The Spiral Web

Jeffrey M. Wallman

Mystery-Suspense, 1969

Version 1.0

Buck naked and booked for murder wasn't Mike Faron's idea of how to begin the perfect day. But when the cops in Silk City wanted to hang a rap on a guy, they didn't care how or when they did it.

Someone had slashed the loving ways out of two of the city's comeliest attractions and Faron was the most available suspect--that is until he kicked out of the frame and started running for his life.

What he ran into, though, was more than he had counted on-a couple of megatons more. Like suddenly he was snared in an espionage game where murder was child's play; a chilling, high-stake plot that threatened the world...and seriously dampened any wild ideas he had of staying alive.

A JAMES BOND HE WASN'T

but Mike Faron was going to try like hell to pass. He didn't have much choice - his girl was marked for slow, humiliating death, his country was on the brink of nuclear disaster, and a cold-blooded kill-machine named Spider had a submachine gun at his head.

HE DIDN'T HAVE MUCH TIME EITHER

The Spiral Web

by Jeffrey M. Wallman

A Signet Book Published by The New American Library

Copyright © 1969 by Jeffrey M. Wallman. All Rights Reserved

CHAPTER ONE

It's one hell of a jolt to wake up and find two men at the foot of your bed. Both were mean muscle-bounders; one sneaked gracelessly around each side. I bolted upright with the insane half-thought they were just a bad dream and I had time for one good yell before they struck.

Twisting to my right I stiffarmed the covers in the nearest man's face, then, with a pivot, I butted his pal in the stomach. This one just had time to yell "Faron's awake!" but no more as my hand, forefinger and thumb extended, rammed into his throat just above the Adam's apple. The attacker snapped back, gagging, then returned with a haymaker that caught me in the ear. I flew into the arms of the first one, who had just unraveled himself, and we both slid into the bedside table. The lamp and my watch crunched together on the floor, and the slob under me squashed the shade as he sat down hard. My foot was extended and the second guy rammed his face into it as he leaped across the bed. I rolled over, letting him crash into his partner who was struggling to get up, and they both went down together in a tangle. One of them caught my ankle as I started up, and I had to turn with a stool in my hands and bash him over the skull to loosen his grip. I gave the other bastard a few good whacks while I was at it.

I generally sleep in the raw, so when I leaped for the living room, I leaped naked. Storming into the alcove, I tangled with a loose throw rug and, after an odd moment of weightlessness as I left the floor, I half-gainered into an end table across the room. I saw the Bobbsey twins over my left flank as they reappeared in the doorway, murder on their minds. We blinked at each other; they flipped their jackets back and dug for snub-nosed pistols. I unwrapped myself and ducked behind the couch as the first shot sounded, and I could feel the slug whistle through the stuffing and into the wall. Those boys wanted to do me disaster.

I crawled the length of the sofa, which paralleled one wall, keeping my head down, and then burst for the door. It was my only chance, and luckily they hadn't closed it behind them for fear of waking me.

"God's sake, shoot him, Charlie," yelled one in a bassoon voice. "Faron's getting away!" Then-as sort of an afterthought-he shouted at me, "Halt!"

More bullets blasted, splintering the door jamb and puckering the plaster. No stopping. Feet, do your stuff! I popped into the hall, turned right, and stomped toward the stairs. I could hear the dull pounding of shoes as the duo reached the hall, and the ornate mirror hanging by the steps became spider-webbed with holes and exploded glass onto the carpet as I started down.

Despair gnawed at my brain as I stumbled down three nights. None of this made any sense. Here I was, close to being shot in the back, when moments before I'd been dreaming peacefully of the date I'd recently left sleeping between the sheets.

I hit the lobby turning eighty and landed in the middle of a Girl Scout convention-or something of that order, for the place was packed with teenage chicks in green uniforms. I didn't have much choice, so I plowed through, ignoring all the screams and shrieks and faints. As I fled past, I saw Mr. Sills, the manager, flutter his hands and fall into a potted palm.

At the end of the lobby was a revolving door, and I think I roared around in it twice.

Outside, right smack dab in front, squatted a police cruiser, engine purring, a uniformed bull behind the wheel. A miracle, for it's usually impossible to find a cop when you need one. With a gasp of relief, I wrenched open the door and clambered in beside him. He turned toward me, gaped and sputtered, "What the hell?"

"Don't get excited ossifer," I sputtered back, "I can explain. Look, see those slobs in there? Them, with the hats, see?"

I gestured wildly at the two men I saw through the lobby windows, tearing through the pandemonium of skirts I'd caused. The cop followed my finger and spotted them.

"Aha!" he said, "What about them?"

"They're after me. Going to kill me. With guns! Snuck up and nearly got me in bed and that's how come I'm like this because I never wear anything when I sleep but if I'd known I would have so I wouldn't look like this but they came at me and I almost didn't get away and-"

"Your name Michael Faron?" the cop jammed in.

"Good grief, yes, but you gotta do something, like let's not stay here, or you go arrest them or-"

"That's all I want to know." His arm moved quickly, and I was peering down at his service revolver, just about level with my appendectomy scar.

"Don't move or try anything, Faron!"

"Waddya mean, try anything? Put it down, will you? It's not me with a gun, it's them. Where'd I put a gun, huh? Good grief, here they are."

The two mugs grimaced as they came out the door until they saw me in the patrol car. Then they headed straight for us and holstered their pistols.

"Oh, oh," I said. "I'm beginning to see. Those aren't just any slobs, they're-"

"That's right, Faron. The big one is Lieutenant Ducatto of the detective squad, and the one on the left is Sergeant Conver." The driver turned to the lieutenant as the back door opened and the pair slid in. "See who turned up," he said.

Ducatto leaned forward with a leer and poked a finger through the screen dividing the front seat from the back. The grime caked around his nail highlighted the rough, bitten edges. "So the pigeon turned up in the roost, huh? Well, I don't know how come, but it saves us some trouble." He rubbed a whiskery jaw with his other hand. "How did he fly here anyhow, Pierce?"

The driver smirked. "Just climbed in without a howdedo and pleaded for me to protect him from you."

"Not so dumb after all," Ducatto said. "It's better when they give themselves up." He pointed at me. "Couldn't have gotten far anyhow, Faron. Saved your life. For a while, maybe." I recognized his voice as the deep-pitched one urging Charlie to blow my head off.

"Oh, good grief," I mumbled.

"Shaddap, Faron," snapped the sergeant.

Ducatto leaned back, withdrawing his finger. "Officially, you should ride back here with one of us. But we might have to slap a charge of indecent exposure on you if we made you get out." He chuckled, then his gruffness returned. "No, let's ride downtown the way we are. I'm eager to ask a few questions." His voice suggested what type of question and with what pleasure they would be asked.

"Would you mind telling me what's going on here?"

"You oughta know. Now stick out your wrists." The driver holstered his revolver and removed handcuffs from the leather case on his belt. Conver caressed his pistol butt lovingly, so I meekly turned to Pierce and set my palms together. The cuffs snapped shut, each one a notch too tight so that they rubbed and bit the wrist bones. I asked him to readjust the cuffs, but the bull just looked at me and put the car in gear.

"C'mon now," I said, as the car sped away from the apartment, "What's the beef?"

"Move your leg, Faron," grunted Pierce, ignoring my question. The radio crackled as the driver reported to headquarters giving his position and a bunch of code words with my name strung in between. Then there was silence except for the chatter of police calls, and I gave up asking and sat back, morosely glancing at the darkness outside.

It was still night, no trace yet of the highlighting grays of morning. Silk City, New Jersey, had changed from when I had known it in '52. It had sunk still lower. This crumbling brick squalor infested an otherwise pleasant New York City suburbia where snap-tab collars caught the 7:46 to Grand Central. Residential developments surrounded Silk City like a coiled string of sausages, each one small, oddly named and proud of itself. But the cancer in the middle was old, malignant, its economy near collapse. Not even classifiable as a flashy sin resort like Tijuana, Silk City's corruption was that of being a filthy swamp of apathy.

And to this I had come back. Not from homesickness, but because I had been hired by a company located here. A friend I'd fought beside in Korea had been an electronics engineer with one of the giant defense corporations squatting nearby until he had been laid off during a perennial economy kick. Jerome Duboussier-Frenchy to his friends-then set up his own business, International Delivery. Since he was starting on a frayed shoestring, Silk City's low rents and proximity to the electronic companies made it appealing as a headquarters. Frenchy held his nose, opened shop and let I.T.T., Raytheon, and the others know he was ready to run errands.

It was a good idea. He had the security clearances so necessary in an industry where government documents and equipment had to be hand-transported. And the electronics firms were notorious for skipping deadlines and forgetting to ship a promised detector on time. It made sense for them to hire Frenchy and his three-girl staff.

And, he got the work. Not only from around this area but from the Long Island centers as well. But that didn't mean he made money. That's where I came in. I'm a management consultant, efficiency expert if you prefer, free-lancing under the fancy title of "Specialty Services." Companies hire me to show them how to scheme their way to profits, and business has been pretty good. Frenchy's letter arrived at the right time, just after the close of a particularly hairy corporate merger. His request for help, although at a fraction of my regular outrageous fee, was coupled with a promise of lots of loafing. It was a good relaxer. Sure, I'd caught a multitude of little points he'd been losing his shirt on, but mainly I'd wasted time and reminisced with him. International Delivery's foundation was solid enough, and I wasn't worried but he'd soon be jingling some loot.

No, right now my own hide worried me more. Through the window black buildings momentarily froze in our flashing light, then oozed back into the Silk City gloom. Recollections of a similar ride years ago closed me in an oppressive blanket. God, no, I trembled, it couldn't be happening again.

The police car sideswiped a beer can, sending it rattling into the gutter as we rounded the corner of Market and Main, and I realized we were nearly at the station house. It loomed ahead, a stone Byzantine monstrosity built by bare-backed Turkish slaves. Two frosted globes hung limply, their meager light shadowing the recessed entrance. I expected we'd drive to the front, but instead we shot into a dark driveway beside the building and jerked to a stop by a door in the back parking lot. The door's window had been boarded over with a sign: "Silk City Police Department-Use Main Street Entrance." Overhead a lone bulb flickered beneath the onslaught of frenzied bugs. I shivered at the horror that lay behind the door. Those many useful back rooms. Maybe I'd see that special one again, all padded, with the different clubs and hoses hanging neatly in a line. And that one bull whip that lay coiled so innocently.

"We can't move him as he is," said Ducatto. "Hold him here a minute." The detective strode to the-station's back door, rapped three tunes. He was broad-shouldered and tall, a perfect example of the type of policeman that had inspired the moniker "bull." The door opened a crack, swung wide, and he disappeared. The door shut behind him. Sergeant Conver lit a cigarette and we sat and waited. Not for long, though. Duccato's shoes clicked as he crossed the pavement, opened the door and shoved a bundle at me.

"Here, Faron. A pair of prisoner pants. Put diem on."

"I'll have to have the handcuffs off to do it," I answered. The driver reached for his key and unsnapped the left one. Ducatto drew his gun and covered me while I struggled into the too-small Levis. They were well worn, with patches of white showing through the faded blue, and smelled of louse dip. The handcuff was returned, again too tight, and, with the driver in front and the two plainclothesmen in back, I walked through the door.

Inside we took a back staircase to the next floor, and I was prodded into a dingy office. There were four chewed-up desks in a row and the usual wooden filing cabinets. In one corner, next to blinded windows, a chipped faucet dripped into its yellowed sink. Over it hung a sickly green cabinet with assorted coffee mugs and little bottles. At the far end of the room sat a cage, built like an early elevator shaft, grilled from floor to ceiling, maybe six feet square. A lone chair was tipped over inside and a sign on the door cautioned not to forget to lock it when in use.

The uniformed patrolman left the three of us and Conver shut the door as Ducatto sat down at a desk and took a half-finished report out of the typewriter. He leaned forward and rubbed his face with his palms.

"Sit."

Conver pulled up a chair and I sat.

"Go get Mrs. Schultz," Ducatto told his partner without removing his hands from his face.

Without a word Conver strode out the door and across the hall. A couple of minutes later he appeared, helping a woman who didn't need any help. Unless maybe she was up against Floyd Patterson and Cassius Clay together. She even looked like Sonny Listen. Only heavier. She glared at me.

"He's the one," she snapped, her polka dot tent rumbling in accord.

"Mrs. Schultz," the lieutenant urged, "be sure. It was dark and he may just look like the man you saw. And it's important that you don't make a mistake."

"There's none," she barked. "He's the one. As I said, I got up from the TV for some milk and-"

"That will be all, Mrs. Schultz, and thank you. One of our men will see you home. Good night."

Mrs. Schultz stomped out, Conver trying desperately to keep up with her elbow.

Lieutenant Ducatto swung around and frowned at me. "Not having your clothes and wallet here makes things more difficult. According to the manager, though, your name is Michael Faron, and you've rented an apartment from him for roughly a month now. Is that right?"

"Who was that woman? Why'd she say I was the one?"

"Two of us can't ask questions at the same time," Ducatto gritted. "We'll get to her in a minute."

"All right," I said. "Yes, so far you're correct."

"Where's your home?"

"Portland, Oregon."

"Long way off, huh? What do you do for a livirig?"

"I'm a business consultant. If I had a card with me I'd give you one. Specialty Services Company." I paused but he didn't say anything in return so I continued. "People hire me to find out what's wrong with their business. How they can stop losing money and start making some."

An eyebrow lifted.

"Legally," I added.

"And that's why you're in Silk City."

"Yes."

"Uh." Lieutenant Ducatto squinted and peered at me from a dozen angles. "Your face is unfamiliar. Not much noticeable about you anyway. Average build and height, blue eyes, blond hair, no tattoos or identification marks. Just that you part your hair on both sides. Ever been arrested?"

"Well-"

"Forget it. We'll check later." He buried his face in his hands again, rubbing. "Now, Faron, where were you this evening?"

"In bed."

Conver shut the door on his return and whined at Ducatto, "Why waste time dancing around with this punk?" He rested his hands on the back of my chair and leaned forward, drolling in my ear. "Why did you do it?" he asked.

"Do what?"

"Murder her," the lieutenant answered blandly.

"Mur.. . ," I gasped. "So that's why I was dragged out of bed."

"Sounds like a pretty good reason to me," grunted the lieutenant. "But, as Sergeant Conver said, why did you kill her?"

"I didn't kill anybody." It came out a croak. "And I think you'd better let me use my one customary phone call."

"A custom that's not practiced here, punk." Conver changed back from a raspy scrape to his usual wheedling voice. "C'mon, tell us. We know you want to. Was it self defense? Did she cross you and you drank too much and it was just an accident? Nobody can blame you for that."

I tried to stay calm. "I don't know who I'm supposed to have murdered, but, whoever it was, I didn't."

"Don't be stupid, Faron," snapped Ducatto. "Mrs. Schultz just fingered you as the man who left her apartment house a little after midnight, there's the cabbie who has a log from 128 Kinkade Place to your apartment on O'Farrell, and your manager remembers you coming in."

Conver hissed, his spit matting the back of my head, "We've got you stuck like a pig, and either you make it easy and start squealing like one, or we help you remember. And there ain't no little ladies around to worry about whether a poor sick killer is being treated right."

I tried to ignore Conver's interrogation methods. "Lieutenant, I was at 128 Kinkade tonight until twelve-fifteen or so. Mrs. Schultz, the cabbie, and the manager are all telling the truth."

"That we know." Ducatto leaned forward and stared hard at me. "We also know that you were in Room 424 of the Carleton Apartments slashing the throat of Miss Jocelyn Carstairs." He took another breath and bored in deeper. "What we haven't heard is you telling us that."

"But I wasn't with Miss .. . who was it?"

"Carstairs."

"Carstairs. I was with Susan McMann, who lives in Room 608. I'm sure Miss McMann will verify my whereabouts when you ask her."

"Charlie!" roared Ducatto, "get your ass down to the squad room before Mrs. Schultz leaves and ask her if she saw Faron leave the particular lady's room or the apartment house in general."

"Right." Conver sped out the door and started after Mrs. Schultz.

"We're going to see if your alibi is good, Faron." Ducatto stood up and stretched his legs. "We're going to check if Miss McMann does remember you. If there is a Miss McMann."

"Oh, you can bet your life on that." I began feeling better already.

Sergeant Conver returned, puffing and wheezing.

"Well?" demanded Ducatto.

"I caught her just in time," whooshed Conver, "she-she said it was at the apartment house entrance, not the girl's apartment."

"Then it's settled," I said smugly.

"Maybe." The idea he didn't have the murderer in his clutches seemed to come hard to Ducatto. "But that's what you say. Let's see what Miss McMann has to say. What's her phone number?"

"Prescot 2-63 somethingorother. I don't remember."

"Huh," Ducatto opened his bottom drawer and hauled out the Passaic County phone book. "Charlie, look up the lady's number." Conver leaned over me and swung the book to the M's. He looked confused.

"Check the Mc's first, Charlie. You remember. They come after the Mac's."

Conver nodded and began running a grubby fingernail down the page, mumbling each name under his breath.

I looked back at Ducatto. "You don't really mean to wake her up. She didn't get to sleep until late."

"I bet."

"Now, look-"

"Here it is," Conver broke in.

"Call!" snapped the lieutenant.

Conver turned the phone around and dialed, a digit at a tune, consulting the book after each one to make sure of the next. "Line's busy," he grunted.

"Doesn't sound like she's asleep, does it, Faron?" smirked Ducatto. "We'll wait a bit and try again."

We did. About twenty minutes worth, with Ducatto drumming his fingers on the desk and Conver walking over to the sink for water. Nobody spoke. I was afraid to, and as their character assassination temporarily seemed to have hit a snag, the two police officers had nothing else to jaw about. Conver would fidget a few seconds, stand up, sit, stand, and finally swagger for another glass of water, return, and try Sue's number again. The bleat of busy would repeat itself, and Conver would sit once more, only to begin fidgeting again and start the cycle all over.

"Oh hell," fumed Ducatto at last. "Damn female could be on there all night." He stood up and took a last look around. "We'd better visit her in person, anyhow."

We left as we had come, down the rickety stairs and out the back door. But we passed by the cruiser and Conver opened the rear door of a new Dodge parked diagonally further ahead. After I'd climbed in and Ducatto and Conver slid in the front, my doors snapped shut with the click of electric locks. There were no handles on the doors, only chrome cups where they would have been, and a wire mesh separated me from the cops.

I sat back and relaxed as we sped through the deserted streets of town to the major east-west highway. The initial shock had worn off, and I figured there wouldn't be any use in getting all steamed up. We'd see Sue in a few minutes and the mistake would be cleared up. There'd be profuse apologies, and then I could go back to sleep.

A couple of miles outside the city limits three six-story garden apartments clustered in a semicircle to the right of the highway and a little before the Garden Shopping Center. We turned off and paralleled the highway on a frontage road before entering the curving drive which bordered the Arlington, the Bridgeport, and the Carleton. The lush green plantings of the first two slipped by and we stopped in front of the Carleton.

The doors snapped again, and Conver opened the side nearest the long concrete path. I felt foolish with the cuffs on, but nobody was in the spacious lobby except an aged janitor. He had his back turned, poking a fire which, according to Sue, blazed all year around and made the lobby unbearable during summer days. The elevator was open, and with a touch of a button we rose to the top floor. We sank into green hall carpet as I forged ahead to 608-Sue's apartment.

Her walnut door was opened a crack. "Must have forgotten to shut it tight," I explained, turning to the detectives. "She was asleep when I left."

They looked at each other.

"Sue!" I rapped on the door gently. "Suzie, honey. Is it all right if I come in?"

Silence.

"Must have gone back to bed." Then, to the door, I said, "Sue, wake up. The police are with me and it's important."

I rang the bell beside the door.. .. Nothing.... I walked in, followed by Ducatto and Conver, and switched on the light.

The hairs on the back of my neck did a creepy dance and my stomach churned. One of the sofa pillows was slashed almost in half, the white stuffing contrasted with the scarlet not yet congealed on the beige rug. A trail of blood led to the desk beside one leg of which lay the phone, a funny buzz distant in the receiver, the dial dripping crimson. The cause of the mess was still naked as I had left her. Only Sue wasn't purring contentedly between bed sheets; she lay sprawled across an overturned chair in a pool of blood. Her pale eyes wide in agony, one hand clutched at her gashed, jagged throat.

"So you left her asleep, huh," sneered Conver.

CHAPTER TWO

"That was none too smart, y'know. Leading us to your second victim," Ducatto said, looking at the corpse.

"But I didn't! She was asleep when I left! She was!"

"We'll see when we get downtown. Phone for the boys, Conver."

Terror exploded across my mind like the snapping of steel traps. The horror of years ago circled in a repeat, the memory of a long ago nightmare coming around to reality again. Just like before, I wasn't merely suspect, but guilty until proven innocent. And my alibi had just turned into evidence. And like before, I knew I'd never have a chance. Not with them, not back behind the walls of the station. Only a matter of time, maybe longer than before, before their interrogation would break me and again I'd sign. Sign anything for some peace and food. They call their methods questioning, but our government screams brainwashing when the same techniques are used in Communist countries. And the results are the same whether the phony confession is about germ warfare or the killing of two women. The minute the door of the police station closed behind me, I'd be as good as convicted.

"No!" I snarled, and twisted around toward Conver, kicking my foot up into his groin. The sergeant's face turned purple and his eyes bulged. He toppled to his knees, hands clutching the injured parts. There was some gasping for breath, then he lurched onto his side.

The movement caught Ducatto flat-footed. Before he could point his pistol at me, my clenched fists pole-axed him in his gut. His other hand started an upper cut of its own. I turned, his blow hitting my left arm, and my bracelet chains raked across his mouth. A few teeth were loosened. I knew I'd have to drop the lieutenant fast, because with cuffs on I couldn't cover and punch at the same time. Ducatto's hands inadvertently went up to his cracked mouth and I was able to chop his side. He doubled over and I brought up my knee to his face, finishing the dental work and knocking him backward over the coffee table. His head hit the radiator and he lay still.

Conver was closer, so I rifled his pockets for the handcuff key. Holding it in my teeth I unclipped one side, then the other.

I needed time. Time to return to my apartment and dress and get some money. These two would be out, but not for long. I ripped the telephone wire from the wall socket and dragged the cops into the bedroom. I tied them to the bedpost as best I could, ripping a sheet to gag their mouths.

I left as Conver started vomiting through the rag. Not wanting to add stealing a cop car to my list, I ran to the parking lot for Suzie's Chevy pickup. It was new, lavender and cream, with Hollywood pipes. The keys were under the seat where she usually left them and with a roar I backed around, headed across the overpass and shot for home.

My apartment was in the Fairlawn district, not far from the highway. All about the entrance the little green girls clamored around the chartered busses, so I went around the block. A whiskey bottle picked up nearby broke the glass in the back door, and I reached through, unlocking it.

The hallway was well lighted and connected to the lobby, but everybody was busy waving the field trip off to wherever it was headed, and I was able to slip around to the stairs and up to my room unseen. A white shirt, underwear, blue suit and tie, socks and shoes were all that I put on. Everything else went into two battered leather suitcases. Clothes, notes of the work I'd been doing for International, dirty laundry, even the busted wristwatch from underneath the fallen bedroom lamp were all squeezed and wedged in. Scraps of paper and the contents of my wastepaper basket were flushed down the toilet.

I wanted the police to have as little as possible to work on, and I didn't have time to be choosy as to what to leave behind. If I were lucky, they might figure I'd pulled stakes to head far away- Canada or Mexico-and the heat would singe other areas, leaving Silk City a couple of degrees easier to live in. For I had no intention of running. Or at least running far. My business, my reputation-in short, my life-depended on finding out who did murder those girls and somehow convincing the police of it.

The hall was still deserted and I was able to creep back down to the lobby without being noticed. But Mr. Sills suddenly flitted out of his office and began rummaging through the counter for something. I pressed myself against the stair walls in panic, hoping that the shadows would cover the beginning of my potbelly. Sills chirped something horribly obscene like "Oh, drat!" and hopped back to his roost.

The girls were gone and all was quiet like the proverbial mouse, so this rat had no more trouble scampering to the pickup and throwing the bags into the truck bed.

The truck started with a razzy blast and off I went, but you can sure bet I didn't speed. Just my luck to grab a ticket for something like drooping license plates. I figured my first move should be to call Frenchy. Roadside telephones were out-too noticeable-so I had to chance the main highway again for an all-night gas station and a phone booth inside.

An Esso sign winked up ahead and I pulled in. After instructing the attendant to fill 'er up with tiger hair I dug for change and dialed Frenchy at his house in Ridgewood, a fairly posh community five miles at the most from the station.

I remembered his phone was beside the bed, so after it had rung a half a dozen times I figured he wasn't home and almost hung up. Then it clicked and a muffled voice mumbled in protest.

"Frenchy, this is Mike," I hissed.

The voice became clearer, although still groggy with sleep.

"Thas' nice. Goodni-"

"Don't hang up, Frenchy. Listen."

"Late, goo-"

"Wake up, damn it!" I yelled. "This is urgent."

The wail at the other end was heartbreaking. "But it's the middle of the night, Mike. I can see it's still black as...." His voice trailed off then I heard some rustling. "Take it back. I had the covers over my head. But it is barely light out."

"I've got to see you right away."

"Great! I'll put a pot on and you come over."

"Good grief, no. I can't. Meet me some place. Anywhere we don't stand too much of a chance of being recognized."

"Sounds bad."

I was about to reply when the shriek of sirens pierced the phone booth and three black and white police cars tore past, their cherry tops pulsing. My hour was up. The two cops had been found or had worked themselves loose, and reinforcements were being sent to the Carleton pronto.

"What was that?" asked Frenchy, "a fire?"

"Yeah, and guess who it's under."

There was a moment of silence, then Frenchy suggested, "The Pancake Hut in fifteen minutes. It's north on Route 17. On the right with a big sign and a log-cabin front."

We hung up and I paid the gas jockey, ignoring his chatter about the pickup's color scheme, and joined the traffic. Route 17 bisects the highway just past the shopping center, and I slowed as I passed the apartment complex. The police cars were grouped around the Carleton, their lights and noises loud, and I could almost feel the explosion going on up on the sixth floor.

Fifteen minutes later I parked behind the Pancake Hut and strode through the restaurant's wooden doors. Frenchy rattled a bony hand at me from a rear booth. At least it seemed to rattle, along with the rest of his bones. He was a beanpole from the top of his crew cut to the tips of his size twelve feet, and if any fat hung on him it must have been lonesome and well hidden. Round, thick glasses reduced his eyes to mere twinkling slits, as though he had a light bulb for a brain and it was shining through. At the moment he seemed intent not only on me but also on lighting a cigar the length of a regular cigarette. How he can smoke those shrunken stogies I'll never know, for when I tried one it had all of the flavor of floor sweepings in butcher paper. And the stench!

"Today I hate," he said as a greeting. He waved out a match and dropped it in the ash tray. "After you called, the Dutch cleanser fell into my shaving lather, and I caught my thumb in the bathroom cabinet door. Whatever your mess is," he added morosely, "it better be worth it."

I had to chuckle. A waitress in a cowboy-type outfit interrupted with two mugs of coffee and left muttering about how some people have the nerve to take a booth for a measly cup of coffee. Frenchy flashed her a look as she retreated that must have singed her bloomers. Then he grew serious.

"Spill."

"It doesn't look like I'll be able to finish my job for you."

That sort of shook him. International Delivery was Frenchy's pet as well as his breadwinner, but I couldn't think of a gentler opening.

"Why? I thought everything was done. You said yesterday you only had to type the report. My God, another year like the last and my tent steals silently away."

"Most of what's in the report I've already suggested to you, and I think that's all that you need to make money. I'm pretty sure we've got the tax angles tacked down, and you know my ideas on lowering buyer resistance."

"Is it money? If you need more, well, we've been friends too long, Mike. You can count on me."

"I'm not counting on you for money. I'm counting on you for my life."

"Your life?" Frenchy's eyebrows arched.

"One of your carriers, Sue, was murdered tonight. The cops think I did it. Right after they figured I slashed a Miss Jocelyn Carstairs's throat."

Frenchy froze his angular features and a glaze hardened his pupils. "Did you, Mike?"

"No."

"Then that's settled. Tell me what happened."

I told him the story, from the rupture of my rest to clearing out of my room. Frenchy was silent for a minute as he looked at his coffee and rolled the cup around with his hand.

"I don't know if I go along with running away from the law. The cops were only doing their jobs, you know, and...." He hesitated as the waitress passed to serve an old woman, lit another stench bomb in the lull and snorted out some smoke. The waitress turned blue and the other woman started coughing. I watched as flies began to drop all around.

"Please don't lecture, Frenchy. I panicked, but you know how I feel about cops. Not much of an excuse, maybe, but it's the reason."

"I remember what you told me, and I remember what you did to those MPs back in Korea. But hell, Mike, your reason happened a long time ago. You have to forget and try to stop this bitterness. Times change. Those weren't the same police as before. They're all gone, along with the crooked administration, a good five years back. Maybe you never read about it, but there was quite a shake-up and a new reform group got in. And don't huff at me like that, I'm serious."

I stopped short of another sarcastic snort and studied the bottom of my cup. "Our schools were different. Mine was a little rawer, being underworld, but the training was a little bit more realistic. Lesson one, Frenchy, is that when rottenness is finally uncovered, as it is in every city from time to time, the public is momentarily scandalized, then lapses back into apathy. Lesson two is that certain inside men profit politically during the ruckus, and when the reformers are either voted out or become just as corrupt, things go on as before. Dimes to doughnuts, the same wheels or their protégés boss the machinery."

"But you don't know."

"No, and I don't want to find out. What I do want to find is the killer. I'll need time, luck, and help. Harboring a suspect can slap you ten years, not counting the loss of your security clearances. We're having coffee now, and you could always explain you never knew until afterwards. But if you help, I want you to realize you're risking everything."

"As though I don't know?" He dragged on his little cigar. "As I see it, Mike-" There was a pause and then he stretched a lean hand across and grasped my arm, grinning. "I see that we have to find a place for you."

"Thanks,'* I whispered.

Frenchy frowned. "Can't be my place, though, things may get hotter than Tahitian love in a canoe around there once they start tracing. But Andre is out of town, and she lives with a roommate named Kim Daggitt. I think Kim is the only one of my carriers you haven't met. She just got back from Albuquerque, and if I ask right she might let you use Andre's room. I'll give her a buzz."

Frenchy eased his gangly skeleton from the booth and walked over to another waitress. She pointed to an alcove, and Frenchy passed beyond my view. Eons seemed to pass while he was gone, and visions of storm troopers rushing in the entrance yelling "Gotcha!" sent little rivulets of sweat along my forehead. But it must have been only five minutes before he clattered back, a smile on his face.

"All set, Mike."

"What did you tell her?"

"Nothing much. Just that you need a place and it's urgent. She was a little leery at first, but I explained it was a personal favor to me, and she agreed. Ah-you already know the address, I believe."

After a brief squabble over the bill, Frenchy gave in and I paid. Outside in the parking lot I stopped him.

"Frenchy, there's another problem. I have Suzie's pickup."

"The lavender and cream sizzler?"

"Uh, huh, and it catches too much attention. How about switching cars with me?"

"Sure. If I'm asked where I got it, I'll just say Sue lent it to me to haul-mmm-firewood in."

"I'll try to find another to use so you can get yours back before the cops get too suspicious. Think you can bluff till then?"

"Friend," smirked Frenchy, "don't you remember the time in Tampa when those two chicks were-"

"Nuff said," I laughed.

I walked to the truck and lifted out my suitcases as Frenchy drove around. After loading his trunk, we traded car keys and he started for the pickup. Climbing in the cab and shutting its door, he rolled down the window.

"Keep me posted, Mike, and good luck." He ducked his head back in, then leaned back out with a last parting thought.

"Oh, yeah, and one thing about Kim. Play straight with her. I mean she's got a big thing about lying, even on the smallest matters. She'll do anything to help as long as you level with her. I didn't tell her the situation, Mike, so if she asks, don't be afraid to lay it on the line. Just be afraid if you don't."

Kim, nesting in the same house as Andre, lived in the next town over from Ridgewood, an overgrown development called Glen Rock. A few lefts and rights and I pulled Frenchy's year-old Ford up in front of a smart white crackerbox with red shutters. I plopped my bags down on the porch and pushed the doorbell.

No sooner had the doorbell sounded then a brown streak came roaring around the house. By the glint of its bared teeth and blazing eyes I made out it was a dog. A monstrous mutt heading straight for my leg, yapping all the way, obviously with a bone to pick. Mine. It nearly climbed over itself making the turn, and I guessed this whirl of fur was part German shepherd, part Alaskan grizzly bear and, by the way all its fangs were showing, I'd guess part dentist's office. I pressed my weight against the porch railing, and that was a mistake. It gave way with a crack and I fell backwards into the shrubbery. I landed in a tangle of forsythia and rhododendron with one foot in the nasturtiums, the dog barking its head off on the porch, drooling on my shoes. And then the door opened. A blond girl stepped out.

"What's going on out here?" The dog stopped his snarls and turned meekly to the girl. "What's the matter, PoPo-and who's there?"

"It's a groundhog. I'm a little late this year, but I thought I should come up anyway."

"What are you doing in my flower bed?" she asked.

I sighed. "Nothing. Just help me out." She reached for my hand. I snatched it back. "Wait! Get that beast out of here first." The dog snarled.

"Hush, PoPo," she said, patting its head. "Don't be silly. Why, he wouldn't hurt a flea."

"Only because that wouldn't be a big enough mouthful."

Kim put a finger to her chin. "He doesn't seem to like you, at that," she said pensively. "All right, I'll put him in the kitchen."

She walked back into the house, the dog following but keeping one eye on me. I rolled over and got to my feet. My suit wasn't torn, just a bit wrinkled, but the bushes had a permanent dent in them. I brushed myself off and stepped into the house with the bags just as Kim was closing a door on my left. Frantic scratchings and a few yelps came from the other side.

"I should have remembered him," I snorted, thumbing in the direction of the door. "Your answer to the Wolf man."

She laughed. "Oh, no, but we do feel better with him around as a watchdog. He's jealous of other men, though." She cocked her head to one side and gave me the onceover. "You must be the guy Frenchy phoned about. Michael Faron, right?"

"Uh, huh. And thank you for your hospitality."

"Well it is a bit peculiar, but since Frenchy asked special and Andre is out, I guess it'll be all right."

This was the first time I got a good look at my hostess, and suddenly I felt like a cat with his head caught in a molasses jar. Not that she was bosomy or top-heavy, it was just that when all arranged, she made one eye-socking dish. She stood all of five and a half in her heels and possessed the grace that only comes from knowing you are a desirable woman. Curved legs flowed into a tightly tailored burnt-orange dress. Then I noticed her pouted rose lips and upturned nose and caressable blond hair. But I was really drawn to her eyes- tender eternities of innocence and trust. The eyes of a little girl shining love to daddy on Christmas morning. And those eyes were now shining at me.

Almost with a wink, she swiveled around and crossed the room to where a small portable bar was arranged on the glass top of a wrought iron tea wagon.

"Anyway," she continued, "Andre mentioned meeting you just before she left. She gave you a good recommendation."

"Which I return," I smiled, the thought of Andre's hungry lips flooding my mind.

There was a tinkle of ice in a glass as I sat down on the couch. "You look like you could use a drink. Do you so early?"

"This morning I do."

"Bourbon or Scotch? Never mind, I drank the last of the bourbon last night. You'll get Scotch."

"If you say so," I said.

"I say so."

"Then we both say so."

While she poured, I looked around at a small but graceful living room. The walls were mauve, with bric-a-brac shelves here and wood carvings there, and the furniture was mostly bluish in crisp lines, with no definite period or style in mind. A great multi-colored Mexican rug seemed to pull all the parts together.

She handed the drink to me and then sat at the other end of the couch, one leg drawn up under, the other dangling.

"Aren't you having any?" I asked.

"No. I'll be leaving in a few moments for Rockville Center. Have to be there to show I got back safely and to sign a bunch of dreary lines. Such a fuss over an old envelope."

I took a sip and tried to relax, and it hit me how bone tired I was. The past few hours had really taken their toll, and with not much rest before that, I felt like a corn field after a flock of hunger-maddened crows had been and gone. I ached, my head throbbed, and my eyelids began to droop.

"Hey! Don't fall asleep here," said Kim. "There's a nice soft bed waiting in the next room."

She got up, took my barely touched drink and put it down on the coffee table; then, taking my hands, yanked me out of the seat and toward an open door. Inside the bedroom were the usual woman's touches with oodles of lace and frills dripping around. Pictures everywhere: Presidents, stars, friends, Lassie. One oval shot was of a stern nineteenth-century matron in a high-button dress feeding an infant some kind of snake oil, and another sported a portrait of a man easily recognizable as a refugee from a Smiths' cough-drop box. Relatives, no doubt. The bed was a four poster with a canopy, and I made a beeline for it. Didn't even take off my shoes, but just sort of collapsed.

"Have a nice sleep, Mike," she whispered. "I'll be back later on."

I sat up and looked at her. "Kim, later on you may hate me. When the papers come out you'll know who I am and what people think I did. I'm sure it's on the radio by this time."

Kim stood framed in the doorway, expectancy puckering her face.

I rubbed my neck wearily. "I'm not going to say anything more now. Too tired. Can't think straight. Just give me the chance to explain when you return."

"Frenchy said I could believe anything you would tell me, Mike, and that's all I demand of anybody," Kim answered softly. "Just get some rest, and we'll talk later if you want. No matter what I hear in between."

I sank down on the pillow and darkness rolled over me like a heavy fog. I didn't even hear her dose the door.

The dreams came. Vivid nightmares of insanity, intense in color. I was running blindly through scene after scene of hands clutching and fingers clawing and curses of hatred seething around my panicked flight from nowhere. Slipping, scrambling, fear pushing any thought of rest out of my brain. Then I found myself strapped in a hospital bed. Only the sheets were crimson. I rolled at lightning speed down a crooked hill, cascading around curves and careening off boulders. The path ended and I flew off the edge of a cliff. I couldn't see down, but I felt the wind blast by as I fell, screaming, fighting to get loose from the enveloping covers. Down I went-it seemed like ages-until I realized I'd never hit bottom, that I'd just keep on dropping forever. Because I was dead.

CHAPTER THREE

I was dead all right. Nobody could feel as bad as that and be alive. I was in hell with my head cracked open, and millions of tiny demons were gleefully pounding spikes into it. I gathered all my strength and, in a surge of energy, twitched my left eyelash. I was alive! I cracked my eye open, the right one still stuck fast, and the day gazed back. Gruesome, horrible, revengeful day with all its sunlight and bird noises. A bedside clock showed nearly twelve-thirty. I was on my side facing the door. That meant the cigarettes were under me, probably squashed. I rolled over and fumbled around in my shirt pocket for one, then stopped.

Next to the dresser sat Kim, ashen and rigid, a newspaper clutched in her hand. She stared at me, unspeaking.

"Do I get my chance?"

She nodded numbly.

I struggled to my feet and wobbled to the bathroom next door. I stuck my head underneath the bathtub tap and turned on the cold water. I straightened up, awake, and rubbed myself dry.

She was in the kitchen when I joined her, pouring coffee into two cups. Eggs crackled in a skillet.

"How long were you sitting there?" I dropped a spoon of sugar in my cup and stirred.

"Hour." She handed the cream across, not looking at me.

Silence dragged on. I slurped my coffee while she served the eggs and buttered some toast. I wasn't sure how to break the ice, but Kim did it for me. She got up and threw the newspaper open in front of me.

"Quite a story," she said.

An understatement. Cold caps blazed the headline that an alleged mad killer was at large. A mad killer named Michael Faron. I skimmed the copy, which mainly outlined the reports of Lieutenant Ducatto and Conver, along with quotes from Mrs. Schultz and the manager. There were lurid details and dark suggestions of Mike the Ripper, along with pacifying prophecies of quick capture and speedy execution.

I crumpled the paper and threw it aside. It contained enough circumstantial evidence to hang a saint, carefully worded to avoid slander, but painted as black as possible.

"It takes guts to return here and pour coffee for a murderer," I said.

"Frenchy says you're not. I called him as soon as I heard the first report on the radio. What do you say?"

"That I've got to find out who did murder Sue and that other girl before the Silk City's finest finds me."

Kim got up and refilled our cups.

"What else did Frenchy tell you?" I asked.

"He didn't want to say much. Thought it was up to you. But Sue was part of our company, and a good friend of mine to boot. She's the one who interested me in joining International last spring. I had to know right then, and he finally broke and repeated your story."

"And do you believe it?"

"I-I don't know. I'll have to think for a while."

"Yeah," I said quietly. I got up as Kim cleared the table and wandered into the living room.

"If you didn't kill Sue and that other girl, why are you hiding?" she shouted, banging some dishes around.

"Ever been in trouble?"

"No."

"Good grief, it's not like on television, you know, where the fearless law enforcement officers are paragons of all the noble virtues, with eventual certainty of justice and maybe even elves and fairies, as a friend of mine once put it. Those cops will bust their chops and probably mine pressuring a confession that will fit the circumstantial evidence. Innocent or not, I'll wind up in the jug."

"I think that's a terrible attitude," grumped Kim, as she entered wiping her hands on a towel. Then she threw it toward the kitchen, missed, and fumbled for a pack of cigarettes in her purse on the coffee table.

I lit her cigarette. "Once upon a time I believed in policemen. No, really, I mean it. They were good and true and had a hell of a job to do and if you had a problem you could go to them for help. You could trust them. My parents brought me up that way, and I fell for the eyewash."

She tilted her head inquisitively. "Something must have placed the whammy on you to feel so bitter."

I smiled back ruefully. "Many years ago I was convicted of embezzlement in Silk City."

"You? An embezzler?"

"Not an embezzler-a convicted embezzler." I stared at her moodily, the remembrances flooding back. "There's a difference. One is stating a fact, the other is a legal status. The idea behind law is to combine the two, the embezzler becomes the convicted embezzler, and the non-embezzler is not convicted. What happened to me is an example of when the law fell short. It was ugly, and yes, the way I feel about it is even uglier. But I speak from experience, possibly the ugliest teacher of all."

"Would you mind telling me about it?"

"Why?"

"I-I don't know," Kim flustered. "You don't have to."

"No. I don't mind. In fact, like most egotistical slobs who feel they've been wronged, I can't wait for an audience." I leaned back and folded my hands behind my neck. "I was a green kid of twenty, and had this job at a local five and dime. I used to take the night deposits down to the bank. One deposit the bank swore they never got. Eight policemen held me for three days and worked me over good getting me to confess I stole the bag."

"But they couldn't! That's illegal."

"Sure. Call the cops on them. My parents had moved to the West Coast, I had no close friend around, and I couldn't use the phone. So who's there to stop the interrogation. Over and over: What did you do with the money? I put it in the vault. No you didn't-Whack. I got so damned confused, tired, and hungry I finally signed a statement that I didn't remember what happened to the money. Then they stripped me of shoelaces and belt and threw me in a cell. They didn't give a damn if I rotted."

"They still didn't have any proof."

"No, and neither did I that I hadn't stolen it. But that statement, just saying I couldn't remember, was as good as finding the bag under my mattress. It may come as a shock, Kim, it did to me, but our justice runs on the theory that a man is guilty until proven innocent. No matter what pretty slogans say otherwise."

"Mike! What a dreadful thing to say."

"Yeah? Well listen. My trial transcript reads like a farce with the cops perjuring all over, and the judge threw me one to three in New Jersey State Prison. He didn't like my unremorseful attitude. How the hell can you be remorseful for something you didn't do?"

"Mike, that's awful. I can sympathize for a raw deal, but unless we cooperate with the good police we've got, we'll have even less of them. Sure, some of them are incompetent or dishonest like in any other group, and they're open to human error like anybody else. Mistakes happen, but you must still respect the law."

I smiled caustically. "The victim of overdone police efficiency, huh. Well, playing shortstop- that's slang for being in the pen 'cause it's between Second and Third in Trenton-taught me hard facts. I was one of many victims of a system that exists in almost every city: the fix-only in reverse. To hide the freedom of some favored mob, the police and courts vigorously prosecute and sentence the unprotected amateur. With the same hypocrisy which grafts them in the first place, they don't care who gets thrown to the dogs. That's why I feel as I do, because respect is something earned, not automatically given with a badge. And to be respected, one has to be respectable."

Kim blazed at my harshness, her chin jutting forward like granite. "It might have been different this time if you'd given them a chance."

"They started the same way. I didn't want to stick around for the same kind of ending."

"What happened to you really turned you to acid." Her words were clipped with annoyance. "You know it all. Then buy your way out. Take a fix instead of running scared."

"No, Kim," I said softly. "It wouldn't work. Not that the thought didn't cross my mind, or that I wouldn't do it if I had the chance. But while I don't know it all, I know enough. I'm an out-of-state, one-time-fallen, perfect patsy. Totally nonfixable. And those cops had a vigorous glint in their eyes."

Kim stabbed the butt of her cigarette out and exhaled a stream of smoke. I brooded. I'd warned her my feelings were nasty, a cynical alienation from comfortable belief. Too bad there is truth to my heresy.

"Right or wrong, you've done it. You're on the lam. Exactly what do you plan to do next?"

I stared at a bronze vase shaped like a tree stump and thought how ugly it was. "Dunno." I kept staring but changed to grinding over the logic of my problem. "I have a feeling there's some connection between Sue and the other girl, Jocelyn Carstairs. I think whoever murdered one murdered the other.... You said you were a good friend. Can you recall any way Sue and Carstairs could be tied together? They lived in the same building. Did they play bridge, or maybe exchange recipes, or men or something?"

"I don't recall Sue's ever mentioning this other girl." She shook her head and stroked a blond curl back into place. "No, wait. She did say something to me once. What was it?" A frown squeezed her forehead as she concentrated. "Just before I left she mentioned that-that she was doing a favor for a Miss Carstairs. Susan flew many West Coast assignments. And some relative of Miss Carstairs drove a cab in San Francisco. Yes, that's it! Sue said that occasionally Miss Carstairs would ask her to take a letter or some small gift along to save time and postage. She was tickled to do it because she'd get a free cab ride that way."

"How come?"

"Oh, Sue would call the relative's cab company and ask for him specifically. The cab driver was real nice, she said, and in return would take her to the city for nothing."

"Big deal," I groaned. I returned to the kitchen and retrieved the mangled newspaper. Smoothing it out, I reread the story. "Hmm. Not many details about either girl, though it mentions Miss Carstairs was a private secretary to the Mr. Alex Menemsha." I wandered back to join Kim. "The, huh. Sounds like he's big."

"That he is. I've heard of him quite a bit. Has plenty to do with just about everything. Sort of a nut, though."

"When they're rich, they're only eccentric," I cracked.

"Well, whatever, he keeps pretty much to himself on a forty-acre estate up near the New York state line. Not far from here."

"So?"

"I read about his place in a Sunday supplement a while back. Absolutely wild like a jungle. No landscaping or meadows, just a solid forest surrounded by a high wall. Every promoter for a hundred miles keeps trying to buy it for a development, but he won't part with an inch. The article quoted him as saying it's his way of retreating to nature. Calls the estate Caveat."

"The Caveat?"

"No, just Caveat. It's Latin for beware."

"Beware of what?"

"I don't know. The supplement didn't add that."

I sat in thought for a minute. "Well, there's my next move."

"What is?"

"To see this Mr. Menemsha. If the only connection between Sue and this Carstairs dame is as slim as rooking the government out of stamps, then maybe I ought to try from the other end. As his private secretary, Miss Carstairs would be close to Menemsha, and there's a chance he might know something."

I picked up the Bergen County phone book and thumbed through it, hoping that Mr. Menemsha would live within its boundaries.

"And if he doesn't know anything?"

"Hush, child, I don't want to think of that. Besides," I mused, "there's no place else I can try." I spied his name. "Here he is. Old Creek Road. Hmm. No address number. His place must be large." I turned to her and flipped the book shut. "Know where it is?"

"Not the faintest. Check at a service station when you get in the area." Kim followed me with her gaze as I headed for the front door. I put my hand on the knob.

"And what do you plan to do while I'm gone?"

A flush burst across her cheeks and her blue eyes blackened. "Not yell help, if that's what you mean."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean it that way. I trust you. You've been a tremendous help."

She lowered her head. "No, forgive me. That shouldn't have slipped out."

"I can't blame you. It's quite a shock to find out that the man in your house could be a cold-blooded killer. And I can't exactly say my side is especially convincing."

"I admit when I arrived I was nervous, but now," she sparkled, her eyes twinkling, "now I believe you."

I grinned back.

"Maybe more important is that I believe in you as well," she added.

I started for the door again. "Wait," she called. "Frenchy suggested we trade cars. That way if the police ask where his is, why, I'll be using it."

"Good idea. Catch." We threw the keys at each other. I stepped out on the porch and peered around.

"Where's that mutt?"

"PoPo is chained in the back."

She smiled a dazzling flash at me and waved. "Be back soon-and in one piece."

I fiddled with the knobs on her Triumph until I figured out how it started. The seats sure hugged my fanny, though it wasn't quite as lush as the Detroit barges. And the soft top seemed to fit with a ram design that shoveled seven feet of dust in my lap as I roared away.

CHAPTER FOUR

The early newspaper reports gave my description, but as Lieutenant Ducatto had noted, I'm average everything. No special features tipped my identity, no distinguishing signs the police could broadcast. The last picture of me was in the Army when I had nose cut long and cheeks cut short. That was before Heartbreak Ridge and months of transplanting and plastic surgery. The scars are there, but one had to know where to look, and then look hard. Now when I'm pointed out at a party people say something like, "see that man over there? Well, Faron is the guy next to him."

With a little luck and not too many blatant chances I could travel around a bit. A risk I had to take, for quivering in some hole wouldn't accomplish anything.

Alex Menemsha's Caveat sprawled almost on the state line, as Kim had thought. It took three service stations, a country store, and enough backtracking for a fox hunt before I found Wise Road in Upper Saddle River. Wise Road wound up a steep grade to meet Old Creek Road and was so full of ridges and potholes it was like driving across a waffle. At the bottom there had been houses, but they became sparser and sparser until I was alone with the scrub.

Just before the crest of the hill a stone wall, green with moss, curved from behind a clump of trees to my left and continued along the road for maybe a hundred yards. It stopped grandly beside two white stone lions yawning with boredom. Between the statues was another road, and then the stone hedge started up again, crossing over the hill and disappearing. A municipal signpost incongruously vegetated behind the tail of the left lion, the crossed plaques indicating that this was the corner of Wise Road and Old Creek Road.

I turned into the narrow entrance and gunned the sports car down the lane. The surroundings were spectacular, resembling Sherwood Forest. Menemsha's estate grew entirely wild, thick woods tangling with overgrown thickets and muckish patches, and the owner obviously went out of his way to keep it impenetrable. The road was little more than a paved chipmunk trail, weaving and dodging between trees and rocks, taking the hardest of any two routes. I had to brake and stomp and curse until finally I entered a black-topped clearing and parked between two monster Jaguar Mark X sedans.

Now, I figured, all that was needed would be some gigantic nineteenth century castle, complete with turrets and shutters, designed by Charles Addams. But no. Menemsha's abode, although obviously lush, was a one-storied, flat-roofed contemporary, colored in a mixture of green-stained wood and old brick. A grass carpet encircled the house like a moat, protecting it from the enclosing jungle. A bunch of squirrels hopped about, a fat one ran down the house roof then leaped onto a nearby tree, and a pair of birds played tag through the branches. The sight of me crossing the drive to the front porch caused a great scurry, chatter, and gossip.

A bright red iron door with bronze handles and doo-dads was set in a brick facade like the entrance to a vault. I gave a yank to an old chain hung to my right. Some dust came down, but I didn't hear anything from inside the house. I was about to give it another try when the door clicked open and I was greeted by a very beautiful Eurasian.

She didn't have the heavy lids of the full Oriental or the marked high cheekbones of a Polynesian. Nor was she stocky or flat-chested. She was magnificent-a work of beauty-but before anybody starts panting and whistling I'd better add she was also past her youth. She stood in tailored black slacks and a gold-print overblouse-ageless, statuesque, porcelain. Only her graying hair, her hardened flint eyes bespoke her years. She must have been a good ten years older than I and radiated all the warmth of one of those stone lions out front.

"May I please speak to Mr. Menemsha?" I asked.

"Come in." She beckoned me in and shut the door. "Whom shall I say is calling?" Crisp, authoritative voice, without a hint of accent.

"Peter Breneman," I lied. I sure wasn't going to give my real name. "It's on business, and I'll try to be quick." The woman looked at me for a minute, sizing me up in more detail than a dozen ordinary women could in an hour. She nodded, then turned to walk up the hall.

"You were lucky to find him in, Mr. Breneman. He's in the pool for a dip right now," she said as we went into an alcove. To the left were shelves of glasses, and the other side had rows of bottles whose labels told their quality and cost. A cabinet's teak doors, carved with a scroll of initials, were slightly ajar, and I caught a glimpse of a wooden beehive stocked with vintage wines. Over slightly was a small built-in refrigerator, the front paneled with the same ornate carving. The whole thing simply oozed money. I looked at it like a man used to grabbing his booze from a kitchen cabinet would look. Purple with envy.

She picked up a glass with an ice cube in it and stood momentarily, her back to me, looking at the cube. Then she turned, all smiles. "Can I mix anything for you, Mr. Breneman? I was just about to make a drink for Mr. Menemsha when you arrived."

"Why, yes, thank you. I'll just have a sip of the Chivas Regal there, if you don't mind. It would taste nice in this weather."

She turned back and fetched a glass. "Water? Soda?"

"Oh, no, I like it straight. Not even ice."

"Mmm. A good idea with so good a Scotch. You know your liquor, Mr. Breneman." She handed me roughly two fingers' worth and opened the refrigerator for some more ice.

"Pardon my curiosity," I asked, "but are you Mrs. Menemsha?"

"Oh, my no," she laughed lightly. "Mr. Menemsha is a bachelor. I'm only sort of a housekeeper, you could say."

Just a housekeeper, huh. Well, with his money, I imagine he could have hired the Queen of Sheba to dust the furniture. "Quite an exceptional one, I would judge. I admire the man's taste."

She dipped her head slightly. "Thank you for the compliment, Mr. Breneman. I do handle a few other odds and ends occasionally. Maybe you might classify me more as a junior assistant."

"Oh? I thought he had a private secretary."

"Ah, you heard of Miss Carstairs, then, and her demise? But then, I'm sure you wouldn't care to discuss such tragedy."

Now that's what I call twisting a tricky question gracefully. I gave up for the moment and changed the subject.

"You said Mr. Menemsha was swimming?" I asked.

"Yes. We have a heated indoor pool. We can swim year 'round. During summer it's connected with a pond outside, which makes it very pleasant, don't you think?"

I had to admit it was, and we used up a few minutes making small talk while she finished mixing Menemsha's drink. I noted that, although outwardly calm, she had a habit of nervously nicking her long fingers at the back of her hair yet never really touching the arrangement. We walked through the living room, then into the patio where the pool was.

The living room was a mixture of crimson plush carpets and upholstery, well-waxed old walnut, raised red on pink tapestry wallpaper and two huge crystal chandeliers, stolen, no doubt, from some Hollywood set of the Czar's imperial ballroom. The patio was nearly all glass, although one wall was a muted textured material that blended with the rug. Through the French doors was a pond spotted with lily pads, and a most impressive jade tree.

A gardener busied himself just beyond, clipping a rose bush or a begonia, or a Venus fly trap for all I knew. The big brute bulged muscle with every snap of the shears and was either very tall or standing on a box. He paused in mid chop and stared through the windows at me. I stared back, at a massive crease that dented his head from left eyebrow past his ear, as though an axe had attempted to cave in his skull. I shuddered at the thought that he could live with such a wound, and in answer he parted thick lips in an awful grimace, showing square, protruding teeth.

I followed the housekeeper and asked her once again if she knew Miss Carstairs.

"Yes, she was here often with Mr. Menemsha. Of course, Miss Carstairs usually worked in the office in New York, but with as many investments as Mr. Menemsha has it wasn't uncommon for her to stay the weekend," she said. "Is her death the reason why you're here?"

"Yes, it is. I'm with an insurance company, and of course we're interested in the matter."

"Well, I'm afraid I can't be of much use to you there, Mr. Breneman, though Mr. Menemsha might." She took a step ahead of me and passed into the patio, ending our talk.

"Here, Mr. Menemsha," she said, crossing over to the pool and leaning over, "here's your Scotch."

Menemsha looked up and pulled at his left ear lobe. He was propped in a plastic inner tube by his elbows, with no more than his head and shoulders above water. Obviously mature but healthy, his face was tanned almost auburn, with the wrinkles of the business world crosshatching his skin as though he'd slammed into a screen door. His features were round but certainly not jovial, their hardness reminding me of the other lion. White hair still thick for a man of Menemsha's years was matted back in European style.

He paddled over to the edge of the pool. "And who is this?" he asked the woman, although staring at me.

"The drink, Mr. Menemsha," she prompted, handing it to him. She straightened up and smoothed her slacks. "His name is Peter Breneman, and he's here in connection with poor Miss Carstairs' death." She turned and headed back into the living room. "I'll be fixing dinner if you need me."

Menemsha lifted himself out of the pool and I was impressed. Even in my prime, it was hard scrambling out of the YMGA pool with two hands, but he raised himself one-handed as though helped by an invisible hoist, not spilling a drop of his drink. And as we stood shaking hands and mumbling the howdedo's and howareyou's, I thought how well he looked. So many successful businessmen go to seed, needing the trappings of an office and expensively cut business suits to make their image. Not Menemsha. He was short, stocky, and the muscle of youth had aged, but he oozed prominence standing only in bathing trunks.

"If you'll excuse me, I'll get my robe and then we'll talk." He laid his glass down on a table, shrugged on a white terry-cloth robe that had been draped over a chair, and tied the belt with a firm yank. "Let's go into my study where we'll be more comfortable."

We walked to one end of the pool where a yellow electric golf cart was parked. He climbed in, pulling on his ear, as I walked around to the other side. Apparently Menemsha had a nervous habit.

We whisked back past the entrance to the living room, and I realized that his house was larger than I had originally estimated. Evidently other wings jutted to the rear, hidden from view by the modest front. We bumped over a room divider at the pool's far end and rolled along a hall. I could barely hear the electric motor pushing us, and Menemsha controlled the little steering stick as though we were on a fairway. A clipboard used to tally scores held a bunch of notes which flapped in the slight breeze.

We stopped at the end of the passageway, and I followed him into his study. Again there was paneling, this time decored with a large brick fireplace, a few well-chosen pictures, shelves of books, and one of those brown, tweedy-flecked rugs deep enough to lose a safari and big game. The coloring of the furniture added to the feeling of comfort-the green, the pattern of brown, tan, and coral, and a big chair in beige.

Menemsha walked around to his desk and seated himself comfortably as I chose the beige chair.

My glance rested on the wall behind him where hung a set of animal horns similar to a bull's, only wickedly longer. They were mounted to a small plaque and protruded majestically into the room. Their ivory color had mottled a bit with age, giving a raw, realistic appearance.

"I see you're admiring the horns." Menemsha turned enough to look at them with me. "They're from a Texas Longhorn and measure nine feet tip to tip, just as they did on the steer."

"They are fascinating. Must have been in your family a good many years," I ventured.

"No, afraid not." He swiveled back to face me with a pleasant grin and rested his elbows on the desk. "I bought them at the Antlers' Saloon in San Antonio just after the war. Expensive, but cheaper than ignoring the lesson they teach."

"You've learned from them?"

"One might say so. Longhorns once occupied Texas by the millions, savage brutes all hoof, head and horn held together by gristle and meanness. But by 1900 only ten or fifteen of the pure strain were left. An almost complete extinction of one brutal beast by another even crueler: man. So the horns hang up there as a personal sword of Damocles, a constant reminder to me that perhaps survival stays with the most ruthless."

"Perhaps." He looked at me as though expecting more, but that's all I answered. I hadn't come to argue, nor were his beliefs of my concern. But what a code to live by! Or did he? His face stayed cloaked behind a bland half-smirk, refusing to betray whether his words were subtle humor at my expense, or the philosophy which geared his life.

Menemsha must have sensed my uneasiness, for he brushed the subject aside with a wave of his wrist and said, "But you didn't come to hear ramblings, and I'm a busy man myself. So what can I do for you, Mr.-ah-the name has escaped me, I'm afraid."

"Peter Breneman, Mr. Menemsha, from Western Maritime and Life."

"Oh, insurance?"

"Yes. I'm here about a policyholder of ours and was hoping you might help."

His eyes contracted slightly and he reached for another jerk at his ear. "That's strange. Miss Carstairs was covered by group insurance from another company, as are all my employees."

I smiled as disarmingly as I could and replied, "Oh, no, it's not Miss Carstairs we're concerned about. Our interest is in Miss McMann who was also killed."

"But my housekeeper said you were here about Miss Carstairs."

"You might say that indirectly. The police believe there's a connection between the deaths."

"That was suggested in the papers, I believe," he answered pointedly. "Some madman must have gotten into their apartments. But besides that, why I don't see how..." He shrugged his shoulders emphasizing his point.

"Miss McMann was concerned with our national defense industries, Mr. Menemsha, and as a result perhaps a few more stones are being rolled over than usual."

"And?"

"And we were hoping you might know of some connection between the two women."

The wrinkles multiplied as he thought, then he shook his head. "No, I don't recall Miss Carstairs' mentioning this other girl's name."

"Did she have any relative on the West Coast?"

"None."

I leaned forward. "Are you positive?"

Menemsha never lost a drop of composure, but a little flint struck his words. "As her records are at my office, Mr. Breneman, it would be difficult for me to make an absolute statement. However, I do remember her mentioning many times that her only family, immediate or otherwise, came from some town in Pennsylvania. She always felt so proud about being the first to break the tradition by moving to New York."

It was his turn to lean forward. "By the way, Mr. Breneman, are you with the government?" The ear twitched.

"No."

"Are you with the police?"

"No."

"A detective?" His ear was hopping all over his face.

"No, I-"

"Then you have no real authority to conduct this questioning." Menemsha pushed a button and swiveled his chair around sideways. "I'm a very busy man," he sighed, "so if you will be so kind..."

The hint was as subtle as lead. I stood up.

"Thank you for your trouble, Mr. Menemsha. I--"

The door opened and the woman appeared.

"Show Mr. Breneman to the door, Cheryl," he commanded, then gave his full attention to massaging his lobe.

She nodded, and I left Mr. Menemsha still facing the wall. The housekeeper opened a door next to the one opposite the study, and I stepped into the living room again.

We passed by the alcove, and I happened to glimpse another drink sitting on the small bar counter. At first I assumed it was hers, but the housekeeper wore fresh lipstick, and the glass didn't show any traces of red around its rim. Not that I had a great deal of time to examine such curiosities. The front door quickly closed behind me with a solid clunk.

As I walked to the Triumph, I noticed there were now four cars parked, the stranger being a nondescript Plymouth coupe on my left. Stuck in the right rear window was a parking lot decal like thousands of others. Only this one was square, cut diagonally by green and white: the colors of Associated Electronics Industries. I remembered when I had visited all the electronics centers for Frenchy, good ol' AEI put up quite a wrangle before issuing a temporary parking sticker. Something super duper had been going on there, and they just didn't want anybody around.

Still, I couldn't ponder that with all my problems, and I passed it from my mind as I drove away. I was too busy patting myself on the back for meeting Mr. Menemsha and his curious set of horns. I reached for a cigarette as a reward and found the pack was empty.

Wise Road ended and I turned left onto East Saddle River Road. Dusk was creeping up, and I was getting hungry. Not wanting to risk the bright lights of a diner, I headed back toward Kim's, hoping she would be home and in a good enough humor to cook something.

Tooling along for a mile or so, I spied the little crossroads store I'd stopped at earlier for directions. Urged on by the nicotine habit, I pulled in again, this time for cigarettes.

The old geezer behind the counter gave me a fisheye, no doubt wondering where the devil I wanted to go to this time without buying anything. When I asked for Philip Morris he got all flustered and dropped a box of cigars on his foot. I gave him a dollar bill, and he returned more change than he should have. I corrected him and he turned very red and agitated, taking back too much from my outstretched palm. By that time I was a nervous wreck just watching him, so I didn't say anything but left. As I pulled out of his parking lot, I checked my rear view mirror for traffic and caught him standing in his doorway, rubbing his hands like Lady Macbeth on a long white apron.

It wasn't until I'd driven another mile that I realized why the hysteria over a pack of cigarettes. I rounded a bend and jammed on my brakes. Dead ahead a police cruiser blocked the road crossways, its spotlight zeroing in the hood of the Triumph. Two officers crouched near each bumper, and I had a sickening feeling that they had long range peashooters lined up at my windshield.

I had been spotted. Somebody-probably that feeble storekeeper-had recognized me and reported the find.

The sports car jerked as I jammed it into reverse and backed into a driveway. Squealing on two tires I peeled around the way I had come. The wail of sirens drifted from all directions. They were closing in, blocking my escape in a pin-cer movement. The advantage of knowing the area was on their side, and my guts curdled with the fear of no escape.

CHAPTER FIVE

The reports of the police rifles cracked, but I was around the bend and heading back toward that miserable store before they were able to do any damage. It wouldn't be long, though, before the cruiser would be storming after me, closing one avenue as others narrowed the ring.

East Saddle River Road was in good condition, which meant it was well traveled and therefore too dangerous. At the store I veered left, almost sheering a gas pump, and shot down Lake Street, rumbled across a bridge and then tore through an intersection without stopping. A Volkswagen putted into the intersection as I came barreling through. Some dizzy dame ogled me and threw her hands up, screaming. I twisted the wheel to the left sliding into the other lane. I zigged and she zagged, my tires hitting the grass roadside, my head hitting the top. She bounced into a field on the right, crashed through a sign for some carnival expected in August, and the last I saw of her she was still snorting around the pasture like an elephant on a trampoline.

Not that this good Samaritan stopped to exchange license numbers. I hit the gas and blasted along an uphill straight stretch which suddenly ended in the most god-awful hairpin turn ever devised. The speedometer was registering sixty or so when I downshifted and jammed the brakes to the floor.

Maybe Stirling Moss could have negotiated that curve without messing a hair, but this boy was used to slushamatics, so the rear end promptly became the front end, and the scenery shifted around violently. Wrenching the wheel to the left, I took the other half of the horseshoe bend sideways. It's a rather eerie sensation to turn your head in order to see what's coming next.

Stomping my foot down on the gas pedal again, I straightened out and climbed the steep grade in third. There was another slight curve and then a fork in the road.

I could see a distant flash of red blinking to the left, so I didn't hesitate in choosing the road to the right. It was relatively narrow and long and I moved faster than a rent collector in a rooming-house of horse players. But I knew it was only a matter of time before I'd be trapped driving this buggy, I began looking for a place to cache the car.

A sign flashed in my high beams. It was shaped like an arrow, pointing left toward a new housing development optimistically entitled Paradise Gardens. The road was freshly paved and wandered majestically through mounds of dirt. At the end of the lane stood three completed homes with garages. I squealed to a stop in the driveway of the closest house, jumped out and ran around to the back where with a little jimmying I was able to pry a window open. Squeezing through I groped my way to the garage door, opened it from the inside, drove the Triumph in and closed the door.

One automobile gone. But I was still around, and one direction seemed as bad as another. Route 17 lay west over a hill or two, but I'd be seen too easily along there. Although where I stood there weren't many houses, it was built up all around, and most people dislike their backyards being used as a concourse. They have a way of reporting such things to the police. A nasty habit.

I'd have to risk heading north toward New York's Rockland County. I loped back down to the development sign and turned left, hoping that New Jersey Bell would be sweet and have a phone-booth stuck in some hayfield close by. The quicker I could call Kim the quicker she'd come to the rescue. With a big cask of whiskey around her neck, I hoped.

Dusk had turned to darkness, and although it wasn't the black of night, the shadows helped hide me from passing cars. The travel was slow, being one foot after the other, and a couple of times I had to hit the ditch as motorists rumbled-by. I came to a clump of bushes and started around them when I heard a terrible clatter and a throaty throb of exhaust. I stepped back quickly, shielding myself in the brush, but I wasn't fast enough. Headlights imprisoned me, and through the glare I realized that a jeep had stopped in a dirt driveway across the road.

A head stuck out from behind the windshield. "Whozzat there?"

Another voice complained back. "Aw c'mon Harry, we're going to be late."

"Shaddup," said the first. Then he yelled again. "Izzat you, Ed? Whatcha doin' in there?"

"Can't you see what he's doin'," snorted the other. "Paying dog respects to a tree."

"Hey, Ed, c'mere."

There wasn't much else I could do, being blinded by their lights. I was afraid any minute the police car would pass, or if I did break for it, these two would get suspicious and run after me. I put on my best grin and stepped across the road.

"I'm not Ed," I said.

"See? He ain't Ed."

"Yeah," said the driver, ignoring me. He was big, barely twenty, and the arms that grasped the jeep's wheel were like stovepipes. He put the jeep in gear to drive away.

The thought struck that since they hadn't recognized me, they might let me hitch a ride. "Look, I'm trying to get to, uh, Spring Valley. If you're going that way could I have a lift?"

The burly kid squinted at me. Then he looked at the ninety-pound weakling slouched next to him. "Here's our third guy."

"Whaddya mean, Harry?"

"Since Ed ain't showed up, he can come along."

"Geez, I dunno. Eddie only had those errands to run for Ma, and then he was comin' right over,"

"Bull. Your brudder's too scared to come, just like he was before. We can't wait no longer or Max will think we chickened out, and we gotta have somebody or he'll squawk we cheated. What the hell, can you figure sumptin' brighter?"

He grunted with satisfaction at the other's stupid look, then turned to me. "I'll make a deal with you, mister. We ain't goin' in your direction yet. There's a drag race we're heading to, and we need three guys. You know, for the weight. His finky brudder"-he nodded toward the other fellow-"never showed, so if you're in no hurry come along, then afterwards we'll take you to Spring Valley or wherever. Howzzat?"

I thought a minute and figured it was the best offer I'd had in the last few minutes.

"Deal," I answered.

"Hop in." He leaned forward and I climbed in back and sat on the cold deck crosslegged.

"You dragging jeeps?" I asked.

"Yeah. I'm runnin' a three-quarter Chrysler in this one, and the guy we're racin' has a Corvette mill." I should have known. He popped the clutch, and my head snapped in three places as we tore off down the road.

I put my face back on and groaned. We were heading right back the way I had come. We tore back down the hill and stormed around that damnable curve, only the right way this time, then came in for an instrument landing at the intersection. "Oh-oh," said the thin kid. "Fuzz bus ahead."

A policeman leaned against his cruiser, watching the few cars that came along the other road maneuver around a tow truck which was pulling the Volkswagen away. He turned his head, and I crouched low, but he waved at the boys and they waved back.

Then we crossed the bridge again and came to the store. I had the feeling I was in a movie being projected backwards. The old storekeeper was still outside, and as we passed him I lay flat on the floor.

Instead of turning right which would have made the nightmare complete, the jeep crossed East Saddle River Road and continued up Lake Street. It was another steep climb, but the mechanical meat grinder didn't even quiver, steadily increasing speed until we reached the top and continued along. We met another intersection and then turned left.

"Does this road go by Mr. Menemsha's property?" I yelled over the wind.

The guy called Harry looked over his shoulder. "Yeah," he shouted. "This here is Chestnut Ridge Road. Runs clear across the top of the hill. Ol' man Menemsha's line comes right up to it. In fact, that's where we're going to race."

"Not on his property?" I shrieked.

"Hell, yes! Ain't no harm done. Long as he don't catch us." Harry turned back to his driving.

Good grief. I was better off taking my chances walking, I glumly concluded.

We passed where Wise Road meets Chestnut Ridge, and the stone wall began again. I couldn't figure how we could get in save lifting the jeep over the wall, but after a bit the wall broke with another entrance. Only instead of lions, a great iron gate stretched across the opening. We slowed down and parked, lights off, engine idling the best it could.

The skinny one hopped out and ran to the gate. Harry turned around and explained. "Found this road after he got done building down there. It ain't much any more, but we like it."

"Building? Building what?"

"Dunno. Somethin' strange, but we never said nothin' 'cause then we'd get it for being here. Anyway, that's his business. You'll see it on the way through, though we ain't stopping. He's got some big feller meaner than hell that swears he's going to blow our heads off with a shotgun he carries, so we don't stick around much."

"Doesn't he hear you racing?"

"Yeah, but by the time he gets around to anything, we're gone."

Harry must have heard my groan. "There's a bottle of wine back there if you want some," he offered.

"Great idea," I mumbled, and started feeling around for it. The bottle was wrapped in a jacket near the back. I unscrewed the cap and sipped. Nothing heavy, mind you, just a little tonic for the nerves. Had to be careful on an empty stomach.

Skinny came back with the news that the others were already inside and waiting. That called for a snort for everybody.

The gate swung open and we jounced through. The gate was then closed by Skinny, and the three of us rattled and banged for a bit until we met with the enemy driving a jeep even more dented than Harry's, also gurgling with deep bloop-bloops. Another toast was needed, and I passed the bottle.

There were a few minutes of delay as the amount of the bet was decided upon, and since nobody trusted anybody, they put the pot of twenty-five dollars into my care. I peered into the faces of Max and his crew and decided that Harry was only a malformed runt compared to them. The wine tasted better on that note.

Engines rumbled, gears ground, clutches popped, and away we went, yelling, screeching, and cursing, down a half-lane rut that twisted worse than a barrelful of rattlesnakes. And just as much fun. Mules couldn't have held to the trail, but these jackasses kept passing each other, razzing and hooting. Most of the time the outside tires were half off the trail and screaming for traction, and as we'd rip around some curve etched in a cliff, I'd look down and see nothing but sheer drop. But these boys were great, knowing exactly where they were every second.

All I could do was hang on for dear life. Not to the jeep, to the wine.

The whole race took at the most ten minutes, but by the halfway mark the picture had turned a little rosier and to the devil with my rotten mess. There was a lot of philosophy in that bottle of wine, and the more I drank of its knowledge-although I spilled a good deal as the jeep bounced along-the more I understood. Like it was perfectly natural to suddenly level off our steep descent and storm onto a metal sheet maybe thirty-six feet square, set flush with the ground. It was painted green and was framed by a thick green cement border. The jeeps roared across one end of it, producing a horrible hollow rumbling, and I realized that underneath us were two massive steel doors, their edges running parallel to our tracks. A concrete pillbox whizzed by on my left and either most of it was sunken or it was manned by pygmies, for only two feet of it were visible above ground. The same color of green.

I had just contemplated that Menemsha needed a new decorator to liven the color scheme when the jeeps hit the dirt again, leaped over a lip in the ground and crashed down the rest of the trail. That called for a bracer. Besides, we had been ahead until the clearing. The other jeep had squealed around us, and now it was our beams that illuminated their rear and their raspberries being thrown back at us. I tilted the bottle for consolation, managing deftly to get some down my gullet.

Max stayed in the lead the rest of the way and was the first to reach the gate at the bottom. It was identical to the one we'd entered on Chestnut Ridge Road, and if my geography wasn't too blurred, we were at East Saddle River Road again, I couldn't believe I was still in one piece.

The other fellows opened the gate and collected the money from me as we drove through. There were some good natured obscenities and Max offered to try again, only uphill.

I quaked with fear at the thought and drained the last of the wine. Harry said nix, as he didn't have any more money till payday. Then he turned tome.

"Thanks, buddy. We lost, but 'tweren't your fault. Lesse, you want to go to Spring Valley, wasn't it?"

No. All I wanted to do was go home. "Ah, I changed m'mind." I concentrated on pronouncing each word slowly and carefully. The cold blast of the wind from racing had obviously numbed my vocal cords. Yes, that was it. It certainly couldn't have been the few drops of wine. "I would like to go to Gone Rack."

The two boys started laughing. "Where?" asked Harry.

"Glad Rag?" I tried again.

"He must mean Glen Rock," said Skinny.

"Yaz, thast it. Glut Rug. Can't remember the addresh, but I'll point the way." I waggled my finger in explanation.

I lay back a little dizzy and we turned left, the boys chuckling again. The store came and went and another cop passed. I waved this time. There were more twists and we reached Route 17. Minutes later we arrived in the main part of Glen Rock, and I was able to direct them to Kim's house. Barely.

"Hope your wife won't be too mad, you coming home like this," said Harry.

"M'wife? Oh, yesh, m'wife. Naw, she won't care. Why would she mind me comin' home in a jeep?"

I thought it was very nice of the boys to help me up the walk and hold my elbow when I stumbled onto the porch steps. They rang the bell and that damned dog started chewing the door down inside.

Then Kim answered hesitantly, "Who is it?"

"Your loving hubby, dear," I answered, "So lock the mutt up again."

PoPo had smelled my leg through the door, and he put up a battle about leaving. At last Kim shut him in someplace-the furnace, I hoped-and opened the door.

"Mike, what happened?"

"Nothing, m'love, nothing at all."

I waved at my pals. "Theshe two fine lads helped a man in dire distress when-"

"Fine, fine, now come in here." She grabbed my arm and yanked me through the doorway, thanking the two boys with a weak smile.

"Think nothing of it," Harry said. "It was our pleasure." The two guys looked at each other and started cackling again, then started back to their infernal hot rod.

The door closed, and she leaned against it, giving me the eagle eye.

"Empty stomach?" I offered with a sickly grin.

CHAPTER SIX

Maybe Kim wasn't the best cook, but boiled shoes would have tasted good at that point. Unlike most females, she didn't start yammering at once, but waited until I'd finished a couple of gallons of coffee. The temporary effects of the wine disappeared with the food, and I sat back smoking a cigarette, collecting my wits.

Then she cross-examined.

"Do you know how I was worried? I waited by the radio, sure any minute a news bulletin would flash your capture."

"You weren't the only one," I said dryly. "They almost got that scoop after I left Menemsha's. Somebody must have recognized me, but I don't see how without a picture."

Kim didn't answer, only tipped the kitchen chair she was sitting on and grabbed another newspaper from the counter. She held it up in front of her face.

"I bought this on the way home from the store. Good likeness, I'd say."

Front page again, only of the Bergen County evening paper. Underneath the caption, "Have you seen this man?" was me. Not a picture, but a drawing, well done by a police artist.

"Good grief," I admitted. "They did do a good job."

"Well, you're here, and that's what counts," Kim said softly, folding the paper again.

"I guess you're right." I looked up and caught her wonderful blue eyes, maybe holding them a moment too long. A little tingle ran through me before she moved her head. It wasn't lust, but a strange tenderness I'd never felt since early days of puppy love. I rattled my head free of such thoughts. Maybe some other time in some other place that tingle could be explored, but not then, not with the mess.

She seemed to catch the same message, for rather briskly she asked, "Where's my car?"

"Your car. Yes. Hmm." I thought for a minute, and suddenly a whole slew of minor points flooded my brain. "Your car is all right, I think."

"You think!"

"Let me finish. But it's going to take Frenchy and you to get it. Call him up and have him come over. I would, only his phone may be tapped."

"But-"

"I'll explain about your car and everything else when he gets here. Something screwy is going on, and I need his opinion as well as yours."

Kim nodded and walked to the phone in the living room and began dialing. "And somehow try to tip him to be careful of being followed," I added.

She brushed the receiver under her hair with a little flip. A couple of seconds went by before Frenchy answered.

"Hello, Frenchy, this is Kim.. .. The trip? Oh, fine.. .. No, Omega didn't have anything else to go south.. .. Well, I thought you might like to drop over; I'm rounding up a little bridge hand this evening and you're my partner if you'd like.. .. Great, then we can expect you.. .. Just the Frankins from across the street.... If you want, though they brought some, and I have plenty.. .. You're damn tootin' that's why I'm having it. I'm scared to be alone since I heard about Sue.. .. Probably not, Frenchy, but just be careful some maniac doesn't follow you to my house. See you soon, good-bye."

She put down the phone and smiled at me. That tingle started again.

"How was I?"

"If I said how great you were, you'd get a swelled head and lose all your hair."

She was mixing a drink as I joined her near the tea wagon.

"For me?" I asked, peering over.

"No, for me. You've had your quota for tonight, buster, after the way you came home."

I scowled threateningly. "Do you dare tell your husband that he can't have a drink? Why, I ought to beat your head in, wench."

Kim laughed. "That sounds terrible. And just like a man. Always threatening, it seems, thinking they can throw any woman around. Bet you're the same way, huh?" She looked at me with a smirk.

"Oh, yes," I answered. "Why, I'm a veritable caveman. If I get an urge during a meal, I'll throw the woman down on the floor. No bed, see. I nibbles on her ears and rips her clothes off. I does it right there."

"Bet you love it that way."

"Naw, it's the same old thing. The only problem is that none of the restaurants will let me back in."

"Oooh," Kim gasped mockingly, "I'd better be careful. Can't push you around." She threw up her hands against my chest as though to ward off my attack.

Her touch started that dratted tingle again, its insistence turning our play into seriousness. We looked at one another, eyes probing fearfully, and suddenly I was overwhelmed with the desire to hold her close.

Kim didn't drop her hands, but moved them around my shoulders as I cupped her chin in my palm. Our lips brushed in a slow, lingering burn. Then my arms were around her, my face muzzling her soft hair. I could have forgotten about the murders, the time running out, everything save the radiant angel I so tightly held.

She clung to me in response. "What's in store now, Mike?" she sighed in a warm, throaty gurgle.

It was like chopping off an arm, but I broke our embrace. "You know the score. Pretty hopeless, I'd say. It wouldn't be fair to you."

Kim lowered her head, hair hiding her face, and slid one palm gently down off my chest and to her side. She turned away brokenly, crossed to a shelf and switched on the portable radio. Some idiot drummer blasted the coup de grace to a mangled waltz, but before the announcer started prattling I had shut it back off. I gazed at Kim, head still bent, and gently touched her shoulder. She cringed. Then, lifting her chin with a finger, I saw she was trembling and teary-eyed.

"I'm not supposed to be like this, Mike. I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize or turn the radio on to hide your feelings."

"But I'm the cold one, didn't you know? Never involved, never hurt. I lead the guys on then leave them in the lurch. And laugh." Her slightly tilted brows and the downcast corners of her mouth seemed to plead.

"Good grief, Kim. We just started something a minute ago, something good and I believe, something we've both been looking for and needing. I only meant that it's a rotten shame it had to happen now, when the chances for anything decent to develop are worse than zero."

She shook her head. "It just seems that this time I got the raw end." A small smile wavered uncertainly. "I'm not used to that."

"We both have the raw end this time."

"You're right. I've been unfair. Truce?"

"Truce." I retrieved her drink and handed it to her. She sat down and took a sip.

Me, I figured I earned a little Scotch, but I never got the chance before the doorbell sounded and PoPo started having his fit again. Kim answered the door as I hid in the kitchen. It was Frenchy.

More drinks were mixed, and we grouped around the couch.

"You promised to tell me where my Triumph is," reminded Kim.

"It's hidden in the garage of a housing development somewhere in Upper Saddle River."

"Oh, is that all," said Frenchy, sarcastically.

"What street?" asked Kim.

"How would I know? All I remember is that it's in the first house built in Paradise Gardens."

"Never heard of it."

"Well, you and Frenchy better go up there tonight and find it before the builders do. Oh, and since the garage door is locked, you'll have to sneak through a window as I did."

"I think you had better tell us what happened today," said Frenchy gravely.

I did, explaining my interview with Menemsha as Peter Breneman of Western Maritime and Life, and the brushoff I'd received.

"Don't blame him, not after all the police and reporters who must have been hounding him. In fact, I imagine that's why you found him home instead of in his office."

"Could be, Frenchy," I admitted. "But there were some peculiar things that just didn't make sense."

"Like what?"

I turned to Kim in answer. "Well, there was somebody who'd come to visit this Menemsha character after I arrived."

"What's peculiar about that?"

"First, he obviously didn't want to be seen by me. He left a barely touched drink in his haste to hide. And second, he was from Associated. One of their parking decals was on his car."

"So somebody from Associated was at Caveat. Menemsha could very well have business with the company. Besides, the man may just have forgotten his drink. Or like a doctor's office, maybe Menemsha cubbyholes each visitor so that they don'i meet and exchange information. Sounds more like a shrewd policy than anything else."

"Maybe," I said. "Nevertheless, do either of you know who from Associated owns a ten-year old Plymouth?"

Nobody did. "But I'll find out if you want," offered Frenchy.

Kim rose and mixed another round and even scrounged up some cheese thins while I related my narrow escape and the ghastly race I'd been suckered into. I tried my best to remember every detail of the steel hangar and the cement hut built in the ground, but between the speed of the jeeps and the wine, my memory was pretty foggy.

"I'd sure like to know what squats underneath those doors," I gritted. "Such things just don't belong where they are."

"Take the trip on your next vacation," snipped Frenchy. "Right now I don't see how you're any closer to finding the murderer. And that was the whole reason for braving Caveat, remember?"

"Good grief, are you both blind?" Frenchy and Kim looked at me, a couple of egos altered. "Take what we know by steps. Susan knew Jocelyn Carstairs. Why?"

"Because Carstairs had a relative in San Francisco she liked to send things. And Sue could take them along free, saving Carstairs time and postage."

"Correct, Kim," I said. "But Mr. Menemsha made a strong point that Miss Carstairs had no relatives outside of Pennsylvania. Since Carstairs cannot be the beginning of the link, as shown by her story about the relatives being false, then she is a go-between. The link extends further and possibly back to the killer."

"That leaves us round-robin, Mike," said Frenchy in exasperation. "If there is the connection, then Miss Carstairs was the only one who really knew why and what she was sending west. And she's not around to ask."

"I beg to differ. Menemsha also knows."

"What?"

"Sure!" I exclaimed. "The housekeeper said as his private secretary Carstairs was constantly with Menemsha, even staying weekends. And you know better than anybody, Frenchy, that when you're tied up in business there is little time left over for anything else."

"And therefore Carstairs wouldn't have many friends, probably not even a boyfriend. Her life would be centered around Menemsha. Ergo, he would have to be either the reason or at least know why she used Sue," concluded Kim.

"Exactly."

"Isn't that stretching a couple of suspicions a bit thin?" asked Frenchy.

"Maybe, but it's logical and, most importantly, the only theory we've come up with."

"Let's assume the line is true, Mike," said Kim, "what of it? How do you plan to clear yourself?"

"Find some physical evidence. I've got to show not only to whom this link is attached, but why, and after that, why Carstairs and Susan had to be killed."

Frenchy crunched on a handful of chips. "You visited Menemsha and got thrown out for your trouble. Where else can you look?"

"Carstairs' apartment."

Kim jerked upright. "You can't! Why that's madness."

"She's right, Mike," agreed Frenchy. "Sheer suicide."

"Possibly. Possibly not. The police may have lost interest in her apartment and left. Then the only problem would be to sneak in unnoticed."

"Only, he says." Frenchy swallowed the rest of his drink and set it down.

"Well, first let's find out if any cops are around. Kim, you're near the phone. Call information for Jocelyn Carstairs' number."

Kim reached over and dialed 411. The number was unlisted. "I bet if I tried Susan's number, we'd know. If there are police in one apartment there'll be some in the other. But what do I say if somebody answers?"

"Ask 'em if Grandmother is home," I suggested.

Grandmother wasn't home. "But the phone didn't ring more than once before the big bad wolf said 'Hello,' " said Kim as she put the receiver down.

I drained my glass. "It hit the fan this time, then. If there was just a guard outside the door, he'd never be able to answer the phone that quickly." I slouched down in thought. "No, they're probably counting on the return-of-the-killer-to-the-scene-of-the-crime cliché. No doubt Carstairs' apartment is bulging with assorted badges, all waiting to see who kills Faron first."

"When Faron foolishly tries to sneak in," Frenchy said. "Well, scrap one idea."

"Nope," I said, "the risk has to be taken. Or have you forgotten that just sitting here gives rne as much chance of clearing myself as of finding fur on a frog."

"So I suppose you'll be going tonight," whispered Kim into her drink.

I stood up and walked slowly toward the glass tea cart. "There's plenty for all of us to do tonight," I said, placing my empty glass on the tray. "Both of you have to find where I dumped the Triumph so Kim can drive it back. We'll take the long way around and drop me near the Car let on Apartments. If I'm caught, I'm no worse off than I was before, and you'll be in the clear."

"I don't like it, Mike," said Frenchy.

"Neither do I, but that doesn't enter into it. We'd better start on our way while people are still moving around in the apartments. I'll be less conspicuous then."

Nothing was said as Kim turned off the lights and locked the front door. We climbed into Frenchy's Ford that Kim had been using and drove off, the tension thicker than greasy kids' stuff.

We turned onto Route 208, then joined in with the highway. I was dropped in the Garden Shopping Center. The stores stayed open until nine, and I was able to blend in with the crowd unnoticed. I hoped.

Before I got out of the car, Kim turned and gave me a little peck on the cheek. For good luck, she said.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The late-summer night was balmy, almost as balmy as I must have seemed to Kim and Frenchy.

Before tackling Carstairs' apartment, I figured I'd need some equipment. I walked across the parking lot and into Newberry's. A pre-weekend pressure of women jostled and bumped through the aisles, poking and babbling. I felt like a hippopotamus squeezing into a bargain basement sleeping bag, but at last I was able to catch my breath in the hardware department. I scrounged up a linoleum knife and a coil of clothesline. The housewares department was worse, and after tripping a saleslady, I purchased a pair of Playtex dishwashing gloves. The very thin rubber type that are advertised as being able to let you pick up a dime. That's if you ever drop a dime in the dishwater.

The novelty item I needed was harder to locate, but after wandering around the mall, I found a trick shop called the Devil's Den, cubbyholed between a health-food bar and Grinion's Art Shoppe. The bearded old goat behind the counter took such glee from selling an especially loud whiz-bang bomb, that I suspected he had cloven hooves. His eyes sparkled with fire as he predicted the horrendous whistle and boom and the billows of smoke the bomb would belch the moment somebody tried to start his car.

I clutched my little packages and shivered away. The Carleton connected to the shopping center by a couple of back roads, and after skirting a drive-in theater, I hopped a hedge and paused, tense and wary, by the rear of the apartment building.

A little above my left stretched the building's fire escape, starting with a ladder looped over the roof to the sixth floor landing, then zigzagging in iron framework down to the second story. A hinged section that connected the escape to the ground hung in the air by a pulley arrangement. Anybody wanting to go down would step on the balanced steps and would descend-with an awful clatter, I imagined-but sneaky people like me couldn't climb up.

Without breaking glass or crashing through locked doors, the only other means of entering would be through the lobby. That idea appealed to me so much I gagged.

I started tiptoeing toward the side but decided all my slinking was a waste of energy. It was anything but peaceful around me. The shopping center and highway traffic almost dulled the appassionata at the next-door drive-in. And the vicarious violence of the televisions blaring from most of the windows above was loud enough to drive tanks through unnoticed.

A driveway ran between the Carleton and its sister, the Bridgeport, the rear parking lots of both apartments feeding off the one road. I walked as nonchalantly as possible along its sidewalk until I reached the front corner. I stepped back into the shadows, waiting.

Minutes dragged by. A few people came and went, two dowagers hobbled down to the end of the walk, turned around and teetered back to the lobby. Their evening constitutional. A Mustang roared along the drive then turned onto my little road. I froze against the brick as its headlights swept past and turned toward the Bridgeport.

I settled down for a wait and cupped a lit cigarette. Then a taxi drove up and deposited five men on the walkway. I timed the distance so when the driver had been paid and they had walked to the lobby entrance, six men entered. Shuffling among them I hoped Mrs. Schultz had finished her bottle of milk and had passed out.

The group of us made the elevator, but it was in use and took its merry time descending. It made more stops than a milkman in a red-light district. Then after the doors did open and we filled the car, one of the men thought of his mail. He couldn't have remembered to check while we were waiting, oh, no. That would have been too easy.

So the elevator was held open as he crossed the lobby to his little metal box that sat with the others along one wall. Being the last one in and having to face front, I stood open to view. The sweat trickled down my whole body as that idiot fumbled with the mailbox's combination and missed, then twiddled the dial again. There was nothing inside. He slammed the box shut and sauntered back.

The elevator started to close automatically once the man rejoined his pals. The last glimpse I saw as the rubber guards of the doors came together was Mrs. Schultz coming in the entrance, waving her umbrella at us to wait. Such a shame that my hand slipped and hit the elevator's "close" button instead of the "open."

The quintet decided to have a drink on the third. They got off, and I pushed the fifth floor button.

The elevator doors closed and I was alone. Near the control panel hung a phone which, according to the card printed beside it, was to be used only in case of an emergency. A twenty-four-hour answering service was permanently attached on the other end and would send help immediately if the elevator became stuck.

I cut the telephone cord with the linoleum knife, both at the receiver and the phone itself. A cord hanging down would be seen immediately; chances were that no cord at all would be less conspicuous to the casual eye.

Once on the fifth floor, I threw the cord into a corner and used the back stairs to the fourth. Very gingerly peeked out the door down the hall. Lieutenant Ducatto had mentioned Miss Carstairs lived in 424, and since I doubted the floor plans were much different from the sixth floor on the fourth, the woman's apartment would be in clear view.

The hall was empty.

I silently relatched the door and scampered up the two flights to the sixth. Sue's apartment was around a corner, so after making sure the hall was empty, I braved the walk to where I could see her door. The lonesome stretch of carpet was deserted. Quiet.

I snuck back to the stairs and sat down on the top step, quivering. The stench of hunter and hunted intoxicated the air. But there was not time to knock knees or chatter teeth. I opened the door again. After looking to make sure I was still alone, I climbed on the knob facing the hallway and jumped. Two good pouncings and the handle bent, jammed, making it impossible for anyone on the sixth floor to open the door and use the stairs or fire escape once I closed it again.

The last flight of steps led to the roof. There was the usual clutter of ventilators and pipes, but what I'd come for rose against the apartment's chimney. The master antenna, which supplied the signal to all the tenants' boob tubes. With as many sets as there were using the antenna, a booster would be needed to amplify the incoming signal, and sure enough, a metal box the size of a telephone clung near the base of the pole. From there the lead-in cable fed into a conduit and disappeared into the building.

I cut the cable between the booster and the pipe.

Hoo boy, was it quiet all of a sudden.

Not for long. All over the building people started cursing their sets or wondering what the ding-dong was going on right when the exciting part had come. The howl could be heard on the roof, and I bet the manager sure had his ear bent all of a sudden.

I ducked down the stairs again two at a time until I hit the basement. The back door, locked only from the outside, let me into the parking lot. I wedged open the door so I could get back in. Then I ran around the side of the building and stood in the shadows again.

The wait this time was short. The public will put up for many inconveniences, from surly salespeople to corrupt government. Our economy could crumble, our enemies could take over the world, another Ice Age could come and go without wrinkling the interest of most. But let anything happen to their pablum-their daily diet from the idiot box-and woe be to those in power. Rome had something in providing games to amuse the populace, keeping them occupied with frivolities. Television was America's Circus Maximus.

The emperor of the Carleton commanded the games must continue, so it wasn't more than a few minutes before a green panel truck from Argonaut Radio and TV Co. stormed up the drive to see that they did. I ran out whistling and hooting, waving my arms to attract the repairman's attention. He slowed and I motioned for him to pull up the road to the parking lot.

Thinking that's where the problem was, he turned and roared around back where I met him a couple of seconds later on a trot.

I told him the trouble was in the basement. He picked up his tool kit and followed me through the back door. I pointed ahead of me, he took a couple of steps forward, and I judo-chopped his neck. There was a dull plop as he hit the cement, his hat rolling off and into a corner.

I stripped him and put on his uniform. He was taller and fatter than I, but the clothes stayed on. Dragging him into the furnace room by his arms I tied him to a duct with the clothesline and used his undershirt as a gag.

Apartment 424 lay to the rear of the building, almost at the far end, so I had to move the repair truck to another parking place closer to the appropriate windows. I put on the Playtex gloves so as not to leave prints. It took about three minutes to attach the two wires of the whiz-bang to the spark plugs, and for good measure I left the silver-and-red-striped cylinder of the bomb outside the hood. I touched the ignition key and a low whistle started. I didn't stick around for the fun but tore for the basement. The shrill whistle grew in volume and tone, higher and higher until it ended in a magnificent explosion. The bomb was everything the salesman had said-it blew with a whomp that rattled the pipes. I was almost sorry I hadn't stayed to see the smoke.

Instead I stood next to the elevator controls. The cage with the motor and gears was in a depression underneath me, and suddenly everything seemed to lose its mind. By the flashing lights above its door in the basement I watched as the elevator roared between the panicked floors. The control board relays chattered worse than ladies' day at the races as buttons were pushed and pushed again. My one dread was that it would stop at the sixth floor before the fourth, but it didn't. After stopping on the fifth, it dropped to the fourth. The motor and drum snarled, signaling it had left the fourth floor. I counted five and yanked the main power switch.

The elevator stopped. Dead, In between floors. With, I hoped, the entire squad of police from Miss Carstairs' apartment trapped inside.

With the sixth floor unable to use either the elevator or the jammed back door, the policemen in Susan's apartment would also be stuck. And with the general pandemonium of no television or elevator and the big explosion and clouds of smoke, I figured I'd have a few minutes to search Carstairs' rooms and disappear.

I ran up the back steps with the repairman's tool kit in hand and wearing his uniform, brushing past people who'd also thought of the staircase. The door to 424 was wide open, as were many others, and I stomped in, shutting it behind me. I turned around to the room inside, and faced a cop staring straight at me, gun drawn.

My stomach sank faster than the Bismarck. I solidified on the spot, tool kit in hand.

"Whatcha doing in here, buddy?"

"Television. S-sets on the blink all through the building."

"Oh, yeah," mumbled the cop, holstering his revolver, "heard the ruckus when they went off a couple of minutes ago."

I stepped toward the policeman. "What was the big noise just now?" I thumbed toward the door.

"Damned if I know."

"Aren't you going to find out?" I asked hopefully.

"The others left to check on it. Should be back soon." He turned and sat down in a chair that had been twisted to face the door head on. "Better leave, buddy. We're waiting for somebody to show, and it could be sort of messy if he comes."

"But the television-"

"Wasn't on, buddy."

"Doesn't matter, I'm afraid. There's a short somewhere in the main antenna line, and I have to trace it down by apartment. I'll only be a minute." I crossed my toes, hoping blue boy here didn't know much about television circuitry.

"I dunno." He thought a heavy thought. "Make it quick, though."

"Right," I smiled, and crossed to the small portable perched on a desk. I turned on the set and let it warm up. Being new, the tube lit up almost immediately.

With no picture.

"See?" I demonstrated. The cop was impressed.

I pulled the cord where it was attached to the rear of the set and unscrewed the backing plate. Then plugged the cord back in. The tubes lit, and I banged around inside the mess a bit.

"You could be a great help, officer, and save me some time."

"Yeah, how?"

"Just watch the picture and tell me if it clears up. I have to locate the short and will be in the next room. That way I won't have to keep running back to check."

"Now that sounds logical," conceded the cop and moved his chair over so he could watch the screen.

"Thanks," I said and stepped into the bedroom, shutting the door. The room was small with only the furnishings the apartment house provided. The bed was still unmade, a shambles of sheets and a fawn-colored bedspread. A walnut dresser stood next to the casement window. The mirror above it reflected a multitude of little perfume vials and hair spray, and a garter belt clung to one end precariously. A quick look in the top three drawers only showed the usual bras and sweaters, but the bottom drawer held evidence there was a man in her life. Unless she preferred wearing jockey shorts and tee shirts. There were even a couple of laundered shirts and a few pairs of socks.

"Anything yet?" I yelled.

"Nothing so far."

The closet held clothes, mostly hers, of expensive cuts and labels, but slacks and sport coats also hung in a row. And one grey tweed suit with a small burn hole near the jacket pocket. The suitcases piled on the top shelf held nothing except a pair of moldy sneakers stuck together by their soles.

The bathroom also showed signs of a man, with Aqua Velva and a half-used wooden bowl of shaving lather next to a Lady Remington. A leather sharpening strop hung on a hook next to the toilet, and a pair of nylons were draped over the glass shower enclosure. Quite a domestic scene.

"Doesn't seem to be in there," I said cheerfully as I joined the policeman in the living room. "I'll check in here now. Help me move the set."

"But-"

"Can't let the ozone trap interfere with the split carrier waves," I explained as I unplugged the set and carried it into the bedroom and set it on the floor.

"Wonder what happened to Ducatto and Munsen," he mumbled, following me.

"Who?"

"The others. They've been gone a long time."

Good grief. I'd trapped the lieutenant himself. A clammy chill rippled through me, but I managed to smile weakly. "Well, I wouldn't worry if I were you. They'll be back soon, no doubt," I assured him. Yeah, no doubt they would.

"Guess so." He settled down on the edge of the bed and glued himself to the screen.

"Yell if the picture comes in." I closed the door again. The room got a thorough ransacking. I upended drawers, scattering bills and papers all over, but beyond personal correspondence to her family in Wilkes-Barre and bits and pieces of Menemsha's business dealings, there was nothing.

No lead to the man. No love letters, no address books, no nothing.

My few minutes were about gone. I clipped my tool box together again and started toward the apartment door.

"Don't move," I cautioned the cop in the bedroom, "think I've just about got it."

Then I ducked out and raced down the hall toward the fire escape. The night air chilled some of my heat as I clambered down the steps. The balanced section swung with the screeching rumble I had thought it would make, but I hit the ground safely. The section flew back into position with a clanking crash that trembled the iron.

Smoke and people hung heavily in the back lot as I made my sudden drop. Men in opened shirts, many with ties loose, jowled at each other while their women folk shook their heads as they pooled their ignorance. The belching truck lost attention as I strode through, a knowledgeable air frowned on my face. With the uniform and a look of control, nobody questioned my peculiar descent, taking for granted I knew what I was up to.

I did. The basement door was still jimmied open, and the crowds let me pass through. I latched it behind me, then ran to the still unconscious repairman. I didn't bother to reclothe him, but left his stuff nearby and dressed hurriedly. Then rejoining the mob, who took little notice of just another somebody, I jumped the hedge and fled past the theater back toward the shopping center.

With no watch, I was uncertain of the time, but I guessed the whole episode took all of fifteen minutes. Twenty at the most. My timing depended on seconds, not minutes, and the crazy caper had succeeded. Miss Carstairs' apartment had been searched.

A small drizzle cooled the hot night and dropped the humidity some. If all that happened was a few wet hairs, I'd feel mighty lucky. But the thought of finding nothing nagged worse than a shrew. That link had to be someplace, or was I merely fooling myself? Or was the fact I had found nothing a clue?

I mulled over the problem as I waited for a bus at the shopping center. Any bus, the first one along. It happened to be one heading toward New York City via the Lincoln Tunnel. As I jounced along I rattled different possibilities around with no success, yet damn it, I knew I was staring something in the face. The lack of evidence screamed suspicion louder than a packet of scarlet love letters.

At East Rutherford I traded the bus seat for a diner booth and ordered coffee. Then I tried phoning Kim. Nobody answered for a while, but after about an hour a rather breathless hello gushed out of the receiver.

"Whew, Mike," Kim wheezed, after I'd said hello, "I ran all the way in from the car. I just got back."

"Well don't take off your coat, but come and get me. I'm in East Rutherford. Know where that is?"

"East Rutherford?" was the shocked reply. "What are you doing there?"

"Never mind, just come and get me. I'm at the Triangle Diner on Paterson Plank Road and about to die."

A strangled gasp sobbed through the line. "Are you hurt bad, Mike?"

"No, it's just that this coffee is the worst stuff I've ever tasted, and I hate to think what it's doing to my insides."

I hung up, ordered another cup of poison and waited. Pretty soon the door slid open and Kim stepped in, clutching a light clear raincoat around her throat. She hurriedly looked around, then smiled as she saw my beckoning hand. I paid my bill and joined her.

We walked along the side until we reached the Ford then, as I reached to open the door, Kim clutched my arm and hugged herself close to me. "Oh, God," she smiled, "Am I glad to see you."

"Same here, kitten," I whispered. "Hey! I brought a present for you."

She opened the sack. "A linoleum knife and- what's this? Playtex gloves turned inside out. Just what I've always needed."

We headed back to her house in the Ford, Kim driving the back roads skillfully. "Frenchy's car, huh," I asked. "Didn't you find the Triumph?"

"With some trouble, I might say. But Frenchy figured it would be safer if he took my car. We passed through three road blocks all looking for it."

"Road blocks?"

"Uh-huh. But they couldn't prove the car was the one you had used, and I could prove it belonged to me. But Frenchy still felt he should trade, and he took the Triumph home with him."

"Frenchy isn't over at your place then?"

She smiled an elusive dazzle across to me. "No, he said he still had a business to run in spite of you, but to call if we needed anything."

I grinned back. "Nothing we can't handle alone."

"Hush up, Mike. A truce, remember?" She turned her interest back to the wheel.

Some men feel deprived of their virility when women drive, but not me: I settled in the cushions and relaxed.

"I can't stand it!" she exploded after some silence. "What happened?"

"Curious, huh?" I egged.

"I swore I wouldn't ask," groaned Kim, "but I give up."

Recanting the siege of apartment 424 took the rest of the trip, and Kim's reaction as we parked in her driveway was one of horror.

"I need a drink," she said.

The house was dark. She unlatched the door and we stepped in, and I heard her fumbling for the lights. I reached out my hand and touched her side. She stiffened in shock and gasped. "You scared me," she cried, turning tame. She buried her head in my chest; I rubbed her back, trying to calm and comfort.

"It's been hell." I sighed. "Hasn't it?" I started to pull away, but she clung harder.

"Please don't go. Stay, Mike, stay with me." She nuzzled me a bit more, whimpering slowly, then looked up. Slowly our heads touched, our lips meeting in embrace.

We made it to her bedroom without turning on any lights, her hand clutching mine. I stubbed my toe only once.

"Just the small lamp there," whispered Kim. I fumbled around until I poked the button and a soft glow etched the walls.

I sat down on the edge of the bed and stretched my hands around my neck. "Didn't you remind me of a truce?" I jeered.

"Sudden attack of amnesia," she smiled back. "Happens all the time."

I stared at her, this creature of creamy white, delicate pink and golden beauty. My voice was husky.

"Take off your dress."

"No."

I almost choked. "Why?"

"Can't reach the zipper."

She turned her back to me. Zip. I reached up one feeble claw and the wrap slid from around her. A couple more minutes and she stood there with just a smile, unashamed and, bless her, unadomed. "I want you," she murmured bending over me, her ringer stroking my cheek. I ran my fingers through the. golden wheat of her hair, and she knelt all the way, throwing us onto the bed, her breasts pressed against my chest. My hand caressed her bare shoulders and back down to the roundness of her thighs. I cupped the other hand under one soft mound of breast and felt her shiver with desire.

CHAPTER EIGHT

I awoke about midnight, pooped. Kim breathed softly beside me, a smile gently puckering her lips, her hair splashing the pillow wantonly.

Rolling over, I slid off the bed carefully so as not to wake her and dressed. The search for the Ford's keys took longer, but I found them in a side pocket of her purse. Hurriedly I scrawled a note on her grocery list and propped it against my pillow. I tiptoed out of the house, hoping that blasted mutt in the basement wouldn't let out a holler. After coasting the Ford from her driveway to the street, I chugged off as quietly as possible. The rain piddled in little spurts, almost stopped.

The package of cigarettes was well crushed in my coat pocket, the coat having been mashed with the rest of my clothes dumped on the floor, and I flipped around for an unbroken one. I found a well dented but smokeable one and lit it. I drove and thought.

Menemsha was my baby. The trip to Carstairs' apartment clinched my suspicions tighter than a stripper's G-string. The secretary had a man, but a man who left no mementos, nothing to show he existed in her social life beyond the fact that he changed clothes in her apartment. The secretary also had enough of that man to keep her occupied whenever business didn't. Only one person could fit that image. The boss himself. Alex Menemsha. "It wasn't uncommon for her to stay the weekend," the housekeeper had said. I bet.

Caveat was about to be invaded again. And for about the same reason Carstairs' apartment had been gone over-to see what I could see.

Not wanting to bother Saddle River and its gendarmes again, I took a more southerly route, consequently meandered around lost without any trouble. At last I found Chestnut Ridge Road and the iron gate.

The boys had sprung the large old fashioned lock so that only a shrug against the bars would open the latch. It felt like the beginning of Inner Sanctum with the squeaky hinges protesting through the night air. I backed the Ford in and around the first little bend of the trail, so as not to be noticeable from the road. Then I closed the gate and started down the trail, a lot slower this time. I Wanted to walk the rest of the distance, hoping for an element of surprise the sound of the car would lose. No moon showed; if there was one it was well hidden by the overcast jungle. I stumbled a few times as the road twisted and dipped treacherously, and I slopped my feet in some water-filled holes unseen in the forest's darkness. The trees loomed black and tangled, the brush impenetrable.

Crickets were submerged in the distance, rubbing their legs together. An owl gave an occasional mournful hoot.

I slid down the last bend and crept into the clearing. The pillbox was silhouetted against the grimy grey of the forest beyond. I crossed into the tall grass surrounding the steel doors and crouched momentarily, not sure exactly how I was going to be heroic. I decided the sneaky approach was called for.

Without crossing the metal, my route lay through the heavy undergrowth. I fought my way around to the rear of the cement house, the thorny shrubs and vines tangled with weeds. A pants leg ripped, and my hands began smarting from the scratches.

My carefulness was unneeded, for when I reached the sunken concrete hump, I realized nobody could be watching. The round blockhouse was all of nine feet in diameter with no windows or slits, but only a tiny ventilating shaft mounted above. On the side away from the steel platform a door sat at the foot of a short flight of steps. The door was encased in metal, but not especially massive and most oddly was unlocked. It clicked open on smooth, oiled hinges.

I stepped onto a steel deck which began a curved staircase leading to blackness below. I cursed myself for forgetting a flashlight. Heel-and-toeing, I descended, my steps echoing in the tower. If there was anybody down there, they knew by now that I was coming. At the bottom was another door similar to the first, and after fumbling for the knob I opened it and brilliant light hit my face.

A concrete tunnel stretched to my left, but on my right stretched the room underneath the steel hangar doors.

I'm not an engineer-electrical, mechanical, train, or otherwise. What I know of computers and electronic gadgets could be sneezed away, but my :eyes bugged at the rig in front of me. Thirty feet up the slab doors were bound by the intricate mechanism used to open them. Beneath them and directly in front of me a huge square platform squatted, resting on a nest of hydraulic pumps and arm assemblies. Obviously, when the doors opened the platform could be raised to ground level. A round, bowl-shaped thing perched on the platform by a turntable arrangement so it could turn around or tilt in any direction. Whatever it did, it stood upright at the moment, bottom rim resting against the turntable. It reminded me of a cereal dish balanced on a lazy susan.

At first I thought this was a radar beacon, but it was deeper than the few I'd seen, and without the normal grid effect on the inside surface. Instead the bowl was smooth, shaped more like a loudspeaker, with a metal extrusion attached horizontally across the rim. In its middle a pockmarked bulb turned toward the center.

I gave out a soft whistle and turned to the glass-enclosed control room. The door in the partition was locked, but peering through the glass I drooled. I'm a sucker for science fiction films-the worse the better-but I couldn't tell a phony piece of mad scientists' equipment from a genuine one. The setup inside had all the earmarks of a grade Z horror movie.

The room was slightly oval, maybe twenty feet across at the longest point, with built-in control panels full of switches, cathode ray screens, and things that go blink in the night. The rounded control center faced the computers, a modern free-form chair in front of it, and I imagined all the fun I could have directing the machinery. Off to one side sat two more monsters, one in back of the other, but totally sealed in their metal skins. Just to make sure nothing was left out, the other end had some equipment that looked like Marconi's first attempts, and a few smaller machines were grouped around a regular desk and chair. There wasn't a sound except the purr of some hidden ventilators and the subconscious undertone of mammoth power.

The tunnel led to Menemsha's house, no doubt, but the distance was great enough so that its far end faded from my view. I passed the door which led up the stairs to ground level, and tried the two directly opposite it. One held filing cabinets, which, while interesting to some, held nothing but gobbledegook for me. The other small room contained a large gasoline generator with its exhaust pipe disappearing upwards through the ceiling.

I could see why Menemsha owned the golf cart.

The tunnel was long. And the scenery wasn't too spectacular, either, for besides the two extra doors, nothing broke the monotony of concrete block and tile floor. Flood lamps were embossed in the ceiling every few yards, leaving no shadows, no hiding cranny. If some slob happened to bounce my way, one good yell and no telling what size army would come crawling.

Occasionally I stopped, listening, hardly breathing in an effort to tell whether I'd been spotted. The sickening realization that I'd stumbled onto more than I'd originally bargained for trembled inside, and the simple scouting of Menemsha's estate had suddenly turned into a giant nightmare. I felt empty, alone, with only my two hands as weapons, defeated without yet facing the enemy.

The smart move would be to sneak out the way I had come and plead mercy at Ducatto's feet. but then I thought of the fever Silk City's finest must be convulsed in at the moment, itching to get their collective hands around my throat. I decided to try another step down the hall.

A definite slant upwards forewarned me of the approaching end of the tunnel. The walls curved for the first time, and a ramp shot upward to a regular house-type door. The ramp surface was hedged with asphalt strips for traction.

I gripped the knob and flattened my ear against the door. Nothing moved on the other side. Slowly turning the handle, I unlatched the door and stepped silently into the hallway of Menemsha's house. Across from me was his master study, and the door next to mine I remembered as leading to the living room.

Muffled voices rumbled from the study, just below understanding level. I chanced a step across and crouched near the door.

A man spoke urgently, an excited pitch to his voice. I knew that voice, it was familiar, but from where? I couldn't remember, damn it. I concentrated on the conversation.

".. . all theory. Remember what happened to Dr. Ursula when the first batch exploded."

"I remember the report," answered Menemsha.

"The chemical is highly unstable, especially when its molecular balance has been warped as we have done in solidifying it."

"You said yourself under normal conditions it is safe. Only the extremes of heat cause it to explode."

"God, Alex, but on paper! Only on paper! The actual critical limit is unknown. We've barely been able to judge its potential power. Roughly twenty times as powerful as cesium or ion fuels."

"Ah, ah, all this I know," answered Menemsha wearily. "The fact still remains I must take the risk. I don't plan to bake a cake with it, you realize, only carry it with me aboard a plane."

"But--"

"There are no buts. Our plans were approved long ago, and the arguments battled out then. In any case, since the other steps have been taken to assure complete success, and only two factors remain to be handled I would venture to say it is too late to stop."

The creak of Menemsha's swivel chair broke the conversation, and I heard the click of a lighter.

"No, you shall hold the meeting tomorrow as planned, and I shall take my business trip right on schedule. You are afraid; I can see it. Well, to be truthful, so am I. This is by far the most crucial project we've ever handled and the most complicated. But"-and here Menemsha paused for emphasis-"but it is also the key to success."

"You are right. I will sleep easier after tomorrow and your safe return, though." Somebody shuffled as though standing up, and I figured the time had come for me to slip back through the other door. I straightened up, stepping back as I did so ... and then I really straightened up as I felt the pressure of a pistol’s muzzle in my back.

"Come up slowly," a voice hissed. "I'll blow your head clean off if you try anything."

I twisted around and faced the gardener, a nasty .45 in one paw. His indentation glowed white in anger, and no, he hadn't been standing on a box. He was a foot taller than I. Closer now, I could see his chin and throat were puckered from burns and wounds, and half his right ear was missing. The back of his right hand, bunched with the automatic, appeared scarred with deep cuts. He gave the impression of having been butchered by a mob of knives and machetes, and living through it.

"I don't know what you're doing here, but it was a mistake," he snarled, still in a whisper. "Now turn and face the wall. Put your hands against it. That's right." I leaned over in that awkward position and, placing his left foot in front of mine, he frisked me down clean and saw I wasn't carrying anything more dangerous than fingernail clippers.

"Don't you have weeds or worms or something to see to? Aren't I holding you up from your gardening?"

"Yeah, come to think of it, you are," he answered. "Maybe I oughtta take care of that right now. Beddy-bye, mister." The lightning hit hard and fast as his gun butt came crashing, and I caught a glimpse of floor on the way down. Then I was rudely revolved and a moon of knuckles came up to meet my exposed chin, and everything became grey, then black like deep water, and a silent wave closed over me.

CHAPTER NINE

Armies of elephants driving tanks passed between my ears and my eyes cleared the throbbing darkness to musty mirages. Deep down the thought rumbled that I'd not been killed; I was still alive, but I didn't think it was for my health.

I blinked with sudden consciousness and sensed a bed under me. Waves of shock hit, and I rolled my head to one side and retched violently, a common reaction to being knocked out. What wasn't common was the porcelain bowl held under my mouth.

After I had finished and lain back weakly I saw it was the Eurasian housekeeper who had served me. She neither smiled nor wrinkled in distaste, but only put the bowl to one side and wiped my mouth with a washcloth. Standing, she said, "Mr. Menemsha will be pleased to know you are conscious." Then she disappeared, bowl and all.

A scarlet bedspread covered me. I flipped the spread to one side after a moment's rest and gingerly tried my feet. I teetered, tottered against the bed, then steadied myself for a moment, trying to stop my head from rattling faster than a tennis ball at Wimbledon.

The room was small and square, the only furniture a heavy baroque table and chair shoved unimaginatively against the bed. A small milk-glass lamp with teddy bears running around its shade cast the only light from the desk. Otherwise the room consisted of the walnut paneling Menemsha seemed to love. Not even a window broke the dungeon effect.

I sat back down on the edge of the bed and fumbled for a cigarette. Not an unbroken one in the pack. Minutes later the knob across the room unlocked and the gardener jerked the door wide, a submachine gun leveled at my chest. He grinned horribly and moved aside as Menemsha climbed out of the golf cart in the hall and strolled in.

He made a gesture with his left hand and said, "Stay by the door, Spider." Menemsha advanced to the chair and sat down, crossing one leg over the other. The gardener leaned against the door, arms locked around his chopper.

Menemsha turned his attention to me.

"Good morning, Mr. Faron." The expression on his face was like he'd just told a dirty joke to himself. And enjoyed it.

"You fooled me yesterday," he continued, "that makes you clever. Returning here wasn't."

"Not much choice about the matter," I mumbled.

Menemsha sighed and pulled his ear. "True enough," he conceded. "With the police after you for murder your only choice would be to find who actually did kill those lovely girls."

"And I have."

"Yes and no. I admit I was the one who decided their usefulness had ended and their being alive a threat."

"That's why my throat isn't already cut?" I asked sarcastically.

The man seemed to shudder. "Can't stand the sight of blood. Spider will do the job in a little while, though, but he won't cut your throat. You will be shot."

"Why not now?"

"Matter of timing. There might be too much explaining to do if you're caught trespassing at this hour of the night. In a couple of hours it will be dawn, and then Spider will be taking the trash to the incinerator. The neighbors will hear the blast from a shotgun, and the local police will be satisfied it was the only thing he could do."

"Won't that interfere with your trip?"

"My trip? Oh, yes, you were caught listening at the door. No, I doubt it."

I couldn't think of an appropriate comment on that one, so I let it pass. "Do you have a cigarette?"

"Afraid not. I don't smoke."

"Not one for small vices, are you? Just seem to save up for the big ones."

He chuckled. "Depends on your point of view, I suppose."

"Why were the girls killed?" I asked.

"You're a rather smart man. I'm surprised you don't understand."

"I do know you'd have cleaner hands washing in lampblack," I replied bluntly. "And as your personal secretary, Carstairs would be in with you. But I don't see how Susan McMann fits in, unless----"

"Exactly. What better way to transport secrets than by someone the government knows is in the business. If papers were missing, the authorities would become suspicious. But adding a few ...?" He shrugged his shoulders as an explanation. "Of course, now that the project has been completed, the traces needed to be covered."

"She was only a patsy, a dupe," I cried. "Murdered in cold blood, not knowing why."

"What of it? She could have suspected something later, added two and two, and I plan to continue here for some time to come. No, she had to go. All leads cut, so to speak."

"Cut ruthlessly." I stood up and paced the enclosure. Menemsha's eyes followed me, and Spider tensed in awareness. "Russia certainly must be paying you well," I ventured, "that fuel must be very important."

"Pshaw, of some value to them, but not that much. Certainly you recall just before Khrushchev's ousting, the wild reports of a new Soviet weapon. An ultimate bomb of gigantic size." Menemsha's body relaxed as he savored his words. "The emphasis in both America's and Russia's programs has been on bulk. Huge rockets in fixed installations."

"The Minuteman, among others, can be launched in seconds."

"True. Nevertheless, their silos are complex and permanent. For every ICBM here, there's a sister ICBM in Russia. That's all very well with early warning detection systems like the DEW line and bouncing radar, but there are some who live too close for the earliest and fastest of systems to give them time to launch. Nor do they have the resources to build such a giant program."

"The Chinese," I croaked.

Menemsha stroked that damnable lobe. "On this particular venture," he consented. "Sell to the highest bidder. A noble American virtue I learned early. Obviously they would require a rocket that is highly mobile and instantaneously launchable. Until recently nothing existed to fill this need, but last year Associated Electronics Industries stumbled upon a new liquid fuel which could be solidified. I don't even know how this fantastic compound works," he admitted, "but for the past few months I've been delivering what tidbits I could get via your little carrier pigeon. From what I gather this fuel will propel the same hydrogen-bomb payload as the NIKE-X in a rocket one-fifth its size and one-tenth its weight."

My mind trembled with the implications of this secret. A tenth of two hundred tons. Twenty tons of destruction, capable of wiping a hundred mile area clean, that would be easily hidden in a ship or train, or even a heavy truck. "And being solid fuel, it would be instantly fired to boot."

I shook my head in disbelief. "Even with this fuel," I argued, "your playmates don't possess the carrier potential to drop bug spray, much less to shoot rockets."

"Maybe not this year, nor in the next ten. The fuel isn't in the operational stage in any case. A great deal of development will be needed to make it practical."

I recalled overhearing of the dangerous instability of the formula and the fear of transporting it. "Then why the fanatic desire?" I asked.

"An investment in the future," answered Menemsha smoothly, as though explaining patiently to a child. "Rockets are pawns in politics between the advanced powers, but in China's ambitions they matter little at this point. In fact, there is propaganda value in pointing to the white man's superiority. Many Asians still believe Japan was A-bombed instead of Germany because the Japanese are yellow skinned. China used infiltration, the 'People's liberation wars,' to gain control, and, you will see if you study the last decade, obtained phenomenal results. Need I mention the recent Radio Peiping call for the formation of internal revolutionary fronts in Thailand, Malaysia, and a couple of other countries? In another decade all of Asia will inevitably be a Chinese empire."

"I still don't see the need-"

"Are you blind, man?" Menemsha shot forward and pointed a finger in emphasis. "The empire, a Third Power, will need strength. Massive strength such as this fuel can offer. And by that time, thanks to the scientists so finely trained by America and Russia, they shall have it, with the relatively small carrier system needed to use it."

"So what? We still have the fuel ourselves. Your visitor said he was attending a meeting this morning."

"Possibly you didn't hear me correctly, Mr. Faron. The danger of leaving ends undone forces decisions upon me I otherwise would not make. A fluke discovered it and, after today, no one will be able to produce this fuel except the Chinese. That was part of the bargain."

With a flash I understood his threat. The meeting would somehow become an annihilation of our country's minds and materiel behind this research. The thought of such knowledge solely in the hands of the yellow horde chilled my bone marrow. But I tried not to show it. Instead I smugly pulled my ace in the hole.

"I may die, Menemsha. I probably will, in fact. But you will fail. Friends know where I am, and if I haven't reported to them by this morning, it will be your end."

Menemsha bowed his head slightly and faintly smiled. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a little slip of paper. The paper looked very familiar. "Let's see," he began, tweaking his ear again, " 'eggs, butter, meat, loaf of bread, celery' and 'My darling, if I haven't returned by six, call the F.B.I, and tell them I'm at Menemsha's. Don't be afraid, but give them all the information about the metal doors and my suspicions about something funny going on there. Love, Mike.'" He looked up, nothing sinister in his voice. But then there didn't need to be with my note to Kim in his hand. He'd won the pot, and I didn't doubt I'd have to pay. "Lovely sentiment, don't you think, Spider?"

Menemsha might have asked a radiator. Spider didn't move a muscle. Until I lunged at Menemsha. I tried to smash the fiend, to maim, to kill, but on my second step Spider closed over my shoulder with a grimy claw and wrenched my arm off. Then he stuck it back on again with greater agony. I swung blindly and missed with my one good arm, turning my head until my nose was Stuck up the snoot of Spider's weapon. That stopped me cold. There are some things I will argue against; a submachine gun is not one of them.

"Where is Kim," I hissed. "Did you kill her, too, Menemsha?"

"Oh, no, she's alive. If you will promise to stop your silly antics, I'll have Spider fetch your little woman."

I nodded numbly, and Spider left the room, returning moments later holding Kim. He had to or she would have fallen. She wore her bathrobe, but I doubted anything else, and her bare feet trailed on the floor. Her hair hung down uncombed, but otherwise she didn't show any signs of abuse. Her eyes had lost their special glisten, and only a weak smile showed she even recognized me. Then Spider closed the door again and returned Kim to wherever she had been.

"You see, she's alive."

"But for how long?" I seethed.

"Hmm, Spider seems interested in her, so it may be a while."

As the door opened again, Menemsha stood up and walked past Spider to his cart. "This is the last we will see of each other, Mr. Faron. I'm sorry your brashness had to end our acquaintanceship with so much tragedy."

I cursed him foully under my breath. Spider started closing the door, sealing my coming fate like a man on death row, when Menemsha added, "Oh, yes, I'll have the housekeeper send you cigarettes, since you seem to require them. That's the least I can do." He pulled his ear, the door shut, and I heard him swish away, laughing at his little joke.

I tried the door for lack of something better to do, but it was secure. Sitting back down on the edge of the bed, I figured my chances of escape.

Hoo, boy. I had seen a master sleuth on a television rerun the week before locked in a room like this. He was out by the second commercial. With that in mind I crossed the room, unplugged the lamp and ripped the cord out of its base. Yes, this was how the TV detective had done it. By taking a handy pitcher of water and making a puddle in front of the door, then stripping the lamp cord's wires and placing one around the door handle and the other in the water, he had been able to give quite a jolt to the gangster coming in. No problem to it. Works every time, I thought, but, uh-not a drop of water in my room. Besides, there wasn't even an electrical socket near the door. Scratch one good idea. Then I remembered reading a pocketbook where the hero had taken the bed apart and used one of the crossbars as a battering ram. I took a look at the door and the bed. He obviously hadn't had solid wood to break down. There was only one thing left to do. I upended the table, found a loose leg, wiggled it free, and righted the table again. I fluffed up the pillow and stuck it under the bed covers, using the lamp as my head. Then I snuck over and crouched behind the door. A hope lay in Menemsha's keeping his word and sending cigarettes. Possibly the housekeeper would enter the room carelessly enough so that I could bash her head in with the table leg.

Time creaked by, but at last I heard the rusty hinge sound of shoes and a little peep hole click open in the door. The seams of the hole had been so cleverly woodworked I never noticed it was there. The room got the eyeball treatment, and evidently the viewer was satisfied I was wrapped up in the covers again. The lock tumbled as a key was turned, and the door swung open.

The first thing I saw was the housekeeper's arm, extended with a small .25 caliber automatic. She aimed it at the bed, brushing the wood of the door as she stepped further into the room. She leaned a little forward to peer around, and in doing so, slackened her pistol grip.

It was a beautiful roundhouse swing. I caught her on the nose with the mahogany leg and drove her clean onto the eighteenth green, then I circled once and drove a downward twist to the base of her skull that gave a very satisfactory crunch. She flung her gun across the room and tipped forward as splinters of cartilage and bone ruptured her brain. Clutching at her pulpy face, she crumpled to her knees, then pitched forward, sprawling in a pool of blood. The housekeeper's body twitched spasmodically, groaning as escaping air signalled the ebbing of her life's juices. It almost evened the score for what they had done to Sue.

After exchanging the table leg for the pistol, I kicked her still throbbing body far enough past the door to shut it. Just as soon not have passers-by know she was there instead of me.

I tensed myself in the hall; the finesses ended. No more sneaky plays. Menemsha's office lay at the end of the hall, his cart parked right beyond it. I was simply going to barge in and beat his face to pulp. And hope that overgrown baboon didn't catch me till I was through.

The thought satisfied, richly and deeply, as I ran the length of the corridor, and I reached for the study door. I grabbed the knob with my gun hand, letting the pistol ride by its guard. That was a mistake, for the door across from me-the one leading from the tunnel-suddenly opened by itself and rammed my kneecap. My leg began to wobble, and I sort of leaned forward, gawking upwards and wondering what the ding-dong was going on. I stared into the huge face of Spider peering from around the door, a surprised look between his eyes. I lurched against the door and tried to slam it shut. But fast. Spider drew his head back out and managed to wedge in his foot. He crooked a big, hairy arm the size of a fat girl's brassiere over the edge and began to twist my ear. I shoved harder, putting my feet against the opposite wall for leverage. He began to shake my head until I thought it was going to rupture. After being bonked and generally getting the worst of things, I wasn't in the best of condition, and for all my heaves and grunts, I only managed to get accordion pleats from being wedged back further. The door protested and so did I.

With a sudden flip I loosened my hold and opened the door next to it. The one leading to the living room. Spider stumbled into the hall as I slammed that door and ran through the living room toward the pool.

I reached the French doors as Spider started firing the short arching bursts from his Thompson, ripping the fabric and splintering the glass. He shredded the side of the pool as I scrambled out the entrance. Only the veranda railing saved me.

Ahead lay the forest, the thick scrub of devouring gloom, covering enough, I hoped, to let me sneak away, or hide, or just stay alive somehow. I hunched over and angled left to take advantage of the submachine gun's natural drift to the right. I reached the edge of the woods and momentarily clutched a tree to catch my breath but plunged on when the bark overhead splintered with a tattoo of lead.

My first thought was to reach East Saddle River Road somehow and flag down a passing motorist. But I doubted there'd be many cars at this hour and who stops for killers these days? Instead I angled toward the direction I figured I'd find my car. Throbbing with the frenzied adrenalin of escape, I savagely clawed and ripped, slashing a path through the dense woods and thickets, my blundering crashes leaving a trail of sound for Spider to follow. With a vengeance the forest fought my alien invasion. Branches, shoots, vines whipped and raked with every twist and turn, and the black beneath my feet belched rocks, logs and holes to trip me, suck me down.

Still I plowed on until the level ground ended. I faced a rock ledge in my path, stretching along on either side like a fence. It wasn't very high or steep, and reaching the top, I beat back a bush which had snapped me in the face and looked down. There was a sharply sloping bank, maybe eight feet, dipping to meet a swamp of ooze and gnats. It was evidently a catch-all for the many little streams and runoffs before they trickled into the valley. The marsh was all of a couple of hundred feet wide, judging by the distance of the far side's boulders, but its length disappeared hazily in the night and mist. A ground fog had begun to form, and it squatted and quivered like it smelled my presence. I had absolutely no intention of setting one foot in that gop.

I slid down the bank on my fanny, leaving a big fat trail to the edge of the swamp that any dunce could follow. Maybe even Spider. I didn't even stop to brush off the dirt but began trailing the right bank as quietly as possible, trying to stay on rock or hard earth so as to not leave footprints. Not that it made much difference. When I did leave an imprint, it was sucked over as though the swamp thought it was food. I tiptoed along at a pretty good pace until I heard the killer break through the brush and reach the rock wall. I had seconds left before he would appear, and I would have to be hidden. If I weren't, forget it. And me.

I spotted a dip a few feet ahead like a pocket scooped out of the side of the bank and dove for it. Using a fallen branch, I hefted myself into the niche and squirmed back so that it would be hard to spot me, though I had a good view. My pistol was able to cover not only the moldy pond in front of me but the bank as well. And then, almost not daring to breathe, I waited.

Not for long. The brush parted and Spider appeared. He hesitated a moment and glanced around, looking straight at me. I thought for sure it was all over. But he turned away and then gaited down the slope to the water's edge and stopped, hunched forward, straining for a sound, a movement, to reveal where I had gone. I didn't budge, not even blink, and let the sweat drip un-wiped. A hush had fallen as though the whole glade was caught up in the tension.

Spider heard the sound first. He jerked his head up and peered across the marsh toward a rock pile on the other side. Then I heard the noise that had caught his attention. A rustling, like the ripple of underbrush, very slight, but standing out Hie a dynamite blast in the silence. That was enough for the killer. He turned up the collar of his shirt and waded in toward the movement, hopping on his long legs like he was trying to miss puddles in the rain. Great sucking pops echoed each step until finally he stopped about in the middle of the bog either from exhaustion or because he was stuck.

Whatever had drawn Spider out there moved again and for an instant showed itself. A small black shape silhouetted against the grey hurtled across the rocks and then disappeared into the underbrush. The animal was like a muskrat or raccoon, though the darkness made identification only a guess. But the mistake was discovered. He knew the noise wasn't me, and it wouldn't take much doing to find the right track. I was scared, wanting only to hide and grovel, but the old saw about attacking for defense seemed to make more sense. If I'd ever have a chance to exterminate him, it would be while he was stuck in the middle of the swamp, within range and a perfect target. It would have to be quick, damned quick, for the first spurt of fire would zero in my little nest for any return fire. And I just couldn't buck that withering reply.

I took aim, carefully sighting above and to the right of Spider's middle coat button, and shot. The little automatic bucked, and sadly I realized this popgun was only for short range. I could almost see the bullet fall short at Spider's feet, all spent.

Like a weasel, the lightning reflexes of Spider answered, his form crawling toward the bank. The Thompson R.S.V.P.'d and all around came alive with death. The mobster was almost back to the bank, and every second I stayed just narrowed the odds. I frantically squirmed a retreat and dropped behind the bank, then started another crashing safari through the brush, headlong and pell-mell. The chase was on again.

CHAPTER TEN

Spider was hotter for blood than a Watusi warrior, and it was only moments till he'd be over the ledge. I hugged the rocks, scrambling and darting over and around, taking advantage of their protection. I judged the dirt road to be close by somewhere, and with luck, the wall might take me all the way to it.

But luck dealt fickle, and my rock cover dropped out of the game, leaving another player to take its place-a vast thicket of brambles. Huge, thorny stalks twisted together like matted hair, stretching over my head and into the swamp like some cancerous growth. There was no choice but to circle around it; I sure as hell couldn't go through it. I tried to stay clear of the clawing vines, but even so my legs and pants were chewed and shredded by the ground creepers. Circling a quarter of the way around, I realized why the briar patch liked it there. For it was underneath it that the swamp oozed at right angles and started forming into a stream, the fertile muck letting it grow far beyond usual size. But where I stood, at its end, the thicket was only beginning to expand, its tendrils low and flat across the thirty or so feet of remaining swamp. I picked a path across, balancing myself carefully. It was spongy, and the water gurgled beneath me, but I made the other side dry. The rock wall didn't start again. Instead there was a hill of thinning scrub. I leaped and clambered up the slope and, clearing a mess of pussywillows, I stepped into one tire track of the dirt road.

I had made it. Pooped, and full of enough back-to-nature woodland spirit for two lifetimes, I sank down to my knees to rest. But I didn't want to spend eternity resting in that rut. I had to run instead. I picked myself up and started to sprint, but all the crouching and hunching I had done gave me the peculiar puppet-like walk of a stiff back. I hobbled up the trail as well as any old man of eighty-three or so.

Around the next bend and up a few yards sat the Ford. I opened the door and climbed over to the wheel, panting and wheezing. The keys were under the seat where I had left them, and the car responded with a roar on the first spin. The transmission slipped smoothly into Drive, but I didn't even get a chance to tap the gas before Spider came charging out of the rear view mirror. Smooth as melted ice he stopped, braced himself and spewed bullets all over the place. The Ford soaked up a heavy hail directed at me, and the weeds on the sides flew in every direction. The killer moved to my right for a better sighting, and I figured it was no time to sit still. I threw open the car door and hit the bushes just as a burst removed my windshield.

This time there was no time. No head start into the forest. I had to stay, cornered, with only the car as cover, my only weapon a half-spent ladies' automatic, about as useful against a machine gun as a pea shooter. This had to be played as a watchful, wary game, as silent as possible, each waiting to hear the other, afraid to stay, afraid to move.

I rubbed my chin and tried to figure Spider. Chances were he'd head for the Ford to see if he'd hit me. I crept in the shadows to the trunk end and crouched down as the dash light on my car blinked on, showing Spider had opened the passenger door. I saw him raise up to check the seats and floor. I leaned against the fender and fired at the shape. But my hand slipped on the still damp surface, and the shot missed. Not by much, but by enough, and the light winked out as the door slammed and Spider disappeared.

I had missed, all right, missed my chance of staying alive. Spider was warned, on guard, his cockiness gone. He knew where I was, and was pretty sure I didn't have many shots left. I cursed the wet fender, the puddle I was crouched in, and rain in general, then stopped to take a sniff. The pool around me wasn't water. It was gasoline. The first volley Spider had sent must have peppered the Ford's gas tank and by the fumes and dampness, the tank had emptied.

My last hope lay with the spilled gas. I crept back along the left side, hoping Spider wouldn't get cute and go the same way. My door was shut enough so the light was out, and I held the light button in with my ringer as I opened the door wider. I fumbled along the knob-happy dash, found what I was looking for and pushed it in. I prayed I wasn't too late, that Spider would warily stalk the rear slowly and let me have the seconds I needed. I pressed the little handle impatiently, and I heard a slight crunch of pebbles near the Ford's other fender. Thank God it wasn't a Volkswagen. I silently gritted my teeth as I pictured the mobster just about even with the rear license plate. The tension in my right hand lessened just as the man's shadow rounded the bumper. I pulled the cigarette lighter out of its socket, stood up and threw. The dash light went on again, making me a perfect target, but it also outlined a surprised, unready Spider-and my aim was good. The lighter sailed through the air like a drunken firefly, then hit the gas. I dived for the covering brush. With a roaring whump the area ignited, shooting flames and smoke into the sky. Spider clutched his face in agony as the fire ate him, swaying and writhing in convulsions as his cheap suit caught and roasted his flesh. His cry split the night with a background of roaring and spitting, and the smell of him and the gas fouled the air. The searching flame must have followed a trail to the riddled tank and caught the fumes inside, for suddenly there was a deafening explosion, ripping and twisting the Ford's trunk, engulfing Spider in a final crescendo of death. I stared immobile as the fire licked higher into the sky, only the hulk of a ruined car remaining with a dead and barbecued Spider. The tires smoked and so did he, both of them the same greasy black.

Scratch one car and one escape. But then the tables were turned. With Spider and the housekeeper dead, only Menemsha remained. Alone. The hunted could become the hunter. I raced back down the road and across the hangar to the tunnel. I hit the door in the pillbox expecting it to open as it had before and almost squashed myself against the metal. Locked. Menemsha must have realized where I had snuck in and sent Spider to correct the mistake. Spider had been returning from the tunnel when he had caught me inside earlier.

I blew some profanity to the gods. Precious time would be wasted recrossing Caveat, but there Was no other choice.

By the time I reached the house again, I looked like I'd crawled in a cage with a dozen panthers. Skin and clothes were shredded equally, every move painful with a thousand cuts and jagged rips. I fought to stumble across the close-cropped lawn and slipped through the French doors, still swung wide, their frames pock-marked and glass strewn from Spider's blasts. Staggering to the living room, I propped myself up against the doorway, sucking air in squeezes. Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" wafted from a long stereo across the room, its piano solo a sharp contrast to my staccato gasps as I recouped my breath and cleared my head and chest from the congestion of the chase.

Menemsha, silent, drink in hand, stooped slightly by the far windows, peering through the draperies drawn by the other hand. Orange flickers reflected from the Ford tangled in his hair and danced around his form. His body, lean and agile, seemed poised in question. I bet his mind, just as lean and agile, was wondering what the hell had gone on. I gritted at the thought of his surprise.

But no superhuman surge spasmed fresh energy, no re-awakening of physical strength bounced my body. I was too pooped. Intense hatred crawled, though, and detestation oozed throughout. I felt mean.

Menemsha's preoccupation with the fire hid my presence. He didn't realize I stood there until he turned to set his drink down, and then he gaped at my pointing automatic.

"Faron!" The glass slipped silently from his hand and thunked on the carpet, ice and drink spewing.

"Not really good-bye was it, you bastard?" I hissed. "Your boy isn't around now to protect that investment, and we've some work to do before going to Associated."

"Impossible. I-"

"The hell you won't." I took four steps, one for each guttural word I spat, and curled the palm and fingers of my free hand around his face. I shoved. Menemsha reeled into the cabinet, sliding Beethoven off the piano bench with a violent scream. The force knocked out Menemsha's wind, and he slumped to his knees, gasping. I lifted him by the throat, shaking him better than a loose shutter in a hurricane. It was my turn to demand. "Where is she, little man, where is Kim?" He only wheezed and grunted like the dying sounds of a pedal-pumped church organ, and a light blue tinge deepened his face. I dropped him and let his bulging eyes slide back into their sockets.

Menemsha stared at me and massaged his throat. Then he looked down and croaked, "In the housekeeper's bedroom." I jerked his arm up and he rose stiffly. He silently led me through the alcove and past the kichen, prodded just above the hip bones by my pistol. I watched the bulges of his cheeks as his jawbone clenched under tension. But he showed no sign of fear: no sweat, no worried sheen over his eyes, no defeated step to his walk. A stone lion.

Kim lay unconscious on the housekeeper's bed. Not that the housekeeper would have any use for it anymore. I motioned Menemsha to a corner chair.

"Sit crosslegged," I snarled, "You won't get into as much trouble that way."

I backed around to Kim. Her pulse was sluggish but regular. "Alive," I grunted.

"Only drugged," Menemsha added suddenly. "Few hours and she'll be all right."

"Better be, Menemsha. Wrap her in the bedspread and carry her to your car."

Menemsha stood up and grabbed Kim with his arms, letting her head roll gently against his chest. We walked to one of the Jaguars and he slid her gently onto the tan leather cushion after I'd opened the back door.

"Now the fuel."

Menemsha's eyes crackled and glared hate. He pulled at his twitching left ear. "What fuel? The paperwork has already been delivered. The Chinese have the secret and I was only flying out West to collect my money. My bargain will be complete as soon as all traces are gone."

"I'm going to see that both you and Associated stick around, Menemsha. I repeat: the fuel. Where is it?"

We started back toward the front door, Menemsha smooth in his response. "Be reasonable, Faron. You can't seriously think I'd keep it lying around like a toothpaste sample, can you? It's far too unstable."

"Only under the extremes of heat, I think you said, just before you said you were going to carry it."

Menemsha pursed his lips. "I forgot your big ears."

I jabbed him painfully in the spine with the nozzle. He lurched ahead. "Show a little respect, Menemsha."

"I imagine the thought of a mutually advantageous, ah, arrangement would be useless to discuss," he threw back caustically.

"Worse than."

"I also imagine that you plan to contact the authorities as soon as I hand over the fuel?"

'The fuel, Menemsha, and quit stalling, Whether you give it to me or to the police when they come won't make a whit of difference in saving your skin."

He jerked his ear as if in agreement and headed |or the kitchen. "It's in the refrigerator."

"In the what?"

Menemsha turned suddenly, like a snapping log. "You fool," he bit. "Where else would I keep something so unstable with heat? The coldness keeps its state perfectly safe." I grudgingly admitted he made sense.

The kitchen opened off the alcove, a counter with stools separating the walkway to the housekeeper's bedroom and laundry. All the labor-saving devices crammed the fifteen-foot-square room with gleaming stainless steel, and built-in appliances were paneled in the familiar walnut, although here laminated plastic was used instead of real wood. The refrigerator itself was easily a twenty-cubic-foot combination, flush with the wall and fronted with the grained Formica.

Menemsha swung the door open and reached inside. Wary of a trick, I eased around to be able to cover his hand, but he only removed a square plastic container commonly used for leftovers.

"This is it," he said, handing the box to me. I set it down on a counter and gently twisted off the rubbery lid. Three scoops of pale greenish yellow glistened dully, the globs looking as though spooned from some large laboratory vat. The inert explosive caught inside seemed to quiver as I picked up the container for a closer look. I'd never seen rocket fuel, liquid or solid, before, and I sucked breath with the thought of what potential I held. I shut the top quickly, almost as if I were afraid some of the power might leak out.

We filed silently out of the kitchen, to Menemsha's study and his telephone. I noted the body of the housekeeper hadn't been discovered, or if it had, the door judiciously remained shut. Menemsha sat in the large beige chair I'd been in hours earlier, and I leaned his swivel chair back, waiting for my call to headquarters to be answered. Ducatto wasn't there; he was home, asleep. I got his number. I savored every moment as I thought of the end of my troubles and the complete reversal of our two positions. It was sweet.

The receiver clicked with my second call, and Lieutenant Ducatto's baritone rumbled.

"I'm sorry to have bothered you, Lieutenant, but as you weren't at the police station, I took the chance you'd be home."

"Who is this?"

"Michael Faron, Lieutenant."

A gurgling choke flooded the line. I could almost see saliva spewing from the earpiece. "Faron, huh, the killer."

"I imagine you've been looking for me," I ventured happily.

"Heavenly certain-type-of-animal fertilizer," was the response, though not exactly in those terms. "We'll catch you, Faron, and pin those murders around your skin so tight, you'd think you were a mounted butterfly."

"I doubt that. I've got the killer, and I'm going to bring him in."

"You've known the killer all your fife. But did you say you're surrendering?"

"I did not. Repeat: I'm going to bring the real killer down to headquarters, along with some top-secret information the government ought to know. So call the F.B.I, and have them meet you in your office in less than half an hour."

"I don't make deals."

"No deal, no me," I answered.

There was momentary silence.

"All right. You're bringing somebody with you. I won't risk having him hurt, so you'll be safe. And I'll call the Feds, though this had better be good."

"Fine," I approved. "I'm counting on you to live up to your word."

"Just show up. By the way, who is this mysterious murderer?"

"One Mr. Alexus Menemsha."

"Mr.-" The phone almost dropped. "The Mr. Menemsha of Saddle River?"

"Uh-huh."

"I'll be in my office in ten minutes. This I've got to hear. Good-bye."

I cradled the phone and turned to Menemsha. "Now let's take a ride."

Kim's form hadn't shifted from her rear seat position. I gripped the automatic with one hand and the fuel with the other as Menemsha drove. We passed the stone lions and cruised through Saddle River to Route 17. Dawn flooded the nighttime lights as we entered Silk City and continued to police headquarters. The rear parking lot was empty, as silent as when I'd last seen it.

The pit of my stomach felt eaten away like the ones in indigestion commercials. But if my name was to be cleared, I eventually would need to face the police. With the little box tucked under my arm, I figured this was as good a time as any and, with Menemsha's evil plans only hours from completion, I knew the chance had to be taken now.

"Out my side," I growled to Menemsha after I'd climbed from the limousine. He slid across the leather and we headed across the lot toward the back door. The bulb still glowed, though now the coming day blanked its shine.

Menemsha knocked, and the door opened. A uniformed patrolman ushered us up the stairs but made no move to take my gun. Lieutenant Ducatto sat at his desk with a slightly bleery-eyed expression. Conver sneered next to the sink. The door to the detective squad room rattled shut, the uniformed cop staying inside, leaning against its glass, arms folded.

Menemsha started acting queerly. Or at least for him. Sweat suddenly sprouted along his forehead like weeds after a rain, and an almost panic shaking rocked his body. He barely made the chair beside Ducatto, and sat down in it with a plop. The stone lion had cracked, I thought smugly, hitching a knee over the desk in front of Ducatto and perching on its edge. Menemsha was crumbling before our eyes.

"Didn't believe you'd show, Faron." Conver rinsed a filmy glass and drank. He spat into the sink. "Owe the lieutenant a coffee now."

I decided to ignore the sergeant and looked across at Ducatto who blandly stared back. No emotion seemed to show, just patient waiting.

"Menemsha has a few things to get off his chest," I started.

"Oh, really?" Ducatto turned his attention to the trembling mess beside him. "Good morning, Mr. Menemsha," he said casually. "What have you to say?"

Menemsha glanced quickly at me, jerked at the sight of my pointed automatic, and twisted back around. "Why, er, that I killed my secretary Miss Carstairs and that other girl."

Ducatto folded his hands and leaned across the desk like Arthur Godfrey. "Why?" he asked casually.

"Because they had to be killed. Knew too much about a secret."

"What secret?"

"A ... a new rocket propellant," he stammered. "Isn't that right, Mr. Faron?"

"About it. Menemsha and Carstairs tricked Susan McMann into transporting the U.S.'s secrets to the Reds. The Chinese made it part of the contract that everybody concerned wouldn't stay around to spill the mess, so Menemsha had the girls killed by someone-I'll leave that detail up to you boys-and was about to skip with this." I handed my precious container across to Ducatto, who placed it on his blotter wordlessly.

He pried the top off and peered inside as I concluded, "That's a new type of solid fuel only a handful of scientists know about. He's got it rigged to have them killed as well."

Ducatto fisheyed the contents, then looked sternly at Menemsha. "Is what Faron says true?"

"Oh, definitely. Absolutely correct." Menemsha was only too eager to agree, shaking his head in agreement like a pendulum with an itch.

"In that case, I owe you a vote of thanks, Mr. Faron. I'm sure you understand our suspicions. Your resisting at McMann's apartment will be overlooked considering all you've told us. And, as we can handle it from here, may I suggest-if you'd be so kind...." He held out his hand, palm up.

"Huh? Oh, sure, the gun." I smiled and handed him the automatic, butt first.

I never knew what hit me. I lurched off the desk and sprawled stomach down on the floor, the uniformed policeman placing a knee in the small of my back. Conver stood, pistol drawn, as handcuffs were shackled to my hands behind my back. Too tight again. Then I was hauled to my feet and Ducatto glowered.

"Tell me the truth, Faron."

"Don't you believe me?"

"Trying to drag an important man like Mr. Menemsha in with you was sheer insanity, if you expected us to believe such crap. But thank God at least you're here and not roaming for another innocent victim."

"I didn't kill those girls," I choked. "Menemsha did. I am not guilty."

"Do you want to think it over?"

"Thinking it over won't change the truth."

"That's one I've heard before," cracked Conver. "The little green room at Trenton changes many truths."

Ducatto turned to Menemsha and spoke with the same reverence in his voice in which stock clerks yessir presidents. "Please let me apologize for treating you unkindly, sir, but I didn't want the possibility of your being hurt. I felt I should try to get Faron's weapon peacefully."

"Perfectly understandable, Lieutenant Ducatto. I think you did a magnificent job, and I plan to inform the mayor next time we have dinner." The detective beamed with gratitude as Menemsha unwadded a handkerchief and swathed his brow. "Just that I'm so glad it's over. This maniac has been terrorizing my house since midnight. Burst in, ranting accusations, threatening to kill me, and ... oh...." Menemsha almost fainted at the thought.

"That isn't what happened at all!" I ruptured. "I told you the truth-"

"Shaddup," spat Conver. A rock fist crashed my chest, almost bursting my heart. I gasped for breath. "Not one word outa you, Faron, while Mr. Menemsha is talkin'."

That was a safe request to make. His blow stopped any noise from me louder than a wheeze.

"I don't know all he's done," continued Menemsha. "I think he set fire to part of my property, and my housekeeper has disappeared."

"What did he want?" prompted Ducatto soothingly.

"He raved on that I had to confess to these awful atrocities. Threatened to shoot me if I didn't. Then he yelled I had some kind of rocket fuel around, and he had to have it for proof. Ransacked my house and kept hitting me. See? Look at the marks on my face."

I glumly watched as Ducatto eyed the bruises from when I'd thrown Menemsha into the cabinet. Menemsha was good, acting the part of an outraged citizen, near hysterics from a night of horror. But that little box held the truth to the best of his lies.

"I didn't have the foggiest idea what he wanted. My only hope of staying alive was to play along."

Ducatto nodded sympathetically. "And the box here?" he asked, pointing to the fuel.

"This man certainly needs a doctor. He tore my kitchen apart and found this container in my refrigerator. But it certainly doesn't hold any fuel, much besides a secret. Taste it."

Ducatto poked his finger in. I cringed for the explosion. Instead, the lieutenant smacked his lips.

"It's only jello," explained Menemsha.

"Lemon-lime, I'd say," added Conver after a sample.

"My poor housekeeper kept some from a salad she made," Menemsha piously concluded.

I groaned inwardly, not wishing another bash like the last one. Sucker. Menemsha twisted slicker than an eel's liver, gambling on my ignorance to con me into a frame. And the minute he walked out he would leave me trapped, while he would be able to conclude his dirty business. I'd be dead, literally, in about eight weeks after New. Jersey justice finished the details.

"We could like you to sign a complaint against Faron, Mr. Menemsha, and give us a statement as to what happened."

"Gladly, gentlemen, if it will help to put this monster where he belongs. However, as you can see, I'm very upset. And barely able to think straight. After such an ordeal, would it be all right if I slept and called my attorney and returned, say later on this afternoon?" Menemsha pulled at his ear in emphasis.

"Certainly, sir, I'm sure he," Ducatto snarled in my direction, "won't be going far for some time."

Menemsha rose and tottered for the door. "Thank you, thank you. Oh, and help yourself to the jello. Somehow I've lost my appetite." The tragic line of ham closed the door, leaving me alone with the three cops. Good grief, I cursed myself. How did I ever pass kindergarten? The stupidity of my own blunder proved the world was too much for me to grasp. I had trusted policemen a second time with an open mind, but found only cynicism. Being able to breathe seemed barely my speed, and I had pretty well put a limit on that activity as well.

"Let me guess, Ducatto. You didn't call the F.B.I. either?" I croaked.

"Waste their time, Faron? No, all we need is a confession, and that we don't need any help with."

"I told you-" Conver brought up a left which doubled me over with a whoosh, stopping my sentence again.

"The next words you're going to say are 'I killed them,' " Ducatto said coldly.

"If you don't let me explain, by this afternoon you're going to regret it." I could barely gasp out the warning.

Ducatto chuckled deep in his chest. "We'll worry about that when the time conies. Right now, all I'm worried about is your confession."

"The without force and coercion type?"

"That's the one," added Conver. "Persuasion it might take, since you don't like to cooperate. Nothing I like better than seeing one of you steel eagles chirp like a plastic canary." The sergeant chopped at my stomach again, and I hit the floor with my knees. I doubled and caught the next blow on my temple. It toppled me over, the cuffs preventing my hands from breaking the fall. Conver lifted me up again and propped me against a desk.

"Don't mark him," yelled the lieutenant to Conver. "You know how that don't look so good. Get the hose." Conver didn't answer but mutely removed his suit jacket and flung it in a chair. He laid his pistol on Ducatto's desk and rolled up his short sleeves, showing corded forearms covered with hair. Out of another desk drawer he produced a foot of green rubber garden hose. He flexed it, hitting his palm. "This ought to help him remember details."

When the hose sliced my side I screamed, my throat bursting before I could choke it off, Conver stood over me, spread legged, grinning. "Any time you want the massage to stop, Faron, you say the word. But don't worry about this. There's no permanent damage if I'm careful."

"He's not sometimes," Ducatto advised. "I'll be glad to help you with the words. All you have to do is repeat after me."

The second blow from the hose hit the kidneys on my other side, but I stifled another cry.

"Make it easy on yourself, boy." Ducatto's voice was thinner, farther away, hidden by the shield of pain.

"Please listen...." I whispered.

Conver stepped back. "We're listening."

"You've got it wrong. I didn't murder them. Check Menemsha's house. Call Associated Electronics and-"

"Wrong words. I said tell me you killed them. When we've got that down on paper, then we'll talk about bothering as important a man as Menemsha."

The hose fell again as Conver softened up my resistance. Solid whacks rained in a slow methodical rhythm until the pain and fog moved in. I crawled along the floor, then gave up. A few more hours and I'd sign a statement saying I was the reincarnated great-grandmother of Buddha. Anything, anything at all.

The physical agony barely overshadowed my anguish inside, though. Menemsha had beaten me worse, escaping with Kim who would be found dead some place soon, no doubt. My death would be only a grain compared to the deaths of quite a few in the morning ahead at Associated, and the death of a nation or even the world in the years to come. Menemsha's personal victory was a fatal disease to practically everybody.

But the world lost to a grey sickness which slowly crept over me, and a big curtain of dirty floor came up to meet my closing eyes.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I cramped up, legs tucked underneath, as they tried to pull me apart. Every move speared like broken shards of glass through my body. The pain ground less in the middle with my knees up, as high as they could go. But hands came down through the black spiral, down where I hung, and kept pulling me, rolling me over. Then voices, misty and faint, poked through the darkness.

"Hey, easy."

"Easy, hell. I ain't easy with no murderer."

"That I can see. And you can't prove he is one."

"We will."

Voices, voices. And vices around my wrist yanked, ignoring my feeble kicks. My eyes cleared, the first sight the grinning puss of Conver. He caught one end while the uniformed cop held my other shoulder steady. They hauled me forward, forcing me to lift my legs to step. My heels couldn't quite clear the floor. I tripped over steel mesh, but they didn't let me fall. Just kept dragging.

The steel mesh was the sill to the cage in the detectives' office. How long had I been out, curled up inside the cell like a dead fetus? How long would the next working over take before I'd slip into limbo, and they'd throw me back in the bin? How long could I hold out? Sickness flooded in waves, washing my head with nausea. Water touched my lips and a strange voice urged a sip. "But not too much or you'll leak," it cautioned.

I sipped. Ambrosia.

Ducatto still sat at his desk glowering. The man holding the cup was a stranger to me, but hovering to one side of him was the greatest sight I'd seen. Frenchy.

"Frenchy," I gasped. "Help."

"Save your strength, don't talk. We've come to take you away. Meet your lawyer, Mr. Erickson."

I turned again to the new face and couldn't help but feel better. Fifty, fat, friendly. Salt and pepper crew-cut hair highlighted a dimpled smile and brilliant green eyes. Erickson lit a toothy smile and in a rich, enveloping voice said, "I'm pleased to meet you, Mr. Faron. As soon as we leave I'll ask how you are as well."

"Leave?" I asked weakly.

Ducatto growled. "For a while, only for a while. We'll tag the rap on you yet."

Erickson took the cop's place while Frenchy moved over near Conver, "Not by the methods you've used so far, you won't," the lawyer said.

"Now wait a minute. He resisted. Assaulted an officer in his line of duty, Erickson, and you can't blame us if we had to subdue him."

"The hell I can't. Must have been quite a struggle by all your bruises and broken furniture," cracked Erickson.

"You oughta heard my wife last night about what this bast-"

"Shut up, Charlie," Ducatto roared.

I remembered my kick to Conver and felt a whole lot better. We walked out, my body leaning heavily on Frenchy and the lawyer, and used the front exit this time. The stairs were slow going, but the trip across the lobby past a group of lounging patrolmen and newsmen seemed an eternity. The swinging doors ahead loomed as impossibilities. Any moment the dream would shatter and I'd find myself upstairs. Fear lumped into actuality as I heard bounding feet and saw Conver burst into our slow procession.

"Hope you're feeling better, Mr. Faron," he said loudly, forcing a smile. "Too bad about that accident, but we'll get that tread fixed on the step right away."

I took a deep breath and stopped. "Don't lie for the crowd, you sonofabitch. Both you and Ducatto are poor excuses for officers or men."

I exhaled slowly as helping hands tried to lead me away. I shrugged them off, tasting venom. "You're the lowest type, Conver, a criminal with authority. A crook is at least straightforward in his dishonesty, while you use your position of trust to protect him and betray the honest citizen."

His smile froze, the sadistic glint returning to his eye. "I don't take that from nobody."

"Then hit me. Hit me again."

Conver looked at me and then at the silent bystanders. He laughed nervously. Frenchy caught me as I began to fall, and the haze returned.

I rested in the back seat of the lawyer's car as Frenchy and Erickson drove across town to a doctor's office.

"He's expecting us," Frenchy explained. "As soon as we learned where you were, Mr. Erickson thought we'd better be prepared."

We pulled up in front of a white stucco house on McBride Avenue. The placard on the lawn proclaimed the office of Dr. Meldon Shapiro.

Questions loomed in my mind as coherency returned, but I couldn't ask them until the doctor, a slightly built but lean creature, had me stripped of shirt and firmly on his examining table.

"How did you find me?" It came out more like a grunt as the doctor's smug fingers jerked back, knuckles white and mountainous from their painful probing, then dug into my tender side again.

"Lie still, and be thankful you can grunt," he commanded.

"Damnit! What's been happening?"

The doctor bounced me back down. "Lie still, I said," he thundered like Zeus.

I stayed still, jerking spasmodically as the prods poked and kneaded.

"The reason is asleep in the next room, Mr. Faron. Are you familiar with a Miss Daggitt?"

"Very," smirked Frenchy, answering for me. "And you owe an awful lot to her spunk."

The vision of her wrapped in Menemsha's limousine returned. "But how-"

"That's what we'd like to know, Mike. She crawled or staggered into a coffee shop next to the police station. Where she came from we don't know. Wouldn't or couldn't say. Just your name and mine over and over. The cops called me for identification. When I arrived they first wanted to know what she had to do with you. One of the men thought he'd heard you'd been brought in earlier."

Frenchy sat down on a little chair past my point of vision, but his words were the important thing. Kim-alive! While Menemsha trapped me in my own stew upstairs, she'd managed to shake the drugging long enough to escape. What a woman, I sighed to myself.

"What? You're smiling when I poke you there?" snorted the Doc.

"No-hurts like the blazes."

"Don't scare me like that," he grunted, and set to work mangling my torn body again.

"Anyway," continued Frenchy, "they wanted to throw her in the tank. Figured she'd been on a bender if nothing else, and with only a bathrobe on, well.... A couple of bucks changed their minds, though, and I brought her here."

"Sick kid, Mr. Faron. Can't be sure without a blood test, but by her breath I'd say somebody gave her chloral hydrate."

"Good grief, what are you doing for her?"

"Nothing." The doctor peered along his nose at me. "Only rest will help. And possibly some aspirin when she awakens."

I nodded dumbly.

"Sorry I couldn't rescue you sooner," apologized the lawyer. "As soon as Mr. Duboussier informed me he had heard you were in custody, I checked. Might as well have tried catching the man on the flying trapeze for all the straight answers I got. They finally admitted where you were and that you hadn't been arrested. Only interrogated."

"Some abdominal muscle damage," interrupted the doctor to nobody in particular. He reached into a white cabinet for a spool of wide adhesive tape.

"Then he's all right?" asked Frenchy, standing up.

"No broken bones, as far as I can tell without x-rays. I doubt even cracked ribs." I sat up as he wound the tape around me. "I will need blood and urine samples to check for any internal injuries like kidney rupture."

"Hey, hey, boy!" Frenchy grinned. "All you need is a little rest." He prodded his pocket for one of his cigars. "Too bad you couldn't of seen Ducatto's face. Furious! Absolutely livid, but not a thing he could do to stop us."

Erickson snapped Frenchy short. "He very well could have and is itching to do so. He wanted a murder charge on Mr. Faron: Murder One. But with only circumstantial evidence, he needed a confession."

The lawyer turned back to me. "However, resisting officers by tying them to bedposts is a very serious offense, and they had you dead on that one. Also the lieutenant showed extreme curiosity concerning a half hour he spent in an elevator."

"Then how come I'm not sitting in the pokey?"

"A charge of police brutality is usually hard to prove, but not when interrupted while in progress. Not to mention the embarrassment the two officers would face having to admit both were overpowered by a stripped and shackled prisoner. Call it a trade, Mr. Faron, but from now on spitting on sidewalks will see you back in that room. Ducatto also threatened that as soon as Mr. Menemsha can be reached, he'll see to it that charges of breaking and entering, armed robbery, arson, attempted murder-in short, the book-will be signed against you."

My breath strained against the cloth binding. I swore a juicy sentence. "Those specimens are going to have to wait, Doc." I grunted as I swung my legs off the table.

Dr. Shapiro turned back from replacing the tape in the cabinet. "Foolish. If there are internal hemorrhages or damage, waiting could be a grave risk."

"He's right, Mike," added Frenchy. "Rest up a couple of days and then we'll talk it all over with Mr. Erickson."

"Can't. Nearly eight-thirty." The three checked the brown wall clock hung between two certificates. I tried buttoning my shirt but couldn't even touch forefinger and thumb together.

Frenchy glared back at my weak struggle and helped. "So?"

"So this stupid, obstinate little man thinks he still has time to stop me," came a familiar voice. We all turned and stared at the intruder blocking the doorway like Samson at the pillars. But that was no jawbone he held; that was a .38 caliber pistol, silencer screwed on its barrel. His body stood taut, firm and under control. Only his face showed emotion, with the many wrinkles tinged pink crossing his grim expression.

"Menemsha!" I growled.

He entered far enough to close the door but stayed clear for good coverage. "You didn't believe me when I said all loose ends had to be cut. There was the chance somebody might be curious enough to check your story. Too much at stake to leave you alive."

"How did you find us?" I asked.

"I followed you from the station house," Menemsha replied calmly, pulling at his ear.

"But how did you know-"

"That Faron would be released?" He turned to the lawyer, anticipating his question. "Because I arranged for it. A simple matter of timing when the girl was conscious enough. A little suggestion, a little shove in the right direction, and she did the only human, natural thing. She called ..." his finger snapped from his lobe and pointed at Frenchy, "you, sir, whoever you are."

"The name is Duboussier," crisped the reply.

"Indeed." The finger curled back. "You, in turn, called Mr. Erickson here. Possibly you remember a few social occasions when we've met while you were assistant prosecutor." His attention focused on the lawyer, who glared his answer.

Menemsha turned to me. "Voila, Mr. Faron, I now have both you and the girl. It is a shame, though, that your rash actions have caused three more innocent people to become involved. The mortality rate is going to be rather high, I'm afraid."

"Now, see here," Dr. Shapiro snorted. "I don't know who you are and care less. I have two patients, so get the Sam-uh...."

The "uh" was the Doc's last sound. Menemsha aimed and shot as Shapiro spoke. The small phthoot blasted a large splotch through the white jacket, careening the doctor back into the cabinets. He died before hitting the floor, his gnarled hands splaying across the tile.

Menemsha shook. "Gad, I hope he doesn't bleed much," he shuddered, then stroked his ear again. "Don't look so startled, gentlemen, he had to be shot. But it's time we were on our way."

"You're not going to kill us?" asked Frenchy hesitantly.

"Of course I am, but certainly not here. With only the doctor's body, the police will look for a crazed drug addict or burglar. With more bodies here, questions will be asked."

"They will be asked anyway, Menemsha," I snarled. "Your cut ends look more like an unraveled grass skirt all the time."

He snarled worse right back. "Thanks to you. Now get the girl."

"I will," offered Frenchy.

He opened a door adjoining to another examining room. With the help of the lawyer, Kim's slack body was lifted from another table and carried out of the office. I followed, with Menemsha taking up the rear.

The Jaguar crouched by the curb, and for the second time Kim rested on the rear cushion.

Erickson looked around, bewildered. "Where's my car?"

"Disposed of." Menemsha waved his gun, motioning us to climb into the front seat. "Certainly wouldn't want an abandoned automobile parked next to a dead man's home. A hot wire, a side street a couple of miles from here, and a taxi back solved that problem."

"Another loose end, Menemsha," I said. "The cabbie will finger you as a passenger to the doctor's office."

Menemsha smiled. "Not where he is."

Nobody chose to press the point, and our host settled next to Kim. She stirred once and moaned slightly, and one leg stretched from beneath the robe, exposing satin thigh. I twisted around and gently wrapped the poor cover around her as best I could.

"Bother you, Faron? How touching," Menemsha smirked. The stone returned. "You, Erickson, you're behind the wheel. The keys are in the ignition. Drive us to AEI. Know where it is?"

"No."

"Associated Electronics Industries, 425 Valley Place in the Crocker Industrial Park. Off Garden State Parkway."

The lawyer nodded, and we drove smoothly away in silence. The Jaguar molded luxury and style, a blend of old-world craftsmanship with contemporary styling. The walnut dash gleamed and the ride whispered. If one must travel to his death, I mused, what a way to go.

"Why AEI, Menemsha?" I asked.

"As I remember, you wanted to take me there. I thought I'd return the favor. Besides, in a few hours there won't be enough of AEI or you to fill a sachet."

Frenchy turned to me. "What is he talking about?"

"Good grief, the same thing I tried to pound through to Ducatto. Menemsha stole the secrets to a new kind of rocket fuel for the Reds."

"We saw the jello," Erickson softly added. Menemsha chuckled.

"And you're looking at the damned fool who believed it was the fuel. Good grief, the closest I ever came to such things was a can of Stemo. But the fact still remains that bastard has rigged AEI somehow to blow to cinder dust. AEI discovered the secret just a short time ago, and a group of big-wigs are meeting there this morning to plan future development. Everything our country knows about the fuel will be inside that building. One big poof and the Chinese will have sole possession of a weapon capable of shifting the cold-war balance."

"Not a bad summary for an amateur, Faron," conceded Menemsha. "Only the misfortune of fate dropped you in my lap like a fly in ointment."

"I don't call a murder rap an unpleasant annoyance."

"Don't worry about that. The one big poof, as you call it, will include everybody here. Excluding me, of course. The murder of the women will remain unsolved, as will your sudden disappearance. As for AEI-well," sighed the killer, "its total destruction will leave no clue to its cause. The authorities, knowing of the research, will only be able to conclude something went wrong with the fuel samples during the meeting. A regrettable accident. And the government no doubt will add a new booklet of procedures to stop any 'next time.' "

I reflected back to my visit to AEI, passing the long rows of the secretarial pool to this person's cubicle or that, and the miles of partitions with the chatter of life rising behind them. I thought of the hundreds of breathing little worlds to be blasted cruelly into nothingness with this foul scheme.

The concrete-block-and-wire-fence boundary of this eight-to-five nation came into view, and I sickened at the prospect of the future. Exiting from the Garden State, we swooped over the expressway and into the industrial park. A guard's tower heralded the entrance to AEI, and we slowed our approach.

A young man stepped smartly from his booth, his brass badge shining, the leather belt and holster trimming his grey uniform. A chance, I thought. When we stop-as one always had to- possibly I could jump out or yell or do something to stop Menemsha's plans. But the guard didn't stand blockading the gate but backed to one side and saluted our car with a nod and finger to cap. We drove past him as he stood smiling. Right into the parking area and, as Menemsha pointed, to a spot in front of the main entrance.

"Good grief," I said, "how did you manage passing the guard? The last time I visited AEI, he wanted to know my grandmother's first lover's second cousin. Even with one of the stickers on my window."

"Oh, he knows the car by now," Menemsha answered warmly. "And why not? I own Associated."

"Lay waste your own company? You are mad," hissed Erickson.

"Honk twice, please," instructed Menemsha. "I'm sure Mr. Faron can tell you of the steer horns hanging in my study and what they represent. The destruction of AEI is not madness but necessary for success. The cost in lives and property will be huge, but my reward will be greater. In addition to the amount I'm being paid for the fuel, which it may interest you to know may cause another Chinese famine this year due to its drain on the currency available to them, I'll have the insurance to cover my losses here. After Associated is rebuilt, every decent scientist and engineer will clamor for a chance to crack the puzzle. Curiosity alone will skim the cream of American knowledge in its efforts to stumble again across the secret they figure caused the tragedy. And who knows what will come up the next time around?"

The glass doors opened as a well-dressed man loped across the marble entrance toward us.

I recognized him. Henri Delborne, security officer of AEI, the man I had met briefly while working for Frenchy. An oily, petty bureaucrat, he was almost obnoxious in his opinions, but my opinion of him worsened as he neared the car. For suddenly I remembered his voice. The same voice I'd heard in Menemsha's study. Dimes to doughnuts he drove a ten-year-old Plymouth. Henri Delborne was Menemsha's accomplice.

He ignored my glare through the windshield and stuck his snout in as Menemsha rolled his glass down. Delborne resembled a maiden aunt with a mustache. Mostly bald, only a band of straw joining his ears together, he sported a giant handlebar underneath his nose, almost covering mouth and chin. Which was just as well, for he had an annoying habit of puckering his rather thick lips when he spoke, giving an impression that he was blowing bubbles.

"I was worried."

"Not unnatural for you," said Menemsha coldly. "But I hope everything is arranged as I ordered."

"Sure, sure, but you didn't give me much time."

"Two hours."

"The plant opens at eight. I'd look mighty suspicious arriving at seven."

"All right. Let's not quibble. The desk guard, where is he?"

"In my office. I told him Harrison would relieve him and something urgent came up."

"And the others?"

"In the cafeteria, waiting for a speech I'm supposedly going to make. Nobody will see you."

"Then go make your dratted speech or whatever. I'll handle this end. Remember, this will be the last time I'll be seeing you. Set the timer for at least twenty minutes after you leave, so that you'll be covered when the explosion comes. And make damned sure everybody concerned with the project has arrived and is in Conference Room 2. Not number 1; these people will be in there. That's all," finished Menemsha.

Delborne glanced hesitantly at us before Menemsha cranked shut the window. A tip of his mustache almost got clipped, but he jumped clear in time and headed back. The traitor seemed to bow his head and shrink as he passed the giant metal initials at the entrance. AEI gleamed dully in the morning brilliance, shadowing the little man underneath.

"Ass," mumbled Menemsha. "You, Erickson, around the side, in between the walls." Erickson wheeled the sedan to the corner, and we turned into a narrow alley between wings. A smaller entrance sliced an otherwise blank side in the middle, the cement blocks continuing windowless around in front and along the other side. The alley itself was more on the nature of a walkway, a box canyon affair barely wide enough for the squat car.

Menemsha covered us with his pistol as we climbed out. Again Frenchy and the lawyer carried the unconscious girl between them. The lobby was empty except for us; the guard's desk vacated as Delborne had promised. I hoped he had slipped, and a secretary or file clerk had played hooky from the phony meeting or had returned for some forgotten article. But the offices and rooms surrounding the partitioned hallway were bare, silent of anybody who might see or hear our peculiar caravan. Noise from other areas nearby still told of activity though, and helped filter out our lonely footsteps.

Menemsha never uttered a sound other than a grunt to turn left or right, and none of us felt like reciting poetry at the moment, either. I swiftly calculated the chances of overpowering him, and decided against it. Without the help of the others a blind charge by myself would be suicide. And as long as they held Kim, they couldn't do much even if I could plan something. Besides, my body ached and creaked, battle fatigue eating the will to resist from my muscles. Possibly the chance to fight would come later. Probably not.

In approximately the middle of the building we stopped near a section not glass-partitioned but paneled floor to ceiling. Menemsha opened the door, and we stepped into our new prison.

The room was easily fifty feet square, eighteen feet high, solid wood. Floor, ceiling, walls were smoothly polished, fused together to form an unbroken line, with no hidden crannies or crevices. And bare. Void of furniture, decoration, anything to relieve the sterile appearance.

Except the chamber in the middle. It rose on thin, translucent stilts six feet from the floor and stood easily ten feet tall, twenty feet square. The box squatted naked of ornamentation as the room around it but gleamed with a dull metal sheen. It too seemed molded and impenetrable save for the door on one side.

I choked on a soft whistle as Menemsha prodded my back to move on. He stepped ahead of us and opened the chamber's door and stood beckoning as we filed up the steps and into the compartment. We turned as Menemsha stood by the entrance.

"Both doors are electronically latched-this one here and the one to the hall. I trust you will be comfortable and make yourselves at home. For as long as you can." Menemsha chuckled, then swung the door shut. I heard the same click as in the police car as the locks sealed our doom.

CHAPTER TWELVE

"What kind of place is this?" I asked, peering around. My voice echoed.

"We're in what's called a portable room," answered Frenchy. "Here, Mr. Erickson, put Kim down on this couch."

"But it's made of glass," the lawyer exclaimed.

"All the furniture is." Frenchy laid Kim's head softly against the transparent seat and straightened up. "Actually, I imagine it's plastic. The inside walls even have a coating over the lead shield."

"Why?"

Frenchy grinned at me. "These rooms are used for strategic sessions, Mike, where secrecy is a must. With modern-day bugging and wire-tapping techniques, great precautions have to be taken. The old running water or turning up a radio are no good anymore. Bugmen can filter out any background noise. Now even voice vibrations on windowpanes can be read by laser beams."

"I can see the lead lining, as protection against radio waves," the lawyer said. "And all the transparent fixtures make microphones easy to spot. But why the double room?"

"The outside section is called a 'swept' room and is scanned by metal and radio detectors. There is usually a dead-air space between the walls also constantly checked." Frenchy clutched the back of a chair beside the glass conference table. "Such methods were first designed for our State Department to combat the intense tapping the Communists do in foreign embassies. I understand the Moscow conference room is a lulu."

I glanced around. No soft shades, no colors created warmth. Only the invisible brittleness of the furniture and walls, all bathed in the fluorescent glow shining through frosted ceiling glass. "Huh," I mused. "Not quite as isolated as it seems. There are lights, so electricity is being fed in, and air must come from some place."

"Right, Mike, this isn't a vault. But a single cable can be checked better than the many conduits found in a normal room. And probably no air conditioning is blowing through easily tapped ducts. One exhaust flue is generally used, carefully guarded against tampering."

"In that case, don't light one of your cigars. We'll all die."

"Very funny, Mr. Faron," Erickson snapped around. "A couple of hours ago I was asleep, and now, thanks to you, I am going to die."

"Welcome to the club. Thirty hours ago, I got rousted from the roost myself," I snarled back at the lawyer. But he was right, the blame belonged to me. "I'm sorry. Me playing the hero has gotten us trapped here. I don't care anymore about myself, but you two, and Kim. Well, I'm-I'm sorry, that's all."

"Damn right. God, and all I thought it would be was a simple murder defense," the lawyer huffed.

"Now wait a minute." Frenchy's stark figure stood erect and forceful. "Mike is just as much a victim of circumstance as you, Mr. Erickson. In trying to clear his name he has stumbled across something many times as sinister, and maybe thanks are in order instead of onions. Besides," he smiled, "you're both too eager to admit defeat. Menemsha counted on that."

We both stared at him; the lawyer a little startled at his upbraiding, me just glum.

"Well? Don't you see? This room wasn't designed as a prison to hold people in, but to keep them out."

"Of course! How stupid!" I shoved against the lead door. It swung open without a sound. "Menemsha used misdirection to keep us here without a peep."

"But..." Erickson looked bug-eyed at the door.

"Same as you use in court," Frenchy said, climbing down the steps. "The art of the false premise. Menemsha knew enough about human nature to make us swallow that the door could be locked from the outside as well as from within. He was so confident that we fell into the trap of not testing the obvious."

I descended. "Pretty smart thinking, boy."

"Nope. He just hadn't counted on my being familiar with portable rooms through Radartron Laboratories."

Erickson made a determined beeline for the other door. "Then that one is open, too. We're free."

I grabbed his sleeve. "Not so fast," I warned. "Even if we did pass the door guard, we'd never crash the gatehouse. The rest is wire and concrete. The security dicks around AEI are pretty strict with strangers. We go walking out of here and before we know it we'll be in Delborne's office."

"But he's a spy!" spluttered Erickson.

"You know it, and I know it, but they don't. Menemsha trapped us in as effective a cell as if the doors were locked."

Frenchy lit a Cigarillo nervously. "Say we did find Delborne's office-on our own. We couldn't even threaten him with being blown up, for he isn't to activate the bomb until he leaves. I'd love to beat the truth out of him, though," he added guttily.

"And have everybody storm in to see what the ruckus is about? No," I sighed, "we have to wait until Delborne leaves and has triggered the bomb."

"Well, I for one don't plan to sit here until I suddenly find a harp in my hands," snapped the lawyer.

"And even if we could convince somebody after Delborne left, we certainly couldn't do that and find the bomb within the twenty minutes or so," added Frenchy. "It's checkmate. No escape, and nowhere to go if we could. Delborne would deny our seemingly wild accusations and not set off the explosion. Since he and Menemsha are the only ones who know where the bomb is, it's our word against his. On second thought, he'd probably go through with it and label us the bombers. Between Mike's police trouble and Menemsha's talk with Ducatto, plus our fingerprints in Dr. Shapiro's office, he'd have no trouble framing us as either mad or murderers, probably both, and we'd have no defense."

I shook my head in disagreement. "No, we may have one long shot. If you two stay here, maybe I could sneak past the guard. But Delborne must not know I'm gone or he'd be forewarned, so you've got to cover for me. Tell him I'm in the portable room with Kim and we're-well, tell him anything if he checks. Any suggestions?"

"You'll need a badge to pass the door. Since the guard will be familiar with the workers, we'll have to nab a visitor-one of the scientists meeting here today," added the lawyer.

"Impossible. They're escorted everywhere. Even to the bathroom," answered Frenchy.

I opened the door a crack. "There is the chance Delborne hasn't finished his speech and sent everybody back to work. Or the guard." I stuck out my head. The hall was empty. "If I'm caught, I'll try to make it worth their while." I stepped outside.

"But-" Frenchy's sentence stopped as I shut the door. I stayed along the wall, creeping until the regular work section began with the partitions. They were thin plywood and painted a moldy cream and green. As I passed the openings and glanced at the men and women back at their desks, I realized Delborne had dismissed the assemblage. Fear gripped me that he'd also released the guard to resume his post.

I turned the corners leading back to the lobby, walking as fast as I could without actually running. A brunette with slanted glasses turned from an office and almost dropped her sheaf of papers as she bumped into me. She turned red with embarrassment and apologized.

" 'S all right," I said. "Say, could you do me a favor?"

"I don't know. This is only my first week here, and I don't know where things are much," she whined in a nasal pitch. "I don't know."

"All I want you to do is to tell the guard at the desk he's wanted back in Mr. Delborne's office immediately. Very urgent. Tell him not to phone."

"Well, I don't know. These papers have to be reproduced and-"

"Security comes before anything," I interrupted harshly. "Remember, this is defense you're working for now."

"Yes, sir," she answered meekly.

"Run along and tell him. Oh, and say I've gone to fetch Harrison. Quick now."

The girl scampered off, afraid to ask who I was. I trailed, hoping she wouldn't turn and notice me. The guard sat, his back to me, and I clung to the shadows as the girl yammered the message to him. I couldn't hear what she was saying, but evidently the thought of all the secrecy made her excited, and I hoped, convincing. The guard tilted his cap back to scratch his head, probably curious as to what the devil had gotten into Delborne, demanding such a serious breach of security twice the same day. His hand reached for the phone and my heart sank. If he called, the jig would be up. But the girl dropped her papers again, shaking her head not to call. The guard hesitated, scratched again and then got up. The girl scraped the papers together, and they both went through another doorway.

I didn't wait for their sounds to disappear before running through the lobby and out the glass doors. The employees' parking lot was to the left of the walkway and for a split moment I was caught in indecision. Which one was Delborne's car? Then I spotted it-the old Plymouth, seven autos along. Was it his, or did it belong to some other, unknown member? No time to make sure; Delborne would be wondering what the ding-dong was going on by now. Pray that Frenchy and the lawyer could convince him I was still in there.

I raced to the coupe and crawled in the back seat, panting, hugging the floor. And waited. My watch, or what was left of it-was still in one of the suitcases. I could only guess as to the time. Roughly nine, probably past. The drive shaft gouged my stomach, worsening the pain in my sides. One arm tingled as it went to sleep. I wanted to move, shift to a more comfortable position, but I knew I didn't dare. I could only lie quietly, hoping I'd picked Delborne's car. For all my trouble I could be uncomfortably waiting for a brilliant flash and total nothingness.

Talk about time creeping by. Time seemed a weary snail barely able to drag. Weariness flooded through me. I stifled a yawn as my lids began to close in automatic sleep. Only the ache kept me from losing consciousness. But my semi-immobility saved any tell-tale jerk of motion as years later the door suddenly opened and Delborne climbed in. He didn't look around but rattled his keys a bit then, pumping the throttle, cranked the engine until it caught hesitantly.

By the time we'd backed around and headed toward the gatehouse my nostrils quivered with a strange scent. It was pungent and sickly, like saccharin cream corn burning. At first I thought a bottle of cheap perfume had broken, but then I realized Delborne was only puffing on a pipe.

Delborne slowed slightly as we reached the guard and, as they say in the service, my pucker factor was full, but he lurched ahead without stopping. We rounded a couple of corners, and once out of sight of AEI I sat up. The little man's eyes grew wide in the rear view mirror, and he almost dropped the briar stuck between his teeth.

"Stop the car," I hissed.

In defiance, he gunned the auto, sending it squealing around the last curve before entering the expressway. I lurched against the seat, caught off balance, but threw myself upright and clamped a hand around his mouth, the pipe clattering to the floor. He bit a finger.

"Ouch!" I cursed.

"Faron, how did you get here?"

"Never mind, Delborne, just stop the car."

"Not a chance," he sneered. "I'm driving, and there ain't nothing you can do to make me stop. Better sit back and enjoy the scenery."

I watched as the speedometer climbed to sixty and the wind whistled through the interior. Every second took us farther away from AEI and nearer to the time when the bomb would explode. But he couldn't be forced to pull over. I'd have to do it for him.

I leaned over and snatched the wheel, twisting it to the right. We veered sharply, hitting the curb, but Delborne fought back, trying to straighten out. The tug of war wrenched the poor car across lanes, tipping it wildly as though it were caught in a hurricane. The needle swung past sixty-five, the gas pedal pressed tight against the floorboard, the tires screaming. We clipped the chrome trim of a car to our left, its driver angrily barking invectives. Delborne lessened his grip in reflex, I yanked hard, and with a shudder the car bounced across the shoulder and through the wire roadside fence. Delborne shrieked and slammed on the brakes, but the damage had been done. The Plymouth careened down a small slope to an irrigation ditch below. Delborne armlocked my overhanging neck, all thought of controlling his car gone, as the rocks and water loomed dead ahead. The car bucked as it plowed into the creek, then slid sideways in a violent thunder of metal and glass.

The impact threw me over the front seat, its normal forward swing breaking my sprawl. I felt my head touching the cracked windshield. The steering wheel buckled against the other front cushion, the left front of the car having taken the brunt of the crash, but in grabbing my head Delborne missed having his chest smashed. Muffled squeaks underneath me told me where he was imprisoned.

I caught my breath, ignoring his protests. The sudden silence after the crash seemed almost louder, draping the seconds like a dust sheet over old furniture, but I knew soon a bunch of somebodies would come to investigate. Reaching around I checked Delborne for a gun and found one. A Smith and Wesson .32 caliber "Bodyguard" hammerless revolver protruded from his rear pants pocket. The right door stuck at first and tilted upward from the slant of the auto, but by the time Delborne had caught his wind and seen that he was only bruised, he was well covered by me, standing a few feet away.

The fight had left him. His eyes held the same downcast look mine had held earlier, and his mustache had come all undone, the waxed handlebar all bristled like a walrus. He wheezed slightly but didn't say a word as he clambered out.

People were beginning to collect along the top of the slope, and one man started sliding down. "Run, Delborne," I choked. "I'll be right behind you. And hope we make it back before she blows."

"Back? To AEI?"

"Save your breath. You're going to need it." I jabbed the pistol toward him, and he began trotting beside the irrigation ditch. The tape had loosened around my sides, and pain clutched my guts unmercifully. But I was going to make damned sure that if AEI and my friends and Kim all became dust, the bastard in front of me was going to die as well. We had a half, maybe three-quarters of a mile to go, plus the time needed to disarm the bomb. I doubted we'd make it.

Shouts of hey and stop and such echoed from the crowd around the road, but I prodded Delborne on, cursing him every time either of us stumbled. He stopped once, swore he couldn't continue, but the threat of making the spot he quivered on his grave gave him energy to run some more.

Ever have a muscle ache after running a while? I had one when we started, and pretty soon I felt my whole body tearing apart, ripping like rotten seams with every step. Delborne sucked air in spasms, the exertion hitting him as well. The creek wandered off, but the gully flattened into grassland, not hard to travel on as long as we could continue. At last the expressway fence curved with the exit from Crocker Industrial Park. Instead of joining the road we paralleled it, entering the park behind the brick warehouse of a moving and storage company. Delborne slowed down. He grunted, and I feared he was going to collapse any second, but the muzzle of the pistol in his back helped pick up his feet.

Jackson Ladder Company and an unoccupied plot of land slowly limped past our vision until the end of the road and AEI came into view. I spurred Delborne on, right up to the gate where, as always, the guard appeared from his shack.

"Mr. Delborne," the young man said as we stopped in front of him. "What happened? Are you all right?"

"I-I," gasped his superior. Then the guard saw the pistol and reached for his.

"Try and he dies," I gritted breathlessly. "Pull it out slowly with your other hand, two fingers on the butt only, and drop it."

The guard looked around for support, but only mid-morning quiet greeted him.

"I mean it."

He stared at Delborne, who nodded numbly. The guard did as he was told, and after making him step back, I kicked his revolver aside.

Delborne turned, shaking. "No, no. Any minute now." His eyes pleaded with terror.

"What time did you set it for?"

"Ten fifty-five."

"And the time now?"

The guard hesitantly looked at his watch, unsure of what was going on. "I have ten-fifty."

"Five minutes, Delborne, that's all. And there's lots to do if you don't want to die."

"My office," he shuddered and started trotting across the long macadam quadrangle to the entrance. I motioned the guard to follow and stumbled afterwards.

The disarming of the guard in the lobby took another minute. Ten fifty-three when we burst into Delborne's office, leaving two minutes left if the watches were correct.

Delborne wasted no time but scrambled for a briefcase sitting on a filing cabinet in one corner. The two guards sat as I stood near the closed door, covering them. Delborne scratched at the flap, fumbling to open the case, sweat blanketing his flushed face.

Ten fifty-four.

I clutched his wrist just as he dipped inside to remove the bomb. His tendons spasmed as in rigor mortis.

"Tell them first," I snarled. "Seconds left, only seconds to save your damned hide. Go on, tell them what you've done."

The mustache rattled. My unexpected demand thrust like a knife, and he hesitated as a thousand thoughts flashed silently through his mind, figuring a way free. He could stay silent the last few moments of his miserable life, or try the impossibility of fighting clear, or grasp a straw by talking. His eyes seemed aflame with agonizing decision.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Delborne twisted to the two guards and began babbling wildly.

"B-bomb. Timed for any second. Blow up AEI. Now let me stop it!"

"Who set it?" I snarled.

"I did," he wailed. "P-please!"

The guards shot upright at the news, and I didn't stop Delborne as he reached inside and tenderly produced a round metal container like a teapot. Where the lid would have been, perched a small timer the size of a matchbox. It didn't tick, but the dial face, similar to a stop watch or chronometer, showed the minute hand almost crossing a red pointer. The pointer touched one small mark before the eleven. The second hand rounded the thirty mark.

Delborne depressed the button in the middle of the dial, and I held my breath. His fingers shook; one twist the wrong way by a fraction and the bomb would explode. With a wrench he moved the pointer away from the mark and all the way to 1500. The second hand crept past the top and continued on its way. Delborne sighed as he sank into his chair.

I grabbed the bomb from his grip. The guard from the lobby started to rise, but my gun waved him back. Then, placing the bomb on the desk, I reset the timer for eleven o'clock.

"What are you doing?" Delborne chattered unbelievingly.

"You have another five minutes," I answered. "Call for somebody to bring my friends from the conference room."

He lurched for the phone, snapping instructions, then hung up. Ten fifty-six. A knock on the door and another guard entered, followed by Erickson, Frenchy, and Kim. She stood by herself, unassisted, though unsteady.

The third guard surrendered his gun to Frenchy, surprised, but without a comment. Kim smiled sleepily and wound an arm around my waist as Frenchy and the lawyer stood close by.

"Every breath counts. Better start talking."

"About what?" Hatred glared from Delborne.

"Little more than two minutes now, Delborne. You're through. But this bomb couldn't blow AEI to dust. It's only thermite. I've seen them in Korea. Produce intense heat, a big fire, maybe destroy a few nearby offices, but not the whole works. Where's the real bomb, Delborne? The one big enough to do the job?"

"All around. The sprinkler system." Delborne hung his head.

"Impossible," said the third guard. "The man from the sprinkler company checked it two weeks ago. Checks it every month. It was all right then."

"One of the niceties of being top security banana, I imagine," I growled. "Wouldn't be too hard to change the water for something else-that it?"

Delborne nodded. "Planning the move for months, switching pipes and valves a little at a time by different engineers so that nobody would guess. Called ADT on the 16th, warning we were repairing a leak, and to ignore the automatic detector alarms. Remember last Thursday, Harrison," Delborne asked the third guard, "the directive to empty vats sixty-four and five?"

"Yeah, and glad of it."

"Well, you actually emptied nearly a thousand gallons of water from the sprinkler pipe, and refilled the system with the liquid from the vats."

"M'God," gasped Harrison.

"Explosive?" I asked.

"Highly volatile. It's molecular chain is linked so that once one part is ignited, there's an instantaneous chain reaction. Sympathetic detonation. The liquid is experimental and the basis for the solid fuel. However, great amounts of it are needed to synthesize the similar chemical which will harden. A hundred gallons produce a bare handful."

"Then the thermite ..." asked Kim.

"Used to trigger the sprinklers," I answered. "Pretty clever. Since the pipelines saturate AEI, once it blew here the whole complex would explode."

"We'd better call the Feds before somebody accidentally starts a fire," said Harrison. "Or before that bomb goes off."

I looked at the timer. Minute and a half left. "Not yet. There's another matter to be settled," I leaned over the desk and glared at Delborne. He glowered back. "You were having an affair with Miss Carstairs, weren't you?"

"But I thought you said Menemsha was-" yelped Frenchy.

"Quiet. You were, weren't you?"

"How did you know?" hissed Delborne.

"Your pipe. Menemsha doesn't smoke, yet the suit in her closet had a burn hole. Not uncommon for a pipe smoker. That, and that strop and shaving mug. Few people use straight razors anymore, except those with old fashioned nose brushes like yours." Delborne jerked a hand to his bedraggled mustache. "In fact, you're the killer of Jocelyn and Sue."

"No, no. It was Spider."

"Nix, Delborne, Menemsha gave you the orders. Jocelyn would never have slept with Spider. He wouldn't have gotten past the doormat, much besides to the bathroom and your straight razor that isn't there anymore. At first the lack of love notes or evidence to show anybody except Menemsha made me believe it was he, but it could just as well be someone she didn't love, but slept with because he told her to. Either because you demanded it as part of your price, or as a way he could keep his hooks into you; it doesn't matter now. But how she must have hated it," I spat.

Delborne driveled. "She did love me. At least, liked me."

"And it wouldn't be hard for a security man to open a locked door. Sue must have heard you coming and tried to phone before you slit her throat. I bet you still shave with that razor, and when the police latch onto it, they'll hang your hide. Thirty seconds, Delborne."

Delborne slumped, eyes twitching.

"Your only hope is as state's evidence. Don't misplace your loyalty, Menemsha played both you and the girl against each other. We've got you cold and there's nothing to lose by talking."

He shriveled in defeat, a broken shell nodding consent. I turned the timer past the danger point and stepped away.

"Where's Menemsha," I demanded. "If he isn't stopped, it'll be worse for you."

"Leaving for Los Angeles at noon. Not sure of the airline. Think he mentioned American, though. A man is boarding at Chicago and they're to switch baggage claim checks. At L.A. Menemsha will claim the wrong bag, and his with the sample will be picked up by the other passenger."

"It's eleven now. Which airport and flight number?"

"Lemme think. He said it once. God, I've forgotten."

Kim spoke softly, yet proddingly, "Was it two digit, a single number or what?"

"No, three, like 1-9-" Delborne furrowed his brow. "Can't think of the rest."

"Good," said Kim.

"Good?" I looked at her puzzled.

"Try American at Newark Airport. Most Kennedy transcontinental flights around that time are one digit. United's Flight 5, TWA's 9. I should know, flying as I do. And since Menemsha was here not too long ago, I bet it's Newark."

Harrison called information, then dialed the American ticket counter at Newark. Yes, your reservation is ready, Mr. Menemsha, on Flight 195. Plane is on time, sir. One stop in Chicago, land L.A. at 3:48. Thank you.

"Does anybody have a car they can lend me?" I asked. "I think enough has been seen and heard so I won't be missed for a while."

"Go now?" asked Erickson. "I wouldn't if I were you, Mr. Faron. After all, you're the one who has cleared yourself of a murder charge. I'd think you'd want to stay for the fun."

"My sides still ache from all the fun the police had making me the killer. Besides, by the time the authorities are convinced, Menemsha will have flown the coop and maybe switched checks. We've got to stop him before he leaves."

Kim clutched me passionately. "Please don't, Mike. Let somebody else take the risk. If he does have a sample of the fuel, he could be dangerous."

"No, Sweety," I whispered softly into her hair. "I'd hate to think of the world if he succeeded. Not a very nice place to raise children." She looked up and blushed, but smiled.

Harrison threw me a key. "Belongs to the new Merc convertible in space number fourteen. Good luck."

"Thanks."

"Mike," Frenchy said, grinning broadly. "Be easier on his car than you were on mine, huh?"

Harrison's Mercury throbbed with the big engine, and I hauled rubber all the way along the parkway. I gambled on two hopes. One, no cop would catch the low flying convertible and want an explanation for my speeding. I moved at a steady ninety-five, weaving between traffic, the top bulging with air pressure.

The second gamble was in the direction to take, and it rested on percentages. Check-in is half an hour before departure; it was nearly eleven-fifteen then. Menemsha would have arrived at the airport or be on his way, not at Caveat.

Garden State Parkway swooped under Route 46, and I swerved around the narrow exit road leading to Route 3, barely stopping in time for the toll booth. Route 3 carried me swiftly to Secaucus where I cursed the entanglement of perennial road construction, adding my own blue smoke to the already stench-filled air. As I squealed between a cement mixer and a bakery wagon I noticed the chrome nozzle of a Chrysler roaring toward me in the rear view mirror. State trooper. Probably the toll collector had tipped him, or he saw me along Route 3. The cement mixer lost him precious moments as it ground up a narrow grade, and I shot onto the New Jersey Turnpike after hesitating at the entrance booth for a ticket.

No stopping. Not now, not before I reached Newark Airport. The bull's Chrysler was hot, but the Marauder engine under me held a few surprises itself. I rammed the throttle, passing every other car and the century mark. Public Service's huge generating complex flashed by in a blink and crossing the Hackensack River seemed like crossing a thread. I wasn't driving, I was aiming.

The Chrysler charged far in the rear, the cop whipping every horse under his hood to catch this maniac. Road blocks would be radioed ahead, but I hoped not before the airport exit.

I almost passed Menemsha in my haste. The silver-grey Jaguar sleekness blurred as I approached. It was doing a good eighty itself, but I eased off the gas as I drew alongside. I sneered across as nastily as I could at the startled face of my enemy.

We stayed abreast, hurtling along the turnpike, both of us undecided what to do. At the speeds we were traveling, to force one or the other over would be suicide. If Menemsha slowed or stopped, he'd miss his plane, and I had the advantage of power if he sped up. But I had the cop to contend with, whose cruiser, though still far back, was closing the gap rapidly.

The first yowl of siren pierced the impasse as Exit 14, the airport road, loomed ahead. The trooper was closing in for the kill, red lights brilliant in my mirror.

Menemsha panicked. Evidently thinking the siren commanded his surrender and not mine, he hunched over the wheel, egging the machinery on, and decided to run for it. He leaped ahead, pulling into the exit lane too close for me to pass. I had to drop back and follow, the cop a mean third. The toll plaza was relatively empty and Menemsha crashed through one booth unstopped. Lights and sirens blared unheeded, and the guard almost got squashed as I tore right behind. He flattened himself against the wall as the trooper ripped past.

Once clear of the plaza, the exit joined Highways 1 and 9, Newark Airport squatting on the left. Traffic to the airport crossed the highway at a light, and Menemsha careened into the left turn lane. But the light was red, cars lined patiently idling. In a desperate attempt to gain time, Menemsha dodged around them and flung himself across the intersection.

He almost succeeded. But his timing was a fraction off, and he rammed into the hitch between two tanks of an American Oil Co. tanker rig. The monster Kenworth diesel jackknifed with the impact, pitching across the highway in a squeal of rubber, closing over Menemsha's Jaguar like a nutcracker around a pistachio.

I stopped beyond the signal as fast as I could and ran back as the trooper pulled up. He grabbed an extinguisher from his car and tore for the mangled wreckage.

The truck driver hopped from his cab, extinguisher in hand, after shutting off his engine. Already crackles of flame licked around the tortured front end of the Jaguar, Menemsha desperately tugging at the door. It was wedged against the truck body, as was the other door. Menemsha scrambled into the rear and managed to open the left door an inch. And no more. Frantically he clawed at the tiny space, then pressed himself against the rear glass in terror.

Fire trickled along the frame, the two men desperately shooting foam in an attempt to arrest its progress. The heat became intense.

The heat.

The fuel.

I tugged at the policeman. He tried to shrug me away, but I grabbed the extinguisher nozzle and pointed it away. "No!" I yelled. "Get away. Get everybody away before it blows."

"That's what I'm trying to stop," he snarled back. "The gas-"

"Not the gas! That man has something in his car that'll go before the truck! A new kind of fuel, triggered by heat! Stolen! No time! Just get everybody back! Quick, for God's sake!"

The trooper looked at me stunned, not sure whether I wasn't some crank. Maybe it was the intensity of my pleadings, maybe just chance, but he ran to the truck driver and ordered him to head for cover.

A tangle of traffic and onlookers ringed the truck and car. The first tendrils of smoke sniffed lazily around the trunk as the trooper twisted, unsure whether to try to rescue Menemsha or unpile the traffic for retreat. I started toward him and glanced at the Jaguar. Menemsha, almost engulfed in haze screamed in panic, banging one jammed door against the painted slogan, "You expect more from American," then banging the other side against, "And you get it!"

We all got it. A holocaust of sudden blinding fury, choking the world in brilliance and blast. I reached for the trooper, his arm mere inches away, but he wasn't there anymore. Nothing was there anymore.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

"... seven dead, not counting Menemsha. Lucky it wasn't more, but the truck absorbed a lot of the blast. Quite a spectacular fire, though. You would have enjoyed that, Mike, and Newark's air crash squad dousing everything left and right. Lots of injuries from glass and such, but mostly minor. Only a few had to be hospitalized." Frenchy talked softly, sitting next to me.

I didn't even try to turn to face him. The pain grated with every move, the maze of bandages and goo which covered my body raking like claws with every feeble attempt. Best they could do for the present, the doctors had said, only drugs to ease my anguish saved the moments between sleeping pills from becoming unbearable.

"The bone crushers around here say you'll be up and around in a couple of months. Good as new." Frenchy looked reassuring, as the doctors had for the past three days. Skin grafting and plastic surgery, adding more scars to scars. The whole idea gave me the feeling I belonged in a wax museum rather than in a hospital.

The nurse had hypoed another batch of brew just before Frenchy had been admitted, and the stuff began to take effect. A white spot I kept staring at on the ceiling oozed in antiseptic. Blurry. Everything so blurry. Wanted to close my eyes, but they hurt so. What was Frenchy saying? Must concentrate; he's so far away.

"The state trooper lost his arm, poor guy, and the driver died this morning. Absolutely nothing left of the Jaguar, but Delborne still hasn't stopped talking, and after the Feds raided Caveat the bag was sewn tight."

The pungent tingle of one of Frenchy's cigars accented the air conditioning. "Do you know what they found? Guess you do, but it's caused quite a stir. I mean besides my Ford and Menemsha's gardener. That laboratory had a radio transmitter circuit with a reflector able to produce within 0.02 in. r.m.s. of a true paraboloid. Talked to one of the engineers who studied it. He says the reflector's surface seems to be some type of new resin-bonded glass fiber, which, according to the papers found, can achieve front-to-back ratios in excess of 70 db. at frequencies as high as 4,000 mc. Results in almost complete forward direction transmission. Delborne swears he doesn't know for sure, but from what we could piece together, it was to be used to sabotage our lunar attempts or just about anything else we could launch. A couple of beeps from it to countermand one of our radio directions or nullify our sending altogether, and America could chalk up another almost-but-not-quite."

Frenchy prattled on, happy in his scientific background. I drifted into the shadows. I tried to speak, to ask about Kim, how she was, where she was, but my throat burned like I'd swallowed caustic soda. Her mirage vied with the ceiling.

"The government took a dim view of all this, and most of it has been hushed up. Menemsha, prominent businessman, lost control of his automobile and fatally collided with a gasoline truck, the truck exploding. Delborne resigned and dropped out of sight for a rest, et cetera, et cetera. However, they have consented to pay for your care here and maybe a vacation afterwards, as long as it's not close by."

The rustle of starch warned me Florence Nightingale had entered. "Nurse says I have to go now, Mike, but I'll be back tomorrow." Frenchy stood up and began walking toward the door. "Kim sends her love," he added casually. "Oh, and is there anything I can bring you?"

"Kim," I gasped.

* * *

The lotion was a cool relief from the baking sun, and her hands covered my back with a drowsy rhythm. This, I felt, should go on forever. It stopped abruptly with a spank on my rump.

"C'mon, honey, turn over and let me get your front. The back's all done."

I wheezed and grunted and forced myself to do as the voice commanded. I kept my eyes shut as she worked her numbing magic on my chest and legs, content like a lap dog with its belly being scratched.

"All done. Now it's your turn." I opened my eyes this time and gazed up at the azure sky drifting high out of reach and watched it bend to meet the mottle of the cliffs around us. I twisted my head a bit and caught where the bleach of sand and shell joined them, and with a little more strain I included the fourth member in the picture: surf, cascading back and forth, a water mirror of the other three with its blue-green-brown color dashed with white foam.

Save for a passing sea gull, we were alone on one of Oregon's finest beaches at Hug Point State Park. Lesser known than others, it is small and easily missed, but the uncluttered shore and lagoon-forming cliffs have made it my favorite spot to relax. Just what the doctor had ordered, and with the compliments of Uncle Sam-the dream of many months had now become reality.

I gazed over and up, but Uncle Sam didn't stand beside me with hands on hips. Kim did. She wore a turquoise bikini and strained every inch of it. I forced my eyes down, but only succeeded in admiring her tanned ankles and legs, and, passing up her body again, I noticed her arms, shoulders, and face all had the same even shade. There was only a tiny white line on the bridge of her nose where sun glasses had rested, and a small, horseshoe-shaped scar on her right shoulder.

I propped myself up on my elbows and reached for the suntan lotion as she lay down on the blanket beside me. I squirted a little white goo on her back and began to massage it around. She seemed to purr. Somehow this seemed right. Me, in paradise with a beautiful babe.

Good grief, this was only the beginning.

THE END

Version 1.0. Scanned and proofed December 2003.