Survival... ZERO!

'Impossible.' He stopped, the coffee halfway to his mouth. 'Really?'

'Sometimes.'

'Then maybe I don't feel so bad after all. It is better to just read, eh?'

'Much better,' I said. 'Tell me, are you a theatergoer?'

'No, only when my wife drags me there. Maybe once a year if I can't get out of it. Why?'

'Whoever lifted your wallet was working the theater crowds.'

Irving Grove nodded sagely. 'Ah, yes. That is possible. I see what you mean.' He put his cup down and picked a half-smoked cigar from an ashtray and lit it. 'See, Mr. Hammer, I live on the West Side. For years yet, always the same place. I close here and on nice nights I walk

home. Maybe a twenty-minute walk. Sometimes I go down one street, sometimes another, just to see the people, the excitement. You understand?'

I nodded.

'So pretty often I go past the theaters just when they're going in. I watch what they're wearing. It helps for my trade, you know. It was one of those nights when my wallet was stolen. I didn't even realize it until the next morning, and I couldn't be sure until I came back to the store to make sure I hadn't dropped it here somewhere. Right away I reported it and canceled all my credit cards.'

'What denomination bills did you have with you?'

'Two one hundred dollar bills, a fifty and one five. That I remember. I always remember the money.'

'Where did you carry it?'

'Inside my coat pocket.'

I said, 'Maybe you can remember anybody that pushed or shoved you that night. Anybody who was close to you in the crowd who could have lifted it?'

Grove smiled sadly and shook his head. 'Fm afraid I'm not a very suspicious person, Mr. Hammer. I never look at faces, only clothes. No, I wouldn't remember that.'

I crushed my paper cup, tossed it in the wastebasket and thanked him for his time. He was just another blank in a long series of blanks and all it was doing was making Lippy look worse than ever. Velda was right. I should have just left it all alone.

So I got out of there, walked over to Forty-fourth and The Blue Ribbon, pulled out the chair behind my usual table and had the waiter bring me a knockwurst and beer. Jim waved hello from behind the bar and switched on the TV so I could watch the six o'clock news.

Eddie Dandy came on after the weather, freshly shaven, his usual checkered sportscoat almost eyestraining to watch whenever he moved, his voice making every piece of dull information sound like a world-shattering event. George came over and sat down with his ever-present coffee cup in his hand and started in on his favorite subject of food. He had just asked me about a new specialty he was thinking of putting on the menu when I stopped him short with a wave of my hand.

Eddie Dandy had changed the tone of his voice. He wasn't reading from his notes, he was looking directly into the camera in deadly seriousness and said, '. . . and once again the public is being kept in the dark about a matter of grave importance. The unidentified body found in the

Times Square station of the subway has been secretly autopsied with the findings kept locked in government files. No information has been given either the police or the press and the doctors who performed the autopsy are being confined in strict quarantine at this moment. It is this reporter's opinion that this man died of a virulent disease developed by this government's chemical-germ warfare research, one that could possibly lead to severe epidemic proportions, but rather than inform the public and institute an immediate remedial program, they chose to avoid panic and possible political repercussions by keeping this matter completely in the dark. Therefore, I suggest. ..'

I said, 'Oh, shit!' Then threw a bill on the table and dashed to the phone booth in the next room. I threw a dime in the slot, dialed Pat's number and waited for him to come on the phone.

I said, 'Mike here, Pat.'

He was silent a second, then through his breathing he told me, 'Get your ass down here like now, buddy. Like right this damn minute.'

CHAPTER 4

Pat wouldn't talk to me. He didn't even want to look at me and for the first time since we had been friends I felt like telling him to go to hell. I didn't. I just sat there beside him in the patrol car and watched the streets roll by on the way to the office building on Madison Avenue where the watchdogs had their cute little front they thought nobody knew about. And this time even Pat was surprised when I got out first, went inside to the elevator and punched the 4 button without being told. There was a no smoking sign in the elevator so I took out my deck, shook a cigarette loose and struck a wooden kitchen match across the no. Then he knew how I felt too. He started to say something, only I got there first.

'You should have asked me,' I said.

The others were all waiting, quiet and deadly, their faces full of venom, tinged with total dislike and anticipating selective revenge. Screw them too, I thought.

There weren't any introductions. The big guy with the bulging middle and the florid face simply pointed to a chair and after I looked at it long enough and decided on my own to sit down, I sat, then spun my butt into the middle of their big, beautiful mahogany company table and grinned when another one glared at me a second before picking it up and dropping it in a huge ceramic ashtray.

Everyone sat down with such deliberate motion you'd think we were about to go into a discussion of a successful bond issue. But it wasn't like that and I wasn't about to let them open the meeting. I waited until the last chair had scraped into position and said, 'If you clowns think you're about to steamroller me, you'd just better start thinking straight. Nobody asked me here, nobody advised me of my rights, and right now I'd just as soon kick any or all of you on your damn tails ... including my erstwhile buddy

here ... and all you need to start the action is one little push.'

'You're not under arrest, Hammer,' the fat one said.

'Believe it, buddy, that I'm not. But I'm sure interested in getting that way.'

When they looked at each other wondering what kind of a cat they had caught in their trap I knew I had the bull on them and I wasn't about to let go. For the first time I looked directly at Pat 'I saw Eddie Dandy's show tonight myself. You've already been informed by Captain Chambers here that I was a recipient of confidential information. It was given me in way of explanation so I wouldn't do any loose talking, so I assume everyone here figures I picked up a few fast bucks by passing that information on. Okay, right now, hear this just once. It was Eddie Dandy who suggested the idea and I just made a few discreet inquiries that shook up my good pal Pat to the point where he had to fill me in on the rest.' I tapped out another butt and lit it. Somebody shoved the ashtray my way. 'Pat, I said nothing, you got that?'

He was still the cop. His expression didn't change an iota. 'Sorry, Mike.'

'Okay, forget it.'

'It can't be forgotten,' the fat guy said. 'Do you know who we are?'

'Who the hell are you trying to kid?' I asked him. 'You're all D.C. characters playing political football with something you can't handle. Now you got Eddie Dandy on your backs and can't get him off.'

One of the others snapped a pencil in two and stared at me, his face tight with rage. 'He'll be here to explain his part in this.'

'There isn't any part, you nut. All you can do now is offer excuses or start lying. Which is it? Or do you discredit Eddie? Tell me, is it true?'

Everybody wanted to talk at once, but the fat guy at the end silenced them with one word. Then he looked down the table at me and folded his hands with all the innocence of a bear trap. 'Tell me, Mr. Hammer, why are you so militant?'

'Because I don't dig you goons. You're all bureaucratic nonsense, tax happy, self-centered socialistic slobs who think the public's a game you can run for your own benefit. One day you'll realize that it's the individual who pulls the strings, not committees.'

'And you're that individual?'