Dan said, 'Right after us. All three of them.'
Grofield said, 'Whose idea was it to hijack Dan and me?'
'Mine,' Myers said. 'I was mad at you people, you were the first ones to go. Maybe if you didn't leave, the others-'
'If they were pros,' Dan said, a little irritated, 'they'd have left.'
'Anyway,' Grofield said. 'You and whatsisname-'
'Dankworth.'
'I didn't ask you. You and whatsisname came down after everybody left, and you saw Dan and me at the table, and you saw us winning.'
'We couldn't get too close,' Myers said. 'We thought you were the one with the money.'
'And you wanted to get even for us walking out on you.'
'That's right.'
'So then whatsisname-'
'Dankworth.'
Dan stepped forward and kicked Myers on the right kneecap. 'He didn't ask you!'
Myers didn't make a noise, but he winced and closed his free hand around his knee.
Grofield shook his head at Dan. 'I don't like to see people being hurt,' he said. To Myers he said, 'Dankworth. After you got Dan's money and went back to the hotel room, he jumped you.'
'That's right.'
'And you had a fight, and you managed to win.'
'That's right.'
Grofield turned half away from Myers and said to Dan, 'If he tells a dumb lie on that part, why should I believe his hundred thousand story?'
Aggrieved again, Myers said, 'What do you mean, a dumb lie?'
Dan was frowning. He studied Myers, and then looked at Grofield. 'You sound damn sure of yourself.'
'I am. Number one – there wasn't any mess in either room, no struggle of any kind. There was some bloodstain on the rug in front of one of the chairs, and that was it. Number two – the only way you can kill a man the way Dankworth was killed is to sneak up behind him when he's sitting down, reach around him, pull his head up by the chin with one hand and slit his throat with your knife in the other hand. You don't give a man that kind of cut from in front of him, and you don't give him that kind of cut if you're in a brawl with him.'
Myers said, 'Why the hell would I want to kill him?'
Grofield turned back to him. 'Because Dan knocked him out, and
Myers blinked, his mouth working as he tried to think of something to say. No words came out.
Dan, sounding dangerous, said, 'You son of a bitch, is that the way it was?'
Grofield said, 'Don't start kicking him, Dan. I just wanted to get that part straight before I heard about the hundred thousand.' He looked at Myers. 'I'll listen now.'
Myers wanted to turn sullen, but was afraid to. He said, 'This is for real. I don't have any reason to lie about this.'
'Just tell it,' Grofield suggested.
'All right.' Myers wiped his mouth with the back of his free hand, and put the hand back on his hurt knee. He said, 'Dankworth was in prison up till the beginning of this year.'
'Doesn't surprise me,' said Grofield.
'This was near Los Angeles,' Myers said, 'in a state penitentiary there. He got to know an old man there, named Entrekin, they were friends, I suppose. And it turned out this Entrekin and two other old men, all of them long-term prisoners, they had a tunnel to the outside. Dankworth got out through it, that's how he made his escape, this is all absolutely on the level. He's still listed in California as an escaped felon, you can look it up.'
'I don't want to look it up,' Grofield said. 'I'll accept the fact that Dankworth was an escaped con, and that he got out through somebody else's tunnel. Proceed.'
'All right,' Myers said. 'Now, the point about these three old men and their tunnel is that they don't want to get out of prison! Do you see? They're all old. They don't want to spend the last years of their lives hiding out from the police. They don't care about women any more. So the way it seems to them, they're better off if they stay behind bars.'
Grofield glanced again at Dan, but Dan was watching Myers.
Myers said, 'But they've all got families, all three of them, wives and children and grandchildren and everything, all on the outside. And they want to take care of their families, naturally, so what they do is, they go out
