sagged forward. I ran over and eased him into a chair.
“Vest . . . pocket.”
I poked my fingers under his coat and brought out a small envelope of capsules. York picked one out with trembling fingers and put it on his tongue. He swallowed it, stared blankly at the wall. Very slowly a line of muscles along his jaw hardened into knots, his lips curled back in an animal-like snarl. “The bitch,” he said, “the dirty man- hating bitch has sold me out.”
“Who, Mr. York? Who was it?”
He suddenly became aware of me standing there. The snarl faded. A hunted-quarry look replaced it. “I said nothing, you understand? Nothing.”
I dropped my hand from his shoulder. I was starting to get a dirty taste in my mouth again. “Go to hell,” I said, “I’m going to report it.”
“You wouldn’t dare!”
“Wouldn’t I? York, old boy, that son of yours pulled me out of a nasty mess. I like him. You hear that? I like him more than I do a lot of people. If you want to expose him to more danger that’s your affair, but I’m not going to have it.”
“No . . . that’s not it. This can’t be made public.”
“Listen, York, why don’t you stow that publicity stuff and think of your kid for a change? Keep this under your hat and you’ll invite another snatch and maybe you won’t be so lucky. Especially,” I added, “since somebody in your household has sold you out.”
York shuddered from head to foot.
“Who was it, York? Who’s got the bull on you?”
“I . . . have nothing to say.”
“No? Who else knows you’re counting your hours because of those radiation burns? What’s going to happen to the kid when you kick off?”
That did it. He turned a sick color. “How did you find out about that?”
“It doesn’t matter. If I know it others probably do. You still didn’t tell me who’s putting the squeeze on you.”
“Sit down, Mr. Hammer. Please.”
I pulled up a chair and parked.
“Could I,” he began, “retain you as sort of a guardian instead of reporting this incident? It would be much simpler for me. You see, there are certain scientific aspects of my son’s training that you, as a layman, would not understand, but if brought to light under the merciless scrutiny of the newspapers and a police investigation might completely ruin the chances of a successful result.
“I’m not asking you to understand, I’m merely asking that you cooperate. You will be well paid, I assure you. I realize that my son is in danger, but it will be better if we can repel any danger rather than prevent it at its source. Will you do this for me?”
Very deliberately I leaned back in my chair and thought it over. Something stunk. It smelled like Rudolph York. But I still owed the kid a debt.
“I’ll take it, York, but if there’s going to be trouble I’d like to know where it will come from. Who’s the man- hating turnip that has you in a brace?”
His lips tightened. “I’m afraid I cannot reveal that, either. You need not do any investigating. Simply protect my interests, and my son.”
“Okay,” I said as I rose. “Have it your own way. I’ll play dummy. But right now I’m going to beat the sheet. It’s been a tough day. You’d better hit it yourself.”
“I’ll call Harvey.”
“Never mind, I’ll find it.” I walked out. In the foyer I pulled the diagram out of my pocket and checked it. The directions were clear enough. I went upstairs, turned left at the landing and followed the hand-carved balustrade to the other side. My room was next to last and my name was on white cardboard, neatly typed, and framed in a small brass holder on the door. I turned the knob, reached for the light and flicked it on.
“You took long enough getting here.”
I grinned. I wondered what Alice Nichols had used as a bribe to get Harvey to put me in next to her. “Hello, kitten.”
Alice smiled through a cloud of smoke. “You were better-looking the last time I saw you.”
“So? Do I need a shave?”
“You need a new face. But I’ll take you like you are.” She shrugged her shoulders and the spiderweb of a negligee fell down to her waist. What she had on under it wasn’t worth mentioning. It looked like spun moonbeams with a weave as big as chicken wire. “Let’s go to bed.”
“Scram, kitten. Get back in your own hive.”
“That’s a corny line, Mike, don’t play hard to get.”
I started to climb out of my clothes. “It’s not a line, kitten, I’m beat.”
“Not that much.”
I draped my shirt and pants over the back of the chair and flopped in the sack. Alice stood up slowly. No, that’s not the word. It was more like a low-pressure spring unwinding. The negligee was all the way off now. She was a concert of savage beauty.
“Still tired?”
“Turn off the light when you go out, honey.” Before I rolled over she gave me a malicious grin. It told me that there were other nights. The lights went out. Before I corked off one thought hit me. It couldn’t have been Alice Nichols he had meant when he called some babe a man-hating bitch.
Going to sleep with a thought like that is a funny thing. It sticks with you. I could see Alice over and over again, getting up out of that chair and walking across the room, only this time she didn’t even wear moonbeams. Her body was lithe, seductive. She did a little dance. Then someone else came into my dream, too. Another dame. This one was familiar, but I couldn’t place her. She did a dance too, but a different kind. There was none of that animal grace, no fluid motion. She took off her clothes and moved about stiffly, ill at ease. The two of them started dancing together, stark naked, and this new one was leading. They came closer, the mist about their faces parted and I got a fleeting glimpse of the one I couldn’t see before.
I sat bolt upright in bed. No wonder Miss Grange did things that bothered me. It wasn’t the woman I recognized in her apartment, it was her motions. Even to striking a match toward her the way a man would. Sure, she’d be a man-hater, why not? She was a lesbian.
“Damn!”
I hopped out of bed and climbed into my pants. I picked out York’s room from the diagram and tiptoed to the other side of the house. His door was partly opened. I tapped gently. No answer.
I went in and felt for the switch. Light flooded the room, but it didn’t do me any good. York’s bed had never been slept in. One drawer of his desk was half open and the contents pushed aside. I looked at the oil blot on the bottom of the drawer. I didn’t need a second look at the hastily opened box of .32 cartridges to tell me what had been in there. York was out to do murder.
Time, time, there wasn’t enough of it. I finished dressing on the way out. If anyone heard the door slam after me or the motor start up they didn’t care much. No lights came on at all. I slowed up by the gates, but they were gaping open. From inside the house I could hear a steady snore. Henry was a fine gatekeeper.
I didn’t know how much of a lead he had. Sometime hours ago my watch had stopped and I didn’t reset it. It could have been too long ago. The night was fast fading away. I don’t think I had been in bed a full hour.
On that race to town I didn’t pass a car. The lights of the kid’s filling station showed briefly and swept by. The unlit headlamps of parked cars glared in the reflection of my own brights and went back to sleep.
I pulled in behind a line of cars outside the Glenwood Apartments, switched off the engine and climbed out. There wasn’t a sign of life anywhere. When this town went to bed it did a good job.
It was one time I couldn’t ring doorbells to get in. If Ruston had been with me it wouldn’t have taken so long; the set of skeleton keys I had didn’t come up with the right answer until I tried two dozen of them.
The .45 was in my fist. I flicked the safety off as I ran up the stairs. Miss Grange’s door was closed, but it wasn’t locked; it gave when I turned the knob.
No light flared out the door when I kicked it open. No sound broke the funeral quiet of the hall. I stepped in
