased, and he had one hand on Jo's shoulder, where he could feel her bare neck.

I didn't see Jardine. Nobody spoke. We all seemed to be waiting.

After a while I said, not to anybody in particular, "Only four people knew about Jardine. Jardine, Molino, me, and Jo."

Shayne smiled. "There's going to be even less than that."

I looked at Jo. Her mouth opened. Nothing came out. Her hands twitched in her lap. Her head swung a little from side Lo side.

No. That was all.

Shayne said, "You're through, Pop. You know that. I wanted to give you plenty of time to know that." He laughed pleasantly, and ran his thumb up under the lobe of Jo's ear and back again. "Molino's as stupid as he is yellow. Sending an old phutz like you up against me!"

I went on looking at Jo.

Shayne said, "You told me that night she was earmarked. She sure was. But I've kind of changed the brand." He rumpled up her short black curls. "White hair don't go with I hat, Pop." He leaned over and kissed her.

Jo gave one convulsive jerk and screamed.

You've heard cats scream like that, just before their spine snaps in the dog's jaws. She ripped it out right in Shayne's face, with their mouths touching. Shayne jumped back, and then swore and cracked her across the face.

"Damn you," he said. "You vixen!"

Jo didn't even blink. She tried to push past him, to come to me. He caught her and slapped her again, so hard it dazed her. She slid down to her knees, never taking her eyes off mine.

"Chris, I didn't tell him. I didn't tell him."

I didn't say anything.

"Chris," she whispered. "Chris." The tears ran out of her eyes and caught in the corners of her mouth and stood out on her white neck like diamonds. "I haven't seen Shayne. Not even once. Not since that first night."

I lay back and let the chair cushion hold my head up. I looked at Shayne. "You must have made a good deal with Jardine."

Jardine? Oh, the little guy. Yeah."

"So now you're king snipe."

He nodded. His violet eyes were bright like a kid's on Christmas morning. "Molino's cracked up. He's yellow. And the rest of the bunch are right here." He held out his right hand and closed it. "They want new blood at the top, but not yours, Pop. We don't need any outside help."

I nodded. I could feel the sweat coming out on my face. I held Shayne's gaze and laughed.

"Okay," I told him. "So you've got me. I guess maybe you can handle Molino, too. But what about the big guy—the boy upstairs?"

Shayne stared at me. Shadow's dopey eyes got some life into them, and Jo's lids widened.

Shayne said, "What the hell are you talking about?" Shadow chuckled softly. "Canary," he said. "Trying to scare us off with fairy tales."

I said, "You tell 'em, Jo."

"Chris, I don't understand. . . . What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking it's easy to have a funeral."

"Yeah," said Shayne. "No trouble at all. Listen, Pop, Molino's all there is and you know it. He don't work for anybody. After tonight, I won't work for anybody. And you won't work, period." He bent over and got Jo under the arms and started to lift her back on the couch, so he could hold her in case she tried to get in front of Shadow's gun. She was as limp as a wet rag, and about the same color.

"He doesn't believe you, baby," Shayne said. "You see what a louse he is. Okay, Shadow, he's all yours."

Shadow lifted the gun out of the crook of his arm. Slow, like a kid with one piece of candy, wanting to get every bit of the good out of it.

I pushed my feet hard against the thick pile of the carpet, threw my arms backward over my head and arched my body. I gave it everything I had. The armchair went clean over, away from Shadow. His bullet made a nasty little snarl over my head, but it was a clean miss. I rolled over my own shoulders, sheltered momentarily by the chair, and grabbed the cushion out of the seat.

Shadow didn't fire right away again. He was in no hurry, and he was enjoying himself.

Jo doubled up suddenly. She got her feet back between Shayne's, threw her weight forward, and tripped him flat before he even realized she was moving. He was facing toward me, and that's the way he fell. He wasn't eight feet away.

I threw the seat cushion at Shadow and made a dive after it. Shadow was a damn good shot. I'll say that for him. Shayne's fall had distracted him and the cushion made him dodge, but even so he scraped the back of my shoulder with a bullet before I could cross that eight feet of space.

I got myself on top of Jo and Shayne, and after that Shadow didn't dare shoot until something came clear of the tangle.

You're never just sure afterward what happened in a fight like that. I think I took a few stiff ones, but the way it wound up I was lying on my back with Shayne on top of me, my legs locked around his and my left arm around his neck as tight as I could hold it. Our right hands were both wrestling for the same gun, which happened to be mine.

Jo had crawled clear, shaking her head like she'd stopped a good one. Shadow was walking around on his toes, and he didn't look happy now. Shayne began to make noises like strangling.

The Shadow took his finger off the trigger and laid it along the barrel, and got hold of my head by the hair.

I yelled. Jo pitched into him. They both fell on top of us and Shayne's gun hand was pinned down. I got my own right loose and began throwing in short ones to his temple. Between that and the throttling and the weight on his stomach, he quit.

I clawed Shayne's gun out of his shoulder clip. I tried to get loose, but it was no dice. Jo was lying beside us, as limp as wet macaroni, and I didn't know if she was dead or not.

Shadow wasn't dead. He was up.

I fired first and jarred his aim a little. We both missed. We tried again, and just by the split fraction of a second I beat him. His slug went past my cheek close enough to burn it, and then he sat down, very slow and sedate, in a chair that happened to be behind him. Blood came out on his light blue coat. His right hand lay along the chair arm, still holding the gun, but his eyes weren't focused on me. They were way off somewhere, looking at a new world and pretty surprised about it. He was still breathing, but it didn't matter.

Jo was beginning to come around. She had just got clipped. Shayne started to moan and jerk. I got my hand in his hair and pulled his head back so his jaw stood out clear.

"Old phutz," I said. I slammed the gun barrel down. "Old phutz, huh?"

He didn't answer. I didn't think he would. I rolled him off me and got up. The room started to go round and my insides heaved up under my chin. I shut my eyes and took some deep breaths, and the feeling passed off enough so I knew I was all right. I heard Jo, then, saying my name.

Her dress was torn off of her shoulder, and her skin showed white as new milk against the green. Her hair was tumbled, her eyes wide and tear-stained, and she looked younger and softer, like when I first knew her, and so beautiful it hurt. The life was beating in her so strong that it glowed like fire in a dark place. Her mouth was open, trembling, eager.

"Now do you believe me, Chris?"

I pulled her to me. Her arms went around me, and mine around her, my fingers in the warm silk of her hair at the back of her neck. I put my mouth over hers.

"Now do you believe?" she whispered.

It took me a long time to answer. Then, "Yeah," I said. "I believe you."

I wasn't looking at Jo. I was looking over her head, at Ray Jardine.

He stood in the door to the back hall. There was blood on the front of his rumpled grey suit, so you could hardly see it was grey any more. He was cursing. Blood trickled out of his mouth while he did it. Sometimes he choked on it. He'd been shot through the lungs and he was dying on his feet, but he didn't seem to care. He didn't seem to see me, or Jo. He started to walk toward Shadow.

"You want to kill my bank account," he said. "Chris. My bank account. You want to kill him."

Shadow sat up in his chair, with the gun leveled square on Jardine's belly. A faint light of recognition crawled into his eyes, dragging them back from wherever they'd been.

Jardine went on walking. He went on cursing. He didn't mind the gun. "You and Shayne, you dirty scuts. Don't touch him!"

Shadow's face sort of crumpled apart, and all that was left was a bleak and stricken horror.

"I killed you," he told Jardine. "Through the heart, an hour ago."

Jardine went on, one foot before the other.

"My God," whispered Shadow. "I made a bad shot. I missed."

That was the thought he took to hell with him. He was dead before Jardine touched him. Jardine sort of pawed at him, maybe with the idea of strangling him, and then slipped down so that he was kneeling at Shadow's feet, whimpering and choking.

I went over to him. "Ray," I said. "Ray, it's me, Chris. I'm all right."

He was going now, with a rush. He didn't see me, didn't know who I was.

"Chris," he said, the words coming slow and without form. "Good guy. Smart. But I hung the frame on him." He was pleased about that. "I put him on ice for Sligh." He shook my hand off him and tried to crawl away, retching the blood out of his throat. "Sligh!" he yelled. "Sligh, I got him here for you. I broke him out and I got him for you. You got to boost my cut, Sligh. After Molino goes. . . ."

He wavered on his hands and knees. "Sligh," he said pitifully. His voice went up to a childlike wail, and choked off. He pitched down on his face and stayed there. He didn't even twitch.

I began to laugh. I felt easy and relaxed. I felt good, and the laughter sounded that way. Jo looked stunned. She stared at me, and then at Jardine, and back again. She began to shiver.

"Chris. He couldn't have meant that. He was delirious. Sligh's dead. I saw him!"

I said, "Sure you did, honey."

"Oh, God–and now they'll know about you–the police, Chris. Jardine's dead, and they'll know." She came up and took my wrists, and her fingers were ice cold. "Chris, look at rue! Chris!"

I did. She let go of me and took two or three steps backward. She didn't say anything more. I turned around to the phone, and on the way I caught a glimpse of my face in a wall mirror. I looked young and happy, like I did when I was a kid with nothing more to worry about than which girl I should take out on Saturday night.

I called Georgie Molino.

"Medbury speaking. Yeah. You can relax now, Georgiethe Shayne-Shadow business is all cleaned up. They decided to go away for a little vacation. Yeah. Oh–and Georgie. At Shadow's special request. Before he left he told me to remember him to our mutual friend." I let that sink in, and then I said, "I'm starting for your place now."

He said slowly, "All right. We'll plan to have breakfast together, the four of us. You're bringing Jo, of course." "Of course. So long, Georgie."

I hung up and went back to Shayne. He was still out, cold. I dragged him out into the back hall and tied him up, with his ankles drawn up to his wrists behind his back. I wasn't very careful about making him comfortable. I wanted him to be there, when I wanted him. He was breathing all right. I shoved a gag in his mouth, locked all the doors into the hall and then the one into the living room. I thought Shayne would be safe.

All the time Jo watched me without saying a word. After I was all through she said, "You told Molino that Shayne was dead."

I nodded, punching the crown of my hat back in shape. "Why, Chris? What's going on? All this about Sligh. . . . Chris, you've got to come back and tell me!"

"What do you mean, come back?"

"You've gone away. You're not Chris any more, at all. You're somebody I don't know, and I'm afraid of you."

I turned off the radio, and the lamps. "Come on, kitten. We go now."

"Chris, You've got to tell me!" Her voice had a horrible sound in the dark. "Sligh's dead! I saw him buried! What's the matter with you. Chris? What are you thinking? Why are you treating me like this?"

Her face strained up at me. It was only a pale blur in the darkness, without shape or features, but I could see it. I could see it more clearly than I ever had in my life before.

I struck her, with the palm of my hand and then the back of it. The blows sounded almost as loud as shots against her cheeks. She let her breath out, hard. I caught her before she fell, and carried her out to the car. Nobody saw us. Everything was peaceful under the stars and the palm trees when I drove away.

I was not feeling good, then.

III

The Corpse Steps Out

THE DAWN BLAZED UP RED over the desert. Jo sat back in her corner of the seat, her face swollen and sulky, her eyes half shut. I didn't know how long she'd been conscious. She didn't speak, and neither did I.

The sun was well up when I turned off onto Georgie Molino's private road.

They were waiting for us on the terrace. The house was like most of those desert palaces–low and sprawling and cool, with red roofs and thick white walls and a lot of wood and iron showing for trim. The terrace was a broad, tiled, semi-patio thing, with a hell of a view–miles of desert, and a line of misty blue hills beyond. The table was set for breakfast, everything very rustic in the expensive department-store manner, and they were sitting there waiting, smoking their early morning cigarettes.

I stopped the car and went around and opened Jo's door and helped her out. She didn't look at me. We climbed the shallow steps together. In the background were the long windows, or doors, that opened into the living room. I saw one of the curtains move, and I knew I was covered. I didn't make any sudden moves, taking my hat off and tossing it on a table.

Sligh got to his feet and said, "Well, Chris." He was smiling, but only with his mouth. He looked a lot like Jo–same copper hair and eyes, almost the same face, only masculine and hard. A big, well-kept, handsome guy with a swell personality. I used to love him like a brother.

I said, "Hello, Sligh." I nodded to Georgie and sat down. Jo was still standing by the wall at the top of the steps. She was studying Sligh, her eyes sunk deep under reddened, puffy lids. Her face was so white you could see the blue marks where I had hit her as though they'd been painted on with a brush.

"So it was all a frame-up," she whispered. "A lie from beginning to end. The telegram, the funeral, the whole thing. You were alive, lying in that coffin. You never told me about Molino. You never told me about Jardine. You just used me for bait, to draw Chris back."

Sligh sat down again, smiling. "Don't take it so hard, kid. A guy has to use what he's got. Anyway, you should beef. You've got Chris back." He looked at the blue marks, and laughed. "Or have you?"

Jo walked over to the breakfast table. She had the pot of scalding coffee in her hands before Sligh got hold of her. She fought him for a minute like a wildcat, and then she seemed to have reached the end of her rope. She crumpled up, and Sligh dumped her in a chair, and she stayed there.

Sligh sat down again.

"Well," he said. "So Jardine spilled over."

I said, "Yeah."

"You don't seem very surprised."

"I had fourteen years with nothing much to do but think about life and people, Sligh. I knew Jardine pretty well, and I knew you pretty well. Jo–well, who could ever figure a dame? Jardine could have been telling the truth, so could Jo. But the whole set-up was so pat and pretty that I kept an open mind on the question. No, I wasn't too much surprised."

Sligh nodded. "Well, it doesn't matter. Only three or four people know I'm really the guy behind Georgie. I've kept it quiet for two reasons, besides you, Chris. There's a couple of boys from the old mob who'd be glad to catch up with me, for one thing, and then there's the cops. I've never been booked, but they might remember me if it got around, and maybe they're not as dumb as the movies make 'em out. I'd just as soon they didn't have to worry about me."

He paused, and then said, "We've done pretty well by you, haven't we, Chris–Georgie and me?"

"Yeah. Pretty well."

That was the whole idea behind the setup; to put me in debt to Sligh, and incidentally Molino, for the crash-out, the hideaway, the protection, the disguise. And more than that. I was to start living again, to feel the reins in my hands and get the taste of power and good green dollar bills back in my mouth, so that when I finally found out about Sligh I would be willing to let bygones be bygones for the sake of them.

Sligh grinned. "I had an idea I better keep out of your way for a while, until you kind of cooled off. I wanted you to enjoy yourself. That's why I framed my own kill. Even Jo didn't know about that." He chuckled. lo didn't know about anything. I had better places to spend my money than on her, and besides, she was a hell of a good front for me."

I didn't say anything. Sligh studied me for a while. Molino just sat quiet and smoked. This wasn't his party. Sligh said finally, "How are you taking it, Chris?"

I shrugged. "Jardine told me once, times change and you got to change with them. I'm taking the realistic view."

He didn't answer for a long time. He was testing me, running my voice, my expression, the way I was sitting, through a mental filter and studying what came out. Finally he said quietly, "You understand why I had to frame you that time. You were too big and too dangerous to run loose."

"I understand. Jardine said he did that for you."

"A lot of it. I'm sorry to lose the little rascal–he was a handy guy for anything dirty."

"Yeah, very. I suppose that yarn about information going to the cops in case Jardine got bumped was just a little club to keep me in line."

"Naturally. A guy in Jardine's business can get killed too many ways to take a chance on anything like that. We just wanted to slow you down in case you felt like wringing his neck."

We smoked a while longer, without speaking, and then Sligh went on, "You won't forget that framing, or those years in a cell. I know that. But we don't have to like each other. We don't even have to see each other very often. This is business, big business, and I'm willing to run any risk involved."

"It must be big business."

"Biggest you ever saw. The gambling syndicate alone is big enough. But we're forming a black market combine in meat, gas, and liquor–like the old set-up, with the gambling syndicate for a front. That's why I needed your brains again. And there's more to it than that. The Prohibitionists are setting up a big holler again. Several states are dry already. We're pushing that campaign. If we can get dry laws in again, by God, we'll own the country within ten years! Even the G-boys can't stop us!"

He was excited, flushed, and talking too loud. Sweat trickled down under my armpits, but my hands were cold. "Hell!" I said. "As big as that!"

"Yeah. You can see why I had to have you, Chris. Georgie here, he's a good man, but he's sick. He's got to quit." Molino nodded heavily. "That's right. And, anyway, I never was as good a man as you, Chris."

"Then why did you make me go up against those two hotrod pals of yours? Hell, I might have been killed!"

Sligh said, "We had to find out something, Chris. Prison does one of two things to a guy, when he's in for as long as you were. It breaks him down, or it hardens him so he can handle anything. We had to know which way you went."

"Now you know," I told him.

Sligh chuckled. "You sure lost your aversion to rough stuff! Good, too. That was your only weak point. It's what ruined you the first time. . . . By the way, how the hell did Shayne get onto Jardine?"

"He didn't have time to tell me, but I can make a guess. He and Shadow didn't go out of town at all. They were looking for a safe way to get me. So they checked up on Jo and found out Jardine was blackmailing her, and maybe me, too. But Shayne didn't bother to find out what about. Most blackmailer's dope isn't of any interest to anyone but the victim, and all Shayne wanted was a way to get me off guard at Jardine's house. He didn't have any reason to think Tom Medbury might be somebody else, or guess that there was anybody standing behind Jardine and Molino."

"Uh-huh. No traces of you or Jo around the place?"

"No. And no connection between us and Jardine, as far as anyone knows. Georgie may have some talking to do–they were his boys."

"Obviously it was a private quarrel," Georgie said. "I never heard of Jardine. He may have been squeezing them some way. Too bad. I'll give 'em a swell funeral . . . after the cops find 'em."

There was another silence. Jo sat huddled up in her chair, watching me the way a snake does, slit-eyed and unwinking. Presently Sligh got up and crushed out his butt.

"Okay, Chris? You going to string along?"

"What else have I got to do?"

"I'm glad you see it that way. I guess you don't want to shake hands on it, though."

"No."

"Fair enough. Let's keep it that way–strictly business." He let out a deep sigh. "Well, folks, how about some food? I'm starving!"

We had breakfast. It was a good breakfast, plenty of eggs and bacon and thick cream and butter. Jo had black coffee and then went away, up to our old room, I guess, without saying one word. Finally Sligh pushed his chair back.

"I guess it's time to talk business, Chris. I got the whole layout in the library, just roughed out. I want you to look it over."

We all got up, and Georgie said, "Well, I guess I'll go have a smoke in the garden."

He turned away and walked down the steps. He looked old and kind of shrunken, and he walked the way a man does when he isn't going anywhere and has all the rest of his life to get there in.

I went inside with Sligh, into the library, and closed the door. There was nobody in the house but the three of us and Jo, and probably a couple of Sligh's boys. At least one, I knew that. The place was familiar, from many nights I spent there with Jo curled up beside me in front of an open fire. There was an alcove with a mess of bronze statuary in it at the far end. The red velvet portieres were shoved back, like always. Clear sunlight poured in through the windows.

Sligh went over to the desk, taking a key out of his pocket. I went along. I was a little behind him, working on my pipe to get it drawing right. He bent and put the key in the drawer lock.

I let the pipe and the match go and grabbed Sligh around the neck with my left arm, so that he made a shield for my body. Just before I pulled him into me, I cleared my gun and fired twice into the red velvet hangings of the alcove.

Nothing happened for a minute except that Sligh started to fight and then changed his mind when I jammed my hot barrel into his back. I moved us a little so I could see the door. And then a little dark guy fell slowly out from behind one of the portieres, curled himself up on the floor, and stayed there. His heavy Colt auto slid out of his hand.

"Yeah," I said. "That's what I thought. You were smart not to trust me, chum."

The walls of the house, like I said, were heavy and thick. The noise of my shots wouldn't have carried far. But someone must have been hanging around close outside, because a man's voice called through the door, "You okay, Sligh?"

I said, "He's just fine, sonny. Come on in." Sligh yelled a warning, and I laughed. I kept my gun where it was, jammed into Sligh's middle. The man did not come in. We stood waiting, the two of us, and I said softly to Sligh, "You were right, I won't forget the framing and those fourteen years in a cell. Why do you think I played along? Why do you think I belly-crawled to Jardine, and Molino, and you? Because I had a little debt to pay, and I wanted to be sure nobody got left out.

"Did you think I was so dumb I couldn't guess at what was coming? Sooner or later, if you were alive, you had to show. I wasn't in any hurry, Sligh. Time sort of loses its meaning, after fourteen years where all the days look alike. Shayne got to Jardine first, damn him. But I'm here now, Sligh, with you and your stinkin' little black market combine. Running booze is one thing. We figured the people had a right to it. But this...You don't deserve shooting, Sligh. You ought to be stepped on, like a snake."

The door began to open, very slow, very quiet, about an inch. Just enough to get a gun barrel through and sight it. The panel was heavy, a double slab of oak strapped with iron. I turned a little more, holding Sligh in front of me, my gun digging his ribs. I could feel him shake. I watched the crack in the door.

But the shot came from the other end of the room.

My legs went out from under me. It was funny, the way it didn't hurt. One second I was standing up, and the next I was down flat. I remember Sligh kicked the gun out of my hand. From where I was lying I could see past the corner of the desk, and there was the little dark punk I shot out of the alcove, crouched over his knees, steadying his rod with both hands.

He looked at me. You ever seen the way a born killer looks at somebody he hates? He tried to fire again, but he couldn't hold onto the gun any longer. It hit the floor, and he hemorrhaged and fell ever. This time he would stay down.

Sligh booted me one in the guts about that time, and I'm not too sure what happened afterward. The guy must have come in out of the hall and the two of them boosted me up on the big davenport in front of the fireplace, because that's where I was when I finally shook the thunderstorm out of my head. I was not feeling very good. Somebody poured a slug of brandy down me, and then I got the idea there was something wrong with my legs. I leaned forward to look.

There was. The punk's .45 slug had smashed through my left knee and stuck somewhere a little higher up in my right thigh. I must have been standing full profile, all lined up to his sights.

Sligh leaned against the mantel, facing me. He was over his scare now, and his mad. He looked cold, businesslike, and nasty.

"You okay now?" he asked me. "You know what I'm saying to you and you know what you're saying back?"

"Yeah."

"All right. Get this, Chris. I need your brains, I need your ability. There isn't another man I know of that's big enough to make a go of this business–crooks are a dumb lot, by and large. So I don't blame you for bearing a grudge. I don't blame you for trying to get me. But now you've had your fun, and you know where you are. Will you throw in with me, on a pretty damn generous deal, considering everything?"

"No."

"Think it over, Chris. You can be–"

Jo's voice floated in from somewhere. The words didn't register right away. I turned my head and she was standing there in the doorway looking at me and Sligh and the third guy, holding a hell of a great big gun gripped in her hands.

She had them covered, and she had them off guard. I think Sligh had forgotten she was alive. His gun lay with mine on the desk. He hadn't thought about needing it again–why should he? The other boy made kind of an instinctive movement toward his coat. Jo snarled at him and he quit, looking at Sligh to see what he should do.

Sligh just stared at her and said, "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"What I've been wanting to do for fourteen years." Her lopsided face was pasty white except for the bruises. Her eyes were all red and puffy, not as though she had cried, but as though she wanted to and couldn't. Her mouth was set. It was Sligh's mouth now.

"You've messed up my life so it'll never be worth anything," she said, talking to Sligh. Her tone was slow and expressionless. "You've used me and kicked me around and treated me like dirt and I've taken it, because I had a reason. I don't have a reason any more." She looked at me. "You were just using me, like Sligh. All right, Chris, you got what you wanted. You're in with him, in his dirty rotten racket. You're no better than he is, and I. . . . "

Sligh threw back his head and roared with laughter. "Chris! You hear that, Chris? Stand up and show the lady!" He laughed louder. "Go ahead and shoot him, Jo. He'd thank you for it."

Jo scowled at him suspiciously. Then she looked at me again. I tried to turn around, to see what was going on in back of me. There was sunlight on me from the high windows. I guess Jo got a better look this time. She said, "Chris!" uncertainly, and moved forward.

I saw the third guy going for his gun.

I yelled to Jo. She saw him too, and fired, a snap shot that hit dead center the way those things sometimes do. The guy never cleared his rod at all. He spun around and flopped, and Jo started running across the room to me.

There was a long table behind the davenport. There was a bowl of flowers on it, and some little decorative gadgets, and book ends. I twisted over and grabbed the bowl of flowers and threw it. I didn't wait to see if it hit. I pulled myself up on the arm of the davenport and pitched forward. Jo was close enough to me so I could catch her legs when I fell. She came down. I heard Sligh's shot and the thin whang! of the bullet overhead. Then I had the gun out of Jo's hand.

I fired at Sligh, and missed. I couldn't see very well. I heard Jo scream my name. She lurched against me, and there was another shot, and then Sligh came clear of the mists for a minute and I shot him straight between the eyes. I watched him fall.

He looked as big as a giant redwood, crashing down.

For a while there was dead silence, I don't know how long. Then Jo began to curse softly under her breath. Her face was all screwed up. I got terribly afraid all of a sudden.

"Did he get you, Jo?"

"Yeah."

"What happened? I thought I had you covered. . . . " I was trying to sit up, to see her. She began to laugh.

"You did, Chris. But he had you, he was going to shoot, and I managed to take it. I had to take it, Chris. I couldn't stand losing you again."

"But where did he get you? Is it bad?"

She laughed louder. "I can't tell you where he got me, only I'll be standing to meals for a while. Ain't that romantic?" She must have heard the edge her voice was getting on it, because she shut up and lay in my arms shivering for a while. Then she whispered, "Are you hurt very bad, darling?"

"Not so it'll kill me. Where's Georgie?"

"Down by the pool, I think."

I dragged myself over to the low table where the phone was, not very far away. Jo said, "You going to call the law, Chris?"

"Yeah. I'm going to give 'em the whole set-up, and then take whatever they want to give me. With luck, with what Molino and that Shayne louse can tell, with Sligh's plans for the combine to show them, I should get a decent break.

"I don't know what they'll do about it, Jo, but we've got to get on the other side of things if we can. There'll never be any happiness for either of us if we don't make a clean break and stop playing it crooked. I'll throw the dice that way, and take my chances on the outcome."

She came over to me. I took her in my arms and kissed her. "If you want to clear out, now's your time," I told her.

Her copper-brown eyes blazed. They were normal again, Jo's eyes, full of life and spirit. She said, "If you weren't a cripple I'd pay you back those wallops you gave me last night."

"I'm sorry about that, Jo."

"Well, I guess I can see how you felt. But you're never going to get rid of me again, Chris. Never–no matter what happens."

She put her arms around me, tight. I reached the phone down off the table.

"Chris. . . . "

"Yeah."

"You do love me? You'll always love me?"

I let go of the phone. Pretty soon she sighed and nestled her head against me. I laid my gun where I could get it quick if Georgie came in, and picked up the phone again.