assuming he was even involved, is why he'd want the papers.'
'Could you question him?'
He spun around. 'Are you kidding? Based on something you overheard? No way.'
'Isn't there a rule about deathbed confessions?'
'Yes. A dying declaration is admissible evidence since it is assumed to be, as the deceased's last words, the truth. But dying declarations almost always concern something the dying man himself did or didn't do, or else the identity of the man's assailant.'
'So it means nothing?'
'Oh no. It means a lot. A hell of a lot. I just don't know what yet.'
The door burst open and Brian Hannon entered, shaking his right fist like a crapshooter. The fist emitted a metallic rattle.
'Thanks for knocking, Brian,' said Joe.
'You're entirely welcome… lieutenant.'
He held his fist up under our noses and opened it. Resting on his wide palm were four ammo rounds as big as lipsticks. They were Sam's forty-Five-caliber long-Colt cartridges.
'Seen these?' asked Brian. Joe picked one of them up and looked at the nose. He saw the snowflake cuts hacked across the lead.
'Well hush my mouth,' said Joe.
'Great, Brindelli. just great. Know what it looks like to have dumdums used in my jurisdiction? You just wait: the city council's gonna be on my case like cheddar on Ritz.'
'You gotta admit they do a job,' said Joe.
'Don't you be a wise-ass. You been hanging around him too long,' said Brian, jerking his thumb at me. He bent over and pointed to the top of his head, which had been shaved and bandaged. 'See this? Seven stitches on account of your friend the doctor. Now what do I do about Sam?'
'Nothing. If it weren't for him my brother-in-law and sister would be dead.'
'That's what I mean. Take 'em. Lose 'em someplace. Though God knows the medical examiner's going to ask a lot of questions. jeez, you see those slobs? Look like they were hit by mortars.'
Joe slipped the rounds into his coat pocket and turned to me.
'How'd he do it, Doc? How'd Sam get back here for the ambush?'
'After he took the call and got the money from the safe, he took a couple of minutes to study a road map. Seeing that the drop was on 2A, he thought there was a chance something was happening here. It was a lucky guess. He knew he couldn't tail us without being noticed. He got a friend of his to drive the Regal to the Mobil station near 128 and Route 2. He followed with the dog and the cycle. They met at the gas station, where Sam took the Regal to make the drop. He wore a hat and a jumpsuit so he could change his appearance fast. He went up 128 to 2A, which is less than a mile, and into the lot. After the drop he hustled back to the station, doffed the clothes, and sped along Route 2 into Concord and over here by the back way. With the bike he could cut right across the orchard, which he did. That's what Vince heard. It wasn't shooting, it was Sam's old Honda backfiring. Hell, he and the dog were staked out in position behind the far wall even before we got back.'
Brian looked at me. 'I think you owe him dinner,' he said. 'And Joe, don't forget to ditch those rounds.'
Next day, as I fitted the shiny prongs of my Hu-Friedy forceps over the crown and shank of a deeply impacted third molar, the idea came to me. I was struck by how the metal of the instrument obscured the tooth completely. The metal surrounded the object, hiding it. The metal surrounded the object… hiding it…
'Eureka!' I whispered.
'What?' asked Susan Petri, who stood, white-smocked and plastic-aproned, to my immediate right. 'Did you ask for a beaker?'
'No. I said Eureka. That means 'I found it.' '
'I know. Found what?'
'The place where the negatives are hidden. I think I've found it.'
She stared at me. I couldn't see her lower face since it was hidden by her surgical mask. The eyebrows went up; the forehead wrinkled in a frown. 'Swell, Doctor Adams.'
She dipped her siphon tube into the patient's open mouth to draw off the blood that was fast collecting there. Fortunately the patient was asleep, having been given a shot of sodium pentothal. Mrs. Habersham couldn't hear us. I withdrew the bent and buried tooth, which I had twisted up with the cowhorn forceps.
There was a deep, sucking, squishing noise as the molar came out, then we sutured and packed the wound, injected Mrs. Habersham with a hefty slug of penicillin, and watched her carefully while she came to. You must be really careful with a general anesthetic so that your patient doesn't choke or drown. This is especially true if you've worked in the mouth. She woke up without a hitch and we sent her on her way. On foot.
At the earliest opportunity I returned home to the darkroom (which I was painstakingly rebuilding) and got an eight-inch strip of 35mm film. I headed out to the Concord Rod and Gun Club and the outdoor range. I heard those big Magnums blasting off long before I reached it. Then another sound: the thump of iron silhouettes being hit by slugs and slamming against the ground. Silhouette shooting, imported from Europe in the sixties, is all the rage now at gun clubs. It consists of shooting at thick metal plates cut out in the shape of animal profiles, at long range, using big-bore Magnum handguns. No rifles. It's a silly sport, I guess. But then so is chasing a little white ball around on grass and whacking at it until it falls into a cup.
I was out at the silhouette range because I needed a big-bore revolver to experiment with. I found Chuck Norgaard at one of the stations, poised at the line with a revolver held out in front of him with both hands. There was a blast I felt in my chest, and the gun and his arms went up. He stepped back and flipped out the cylinder, pushed the ejection rod, and dumped out the spent shells.
'Hiya Doc. What brings you here?'
'I want to borrow that thing when you're finished.'
He nodded, and I saw him drop six more silver rockets into the cylinder. I was sick of looking at big handguns.
'Got any idea what those things do when they hit people instead of steel plate?' I asked.
'I can imagine.'
'No you can't,' I said, and waited for him over at the bench. I should have brought earmuffs.
Half an hour later I left the club, went home, and got hold of Joe.
'What do you mean, not there?'
'All Johnny Robinson's personal effects went to Sam, except for the stuff his sister took. It's all at Dependable, or Sam's apartment.'
'Okay; I'll get in touch with Sam. Meet me at Brian's office at six tonight. I think I know where the hot item is.'
'Okay, sport, strut your stuff,' said Brian Hannon, leaning back in his armchair. He glanced over at Joe, who was lighting a Benson 8c Hedges 100 with the new gold-and-blue lighter. A look of confusion crossed Brian's face.
'Hey, that lighter looks different, Joe. Not as fruity. What happened?'
'This is a new one. Classier.'
'Where'd you get it?'
'I got it, if you must know, from a Mafia chieftain.'
'No, really.'
'Let's talk about something else. C'mon, Doc, I'm getting starved. Sam's late, but tell us anyway. Where the hell's this filmstrip?'
I laid Inspector James Bell's Smith 8: Wesson on the desk, and next to it a new, unsharpened pencil. I explained that I'd gotten the idea while fitting the barrel of my tooth extractor around an old lady's molar. They
