Free Live Free

a punch in the belly and getting a round-house right on the ear that knocked him to the carpet.

He bounced up like a superball and came at the house dick like a power saw. The dick made the mistake of reaching toward his hip pocket for a sap. Before he could get it out, his head snapped back and he fell stiffly, as a tree falls.

The other dick was still doubled over with pain. His fists still up, his good eye nearly closed, Barnes glared at the male guests and their wives, the desk clerks, and a couple of watching bellmen. Francisco, who was one of the bellmen, touched his cap in a gentle mock salute. “Buenas noches, Senor,” Francisco said.

“Good night to you too.” Barnes let his hands drop. The knuckles of the pigskin gloves were bright with blood.

Robin took his arm. “Come on. We’ve got to get out of here.”

He nodded reluctantly, looking at the felled house dick. “Blow me down,” he said. “He had a real punch.”

“The police will be here any minute.”

“Aye, aye, Cap’n, sir. Where’s Swee’pea?”

“I’m Olive, remember? I’ve got his hand. Come on now.”

Outside, snow was falling once more. The soft flakes sifted into Robin’s furs and settled on Barnes’s black and shining hair. “I’ve lost me cap,” he said.

Little Ozzie held up the homburg. “I got it.”

The gray car waited at the curb a few steps away from the bright lights of the entrance. As Barnes settled the stolen hat on his head, they heard distant sirens. “Hurry up!” Robin snapped.

“They’ve been running all night because of the blackout,” Barnes said. “I doubt if they’ll send the Swat Team to a fistfight. Little Ozzie, when you got my hat for me—thank you very much—did you by any chance also get that wallet he tried to give me? Or the key?”

The little boy shook his head.

“Pull up in front of the door,” Barnes told Robin. “I’ll be right back.”

Before she could stop him, he was sprinting for the entrance. He leaped a stack of luggage and burst through the inner doors while Francisco and the Agatha Christie fan were still applying water-soaked towels to Joe. The house dick Robin had kicked was nowhere to be seen, but the other dick was on his feet again, grasping Reeder by the arm. “I dropped a brown wallet and a key,” Barnes told him. “I want them back. Now.”

The dick only glared at him. Barnes began poking around the floor, kicking at disturbances in the thick carpet that he thought might conceal the locker key. He found the dick’s sap, tossed it in the air, then dropped it into his own pocket. A white-haired woman guest discovered his wallet and handed it to him with a disconcerting look of hero-worship.

Francisco called, “Paging Meester Jeem Stubb!”

The sirens died away beyond the doors, and two policemen came in. Barnes walked into the street-level bar where Candy and Stubb had ordered a final drink. He was tempted to stop for a quick one, but it could only be moments before someone told the policemen what had happened and pointed to the bar.

Outside, the gray sedan still waited, its rear bumper nearly touching the front bumper of the squad car. Barnes got in and saw that Little Ozzie was already sleeping, stretched out on the back seat. “I thought they had you,” Robin said. “God knows what I would have done.” She put the sedan out into traffic.

Barnes shrugged. “You couldn’t have done anything.”

“I have friends around town. I could have phoned some of them.”

“Sure.” Barnes patted his pockets. “Don’t give me a cigarette. I’m trying to quit.”

“Good for you. But you’re frisking yourself for one right now.”

“That’s okay, I know I don’t have any.”

She laughed. She had a good, throaty, big-girl laugh, Barnes thought. It made you want to make her laugh again. He said, “I might have a cigar.”

This time it was more of a chuckle. “Look in my purse.”

It was between them on the seat, and he looked. “What are you doing with cigars in your purse? Good ones, too.” Each was cased in its own aluminum tube. Barnes opened one, sniffed the cigar, and pushed in the dashboard lighter.

“Light one for me, will you?”

“You smoke cigars?”

“Where’d you think I got these dark good looks? I’m half Spanish, mi amigo. All us Spanish ladies smoke cigars—it’s sort of a family tradition.”

Barnes drew on the cigar until it was evenly lit, then passed it to her. “You said you were at the Bureau of Indian Affairs. I thought maybe you were part Indian.”

“No, it’s just that I had an affair with an Indian once. Chief Smoke Eater—he was a fire chief.”

This time it was Barnes who laughed. “I notice you’ve got a little gun in there too,” he said.

Detectives