sedan.
Tony and Velma were intricately entangled, his hand lost in her dress.
He tapped on the glass.
Tony jumped. He rolled down the window. 'Boss! Hey, we got tailed. They wouldn't quit, so I pulled over to wait 'em out.'
Carney gave the street the up-and-down. 'Looks like they were convinced. You can stop the verisimilitude now.'
When Carney got in, Velma was reapplying lipstick and Tony was wiping it off his face.
'Sorry about that, boss,' Tony said.
'You could have phoned the restaurant.'
'I didn't want to leave Velma.'
'Forget it. But I'm docking you a hundred out of your pay.'
Tony was silent for a moment. He put away his handkerchief. 'Gee, boss, I'm sorry as hell. I feel like such a finocchio. I really shoulda figured some way to phone.'
'I said, forget it. We lost them. Now let's get moving.'
Tony started the car.
Velma gave Carney an enigmatic smile conveying a suggestion that she had meant to do some mischief and was delighted to have succeeded. But it was only a suggestion.
'Go up to Dutchtown,' Carney said.
'Dutchtown? I thought we was going to cross the river.'
'Later. I need to get in the spirit.'
'Check.'
The car moved off into the night.
Twelve
Ville-Des-Morts
The street was dark and deserted, decent people being in bed, sleeping or otherwise, at this time of night. There was, however, a fingernail-clipping of a moon that served to limn the cobblestones in a faint bluish light.
Linda, Gene, and Snowclaw kept to the shadows. They passed through alley after alley, sending gray ghosts of cats scurrying. Every so often they encountered a lighted window ? someone sick, perhaps, or a literate citizen (in these neighborhoods quite rare) up with an absorbing book.
They did run across the odd person up and about, and twice, a group of rowdies. The rowdies they hid from, but in neither case did they suspect the passers-by of being members of Ragueneau's private police force.
They moved on through the old city.
'We could go through the sewers,' Gene suggested.
'Yuck,' Linda said. 'Do you know your way around down there?'
'Nope. But I thought it would lend the right note of romance. Orson Welles in The Third Man. Zither music, you know?'
'Right.'
'Wait.' Gene stopped Linda with an outstretched arm. Snowclaw halted.
Voices up ahead. Gene motioned toward the mouth of an alley. With a light tread, they ran.
The other end of the alley gave onto a winding street. They turned left and proceeded until they heard more voices, these off to the left. They hurried.
They came running around a bend and into full view of three men talking in the middle of the square. They skidded to a stop.
One of the three walked toward them. 'You there! Let's see your papers.' He wore, as did his mates, the telltale purple brassard of Ragueneau's auxiliaries.
'Papers?' Gene said innocently.
The man kept coming. 'Idiot! Your identification papers.'
'No need to get personal.'
'Eh? What's your name?' The man's right hand went to his sword hilt.
'Jose Ferrer. And we don't got to show you no stinkin' papers.' Gene drew his rapier.
The man drew his weapon almost simultaneously, but backstepped until the other two arrived. Gene and Snowclaw went to meet them. Gene engaged the first man while Snowclaw, sans weapon, faced down the pair.
They didn't know what to make of him. Snowclaw kept advancing purposefully, and, momentarily intimidated by his size and his inexplicable behavior, the two men failed to stand their ground. Then one of them lunged for Snowclaw's massive chest. The point made contact; the thin sword bowed into an arch, and the astonished attacker withdrew.
'Ouch,' Snowclaw said, stopping. He opened his shirt and examined his right pectoral. 'That broke the skin, darn it.' He sprang toward the culprit. 'Now you're going to get it.'
Both men dashed away.
Gene and his opponent were mixing it up rather well. Snowclaw stood by and watched imperturbably, but Linda gnawed a knuckle, giving a little shriek when Gene had to retreat from a killing lunge.
When the man realized he was alone, the fight went out of him. He backed off, looked over his shoulder, gave a weak, embarrassed smile, then turned and ran.
'You guys are good,' Linda marveled.
'Get hurt, Snowy?' Gene asked.
'Nah. There's only one or two spots on me that those pointy things can jab into, but they haven't found 'em yet.'
'Amazing,' Linda said.
Gene poked him. 'Snowy must have some kind of layer of cartilage under his skin. At least that's how I ?'
Running footsteps came from beyond the bend, approaching.
The threesome took off down the street. They made a left at the next crossing and followed a narrow street lined with buildings fronting on the pavement. The sounds of pursuit remained at their heels. They ducked into an alley, ran along it. Snowclaw collided with a pile of debris and made a racket. Linda stubbed her toe, suppressed a curse, and went limping along. Gene was first into the street on the other side, and looked to the right. Five of Ragueneau's henchmen came spilling out of a courtyard. Gene jumped back into the alley, snagged Snowclaw before he blundered out, and turned Linda around. She grabbed onto him.
'Go back! Can you walk?'
'I think I broke my toe.'
They worked their way slowly back up the alley. For all Snowclaw's caution, however, he stumbled over the same pile of junk, raising as much racket as before.
'I thought you could see in the dark,' Gene growled.
'Who ever said that?' Something breakable shattered. 'Darn it, anyway.'
'Snowy, quit that!'
'I'm not doing it deliberately! I can't see a thing.'
In fact, Snowclaw's eyes were designed to temper the harsh arctic glare of sun on ice and snow. The lenses of his eyes were like polarized sunglasses, and thus made for poor night vision.
A shadow appeared at the end of the alley.
'You there! Stop where you are!'
They turned and tried to run, but Linda could do little better than limp along. When they reached the other end of the alley, Ragueneau's goons were waiting to meet them.
Gene waded in, sword long since drawn, and engaged no less than three of the five. One grabbed Linda, but Snowclaw snapped his neck straightaway. The fourth goon tried to run Snowclaw through, but got his rapier broken
