He came awake, staring into the darkness. His wife was breathing deeply and evenly. He’d been asleep, for God’s sake! He’d slept. How long?

He listened. There was no sound, but the hot wind drawing through the windows.

He thought he heard a soft movement from the living room. Shirly. Knowing her, he was positive she’d be waiting.

He listened to Grace breathe. It was absolutely even and deep. She was asleep. Once she was asleep, it was difficult to wake her. It would be even better tonight, because she hadn’t gone to sleep early. She would sleep for a long time, hard.

He had to admit that all this strain was beginning to tell on him a little. This was the third time he’d fallen asleep, waiting for Grace to konk off. No wonder — every night in there on the studio couch. And sometimes during the day, too.

Thinking of Shirly got him going again.

He began to move toward the edge of the bed. Once he’d awakened Grace. If he did again, he could always say he was going to the bathroom. And he had every movement down to an art, worming slowly like a snake to the edge of the bed, without pulling at the sheet, without causing a sound.

He got one foot off the bed, braced on the floor. In a moment he was clear of the bed. He stood there in the moonlight, looking at his wife, listening to her breathe. She was really out cold tonight. He checked his watch on the dresser. Two-fifteen.

Late. But to the good, really. Once before it had been very late, and Shirly had fallen asleep. He had crept in beside her, and slowly awakened her the way she liked. What a night that had been. He began breathing a bit more rapidly, and moved carefully on bare feet toward the hall door.

Once in the hall, he stepped fast. He came through the dinette, turned through the archway into the living room.

There was no sound, but the slow hot wind out in the yard. The Australian pines moaned softly.

He moved across the living room to the bamboo screen they’d set up for Shirly, so she’d have some sort of privacy. Privacy. Wow, that was a laugh!

He came around the edge of the screen.

She was asleep. Lying face up on the studio couch, the moonlight very dim here. The sheet was pulled up just across her breasts. Her thick hair was fanned out around her head on the pillow, and the lush outline of her body showed in shadow under the sheet.

He did not call to her, did not make a sound.

Slowly, gently, he lifted the sheet. With the same intricate care he had used in leaving his wife’s bed, he now slid under the sheet and slowly moved toward the girl. He arranged the sheet over him, and gently eased toward her, whispering her name, “Shirly — baby, baby — here I am, baby.”

He put his arms around her, kissing her mouth, and that was when he felt the wetness, when he thought that she must be perspiring heavily.

The living room lights suddenly blazed with a crazy brilliance.

The bamboo screen crashed to the floor.

He leaped up, kneeling on the bed, the sheet falling away. It was then he saw the blood. He was covered with it.

“Well, Nick?”

Grace stood there in her shorty nightgown, smiling gently at him. Then she didn’t smile. She just stood there.

“She’s dead!” he shouted. He sprang from the bed in a kind of blind, savage horror, covered with blood from chest to knee. The girl lay in a bath of blood. He couldn’t move, couldn’t speak now.

“Were you checking again to see if my sister was sleeping okay — eh, Nicky?”

Grace had never called him Nicky.

Grace was pointing to the front screen door. The main door was open. The screen door was slashed, screen curling to the floor.

“You’d better call the police,” she said. Her voice was very quiet. “A prowler apparently broke in and murdered my sister. It’s a terrible thing, isn’t it? Why, look,” she said, pointing to the floor, “there’s the knife he must’ve used.”

A bloody carving knife lay on the rug.

“All right,” Grace said. “Maybe it’s better if I call. You’d better take a quick shower. They might think things, huh?”

“You,” he said. “You did it!”

She sighed. “Of course, darling. I love you. I knew what was going on with that little tramp. It was just a matter of time. I spoke to Shirl, but she refused to leave. Said she’d take you with her.” She moved toward the phone. “Hurry up,” she said. “Take your shower, Nicky.”

Know what it’s like waiting for the chair — the electric chair?

Joslin paced the small cell. He stopped briefly to run his palm along the bars. The motion distracted him, sometimes.

Grimly he asked, “Want to make that bet, Stuart?”

From the next cell, Stuart asked softly, “Why?”

“To have something to think about.” Joslin looked down at his shoes without laces and back at the loathsome sink and bedpan as well as the narrow cot. “I’m trying it anyhow, you know.”

“It can’t be done,” Stuart said.

“Make it a bet.”

Somebody further down the cell block asked, “Two nights left, huh, Joss?”

“Two it is,” Joslin said.

“Who knows?” Stuart said. “The governor might wait till the last minute before coming through with a reprieve.”

Joslin kicked at the stone floor and watched dust rise. “That’s what Smitty was saying till they pushed him west.”

He looked down to his left, in the direction toward which Smitty had gone, toward a small door.

“We sat here,” he added, “and watched the lights flicker.”

From further down, Will Arbenz said, “What you’ve been talkin’ about is crazy. Nobody’d let you. It’s against all the rules to let you.”

Somebody laughed. The sound was taken up by the others. They laughed heavily, as they did whether an event was funny or only mildly amusing.

It was evening. In the other wings of the prison, the men would be finishing dinner and planning ahead. Maybe Joslin’s name figured in some of the hushed conversations.

Will Arbenz said huskily, “The chances of a last-minute reprieve are pretty small. If you had a chance, you’d know it. We all have to get used to what’s going to happen.”

Arbenz was due to go in three months. His gravelly voice and exact knowledge of procedure made Joslin’s nerve-ends crawl.

“We can make it a worthwhile bet, Stu,” Joslin said, a little nervously. “If I lose, you get my things.”

Stuart grunted. “For two weeks,” he said dismally.

“Look what you’d be getting.” Joslin grinned, tapped the wall between them for emphasis. “My address book, for instance. It’s full of girl’s names.”

“I can sure use it!” Stuart gave that particularly hearty death-cell laugh. “What else?”

“Red tie and blue suit. We’re about the same size.”

A guard passed on his way to light a cigarette for one of the prisoners. Joslin watched the guard, counted two hundred footsteps from the cell to the station down at the other end.

“Any money in this deal?” Stuart grunted. “Not that I need it, but my missus can use it.”

“I’ve only got about fifty bucks,” Joslin said regretfully. “Suppose I win, what do I get?”

“I’ve got about a hundred dollars downstairs in the property clerk’s office.”

“Forget the money. What else?”

“Suit, shirt, tie, wallet.”

“I don’t give a damn what the stakes are. Now, here’s the bet.” He lowered his voice so that only Stuart would be able to hear. “That even if I don’t get a reprieve on Wednesday night, I’ll beat the chair that night.”

“How?” Stuart was almost hoarse. “You tell me that much or there’s no bet.”

Joslin took a deep breath. “Here it is: I’m going to kill one of the guards Wednesday night.”

Stuart was silent for a full minute, then asked, “What’s that got to do with the price of tea in China?”

“Easiest thing in the world, Stu. Kill one of ’em and what happens? Everything stops. New records have to be made, a full investigation has to be held. That means they won’t be able to do it then.”

“And afterwards?”

“I’ll figure something else to keep me out of the chair.”

“Won’t work,” Stuart decided grimly. “They’re pretty damn careful around here.”

“Maybe they are. Maybe not. Anyhow, that’s what the bet’s about.”

Down the cell block, Will Arbenz was saying loudly to somebody else, “Did your lawyer take advantage of clause 415? A lot of ’em forget that.”

Arbenz had written out his own appeals, and told everybody the exact wording. The man’s only serious reading matter were books on criminal law, and he probably knew them by heart.

Joslin said suddenly, loudly, “What time is it?”

“Seven o’clock,” he was told.

Joslin had purposely smashed his watch on coming into the death house, and been sorry about it ever since. But he knew he’d be laughed at if he bought a watch now.

“It’s ten minutes since I asked,” he said wonderingly. “For ten minutes I didn’t even think about what time it was.”

Down at the other end, the cell block door opened and Father Mullins came waddling in, smiling and nodding to all of them, asking if they wanted anything, if they would like to talk to him. Only Arbenz accepted that offer. Joslin, trying to read one of the innumerable pocket edition westerns in his cell, could hear Arbenz’ talk to the priest as a low muttering.

Joslin slept somehow. He woke in time to see daybreak. He felt sick. Pain laced his stomach. Every five minutes one of the other men, Brent, called out the time.

The day’s jokes and semi-wisecracks had already started with somebody asking Arbenz, “Your life insurance paid up?”

One of the guards had thrown in the morning newspaper. Joslin glanced idly through it. The sound of leaves turning in other cells came plainly to him.

Stuart said, “Anybody know a three-letter word for arbitrate?”

Brent, a southerner, was reading aloud the day’s installment of the Pogo comic strip. Arbenz complained at an opinion in one of the editorials.

In the last few months, Joslin had taken to smoking; a cigarette was rarely out of his mouth. He didn’t want to get up for a light now because of the pain in his stomach.

When he finally arose, and signalled to a guard to light his cigarette, Brent asked him sarcastically, “What do you smoke them things for? You could die of lung cancer.”

Lunch was pretty good, as were most of the meals.

In mid-afternoon, under heavy guard, the men were taken out to a special section of the yard. They were permitted to walk or run. Arbenz, with pants rolled up above the knees, did setting-up exercises and counted heavily at each move. Brent stood still, looking calmly up at the sky.

Joslin forced himself to stand absolutely motionless. When Stuart approached, he said, “Don’t bother me now.” Stuart shrugged and resumed his walk around the rim of the yard. He walked very quickly, hands at his sides.

When the exercise hour was done, the men were marched back to the cells.

In mid-afternoon, Joslin was taken to the visitor’s room. He walked heavily, head bowed.

His lawyer waited for him, a tall, gray-haired man. He wore a blue suit. Last time his lawyer had worn a brown one, the time before that a blue sharkskin. The ties were always different, too, usually of hard silk. A black-edged handkerchief always peeped out of a breast pocket.

The two men faced each other across a table in a small room. Armed guards stood at each end of the room.

“I’ve talked to the governor,” the lawyer said. “Going to see him again tomorrow afternoon. I’m doing what I can.”

On the way back to his cell, Joslin found himself trying to detect sympathetic looks from the guards.

At about seven-thirty he became grim; the execution had been scheduled for seven o’clock the next night. He resisted the impulse to pace the cell, to smash everything, to rumple and dirty the bed, to scream. He lay back, forcing himself to be quiet.

Stuart rapped lightly on the wall between them.

“Go ahead, Stu. The line’s clear.”

“Your lawyer say anything, Joss?”

Like the other men, Stuart was always hopeful.

“Nothing I haven’t heard before.”

“Still in all, you never can tell,” Stuart said. “Remember what happened to Smitty, don’t you? Twice they put him off, boy. Twice.”

Suddenly Stuart’s big fist hit the wall. “I killed a girl in five minutes. It didn’t take months of torture! No reprieves, no petitions, just my hands around her neck and that was all. If you want to know something, Joss, I think it was damn humane!”

“Hands,” Joslin said thoughtfully. “I guess that’ll be the way.”

“The bet?” Stuart whispered. “That what you mean?”

“Sure. It’s probably the one chance I’ve got.”

From a cell further down, Arbenz’ voice was raised in anger. “My constitutional rights were disregarded and that voids the conviction. Anybody knows that much.”

Joslin’s nerves were being stretched almost to the breaking point. Everything irritated him. His nose was running and he felt dust and dirt everywhere.

He didn’t sleep at all during the night, but lay awake watching as much sky as he could see from the recessed window above. Toward morning, he was watching the effect of every change in light on the cracks in the ceiling, the never-ending patterns that were being made.

A soft tapping on the wall signalled that Stuart wanted to talk. “You asleep, Joss? I was just thinking, they say it’s all over so soon you can’t hardly take a deep breath.”

Somebody made that remark at least once a day.

“Just the same,” Joslin said, “the bet’s still on.”

He had a recurrence of the pains he’d felt yesterday morning, cutting his stomach in two. He heard every step of the awakening of the men, with interest as if it were all new. Radnik prayed in the morning. Brent was talking to Arbenz about southern cooking. In cell five, McGivern sang something jaunty, then abruptly cut it off.

Men turned the leaves of their morning papers. Brent was reading aloud the day’s installment of Pogo. Stuart growled over the sports news.

Joslin was barely conscious of a guard telling him, “Your breakfast’s getting cold.” When he didn’t acknowledge it, the guard said irritably, just like a parent, “There’s plenty people in the world would give a fortune for a good breakfast like that one.”

Joslin’s eyes had started hurting; there was still the pain in his stomach...

The cops knew the Jackson girl had died driving her car off the bridge. But they’d never be able to prove that he helped her!

There were three of them in the office. Three cops. And they kept walking around, hammering at me. From the right, from the left, from over me, yeah, even from down under.

Finally they shut up and one of them stood in front of me, smoking a cigarette. His name was Malone, and he was a pretty decent-acting cop, older but not tough-talking like the other two.

After a long time he said, “How the hell did you get in this mess, Lane?”

I considered it. Yeah, how the hell did I?

Matt Lane, the guy who could run over the biggest tackle the opposition had, anytime, the guy who made booting field goals look as easy as tossing pennies in a sack, the guy who could out-run a horse. That was me. Big Man on Campus at Crawford College.

And five days before graduation in June, the old man came around with a contract.

“Want to try coaching here, Matt?”

“Here?”

“Sure, here. Where else? We have a good bunch of kids coming up and you know our system inside out. We want you, Matt.”

So I signed a contract and became an assistant coach at Crawford College. Then in July I married Anne Morrow, a black-haired, blue-eyed kid with a lot of body. She had her senior year at Crawford coming up, but we weren’t waiting around until she graduated. The next thing, she got pregnant. We weren’t sure in September, but by the end of October all of the doubt was gone.

We decided not to tell anybody about the baby, not then, not even Anne’s folks who lived down-state. Anne was going home for a visit the second week in November and I planned to whip down there the day before Thanksgiving. We’d spend the holiday with her folks, and we’d tell them about the baby then. It would be one of those holiday surprises.

I put Anne on a train on Monday. The first two days she was gone I was okay. I kept busy with my physical education classes, slipped downtown to Joe’s at night and had a few beers, then sacked in early enough to feel good the next day. Wednesday I was restless; it was too damn quiet around our apartment, and Wednesday night I drank as much beer as I could hold. Thursday started out the same, the beer and the grousing around, so I decided to go over to the college library to do a little research on some work I was planning for a master’s degree.

An hour later I was at a table in the large library reading room when the girl got up from another table, put a book on the shelf near her, and reached for her coat which was draped over the back of a chair next to where she had been sitting. Her impact on me was jolting. I couldn’t get my eyes off of her. She was tall; her skin was a honey-colored tan, and her hair, black as black can be, tumbled from beneath a green beret to very wide shoulders. Her high, full breasts strained against the thin fabric of her dress, and the dress was pleasantly shadowed where it caressed her thighs.

I stared hungrily, feeling excitement begin to knot my stomach muscles.

And then suddenly I found her staring right back at me without moving. It made me feel uncomfortable. I lowered my eyes and shifted in the chair.

She moved then. Shrugging into her coat, she walked toward the front door of the library. For a moment I sat mesmerized, then I started after her, leaving the book I had been reading open on the table. Outside the front door of the library, I put on my heavy jacket and stood on the top step watching her. She was crossing the street in front of me. I went down to the sidewalk. She opened the door of a blue convertible parked at the curb on the opposite side of the street and slid under the steering wheel. I caught a flash of nyloned legs before the door closed. And then, without looking my way, she was gone in a surge of power.

I was suddenly a different guy. I wasn’t teaching physical education to a bunch of kids at a small midwest college. I didn’t have a wife named Anne. And I didn’t have a nice, warm, little apartment two blocks off the campus.

And all because that girl was burned in my mind. I couldn’t stop thinking about her.

After my final class Friday afternoon, I went straight from the gymnasium to the library. But the girl wasn’t there. Nervous and sweating, I hung around for over an hour, waiting.

The girl didn’t show. My disappointment was so bitter I walked downtown to Joe’s to drown it. An icy wind seeped right through my coat and crept into my bones, and the first snow of the season was coming down. It was a lousy day. Gray, cold, snowing, and no girl. I had to get the girl out of my system, but I didn’t know how. I had another beer. Drinking didn’t help. I walked out of Joe’s at ten minutes after nine.

I saw the convertible as I hit the street. It was parked at the curb right in front of me. There was a shadow slumped behind the steering wheel and I saw a red cigarette glow in the dark. Then the shadow moved and the car door in front of me opened.

“Get in, Matt,” the soft voice of the girl said.

I got in without saying anything. It was a neat car, new, with safety belts and all the trimmings. The girl dropped her cigarette out of the wing window, kicked over the motor of the convertible and pulled away from the curb into the line of traffic. At the first stop light she said, “I’ve been waiting over an hour.”

“How did you know I was at Joe’s?”

She laughed softly. “I know plenty about you, Matt Lane — now. I’ve made inquiries.”

I twisted on the seat, opened my coat, and purposely put one knee against her thigh.

She didn’t even give me a glance. “My name is Edie Jackson,” she said. “My home is in New Orleans. I came up here to school because I wanted to be out on my own.”

The windshield wipers whisking the snow from the window made the only sound in the car.

I got out a cigarette and fired my lighter.

“Light two,” she said.

She didn’t ask me to light two cigarettes. She didn’t say please. She just said, “Light two.”

I lit two and gave one to her. She glanced at me then and smiled.

“Do you always get what you want?” I asked.

“Almost always. My father is a very wealthy man. And he dotes on me.”

“Other than your father?”

“Almost always.”

“Like now?”

I saw her frown. “What do you mean?” she said.

“You saw me looking at you in the library yesterday afternoon and for some reason you decided I was for you.”

She laughed softly.

“You’ve got it twisted, haven’t you, Matt?” she asked. “Turn it around. You want me.”

I didn’t say anything then. I couldn’t.

“Do I shock you, Matt? If I do, you’ll have to get used to it. I’m like that. I say what I think, and I do what I want to do.”

“I’m not sure I like you,” I said slowly.

“But you want me. And that’s what counts.”

She turned the car off of the main thoroughfare onto a sidestreet. We eased along another block, and then she turned into a driveway. I had a look at the house as the headlights swept over it. It was a small place with an attached single car garage. She drove the convertible into the garage and switched off the lights. A light in the back seat popped on when she opened her door.

I reached out suddenly and grabbed her wrist. She had one long leg out of the car. Twisting in the seat, she looked at me and I saw her tiny mocking smile.

“You’re taking a lot for granted, aren’t you, Miss Jackson?”

“Am I?”

We sat there a long time without moving, measuring each other with our eyes. And then she said, “I live here Matt — alone. Your wife is out of town. Now, do you want to come in for a drink?”

“How old are you?”

“Eighteen.”

“You’re jailbait. I’m twenty-four.”

Her face clouded and she gently twisted her arm out of my grasp. “That’s something else you should know about me, Matt. I’m a woman. I’m eighteen in years, but I’m twice that age otherwise. I’ve had men, plenty of men. Not boys still wet behind the ears, Matt. I hate fumbling, sniveling boys. When I want somebody, he is a man!”

She got out of the car then and stood beside the open door, looking in at me. “Coming?”

We went into the house through a kitchen. She pulled the drapes across the windows in the front room before turning on a pair of lamps. I looked around. The room was expensively furnished. There was a fireplace in one wall; three logs were burning slowly. To my left was an open room that had been furnished as a study and behind me was the kitchen. To my right was a closed door.

“The bedroom,” Edie said, following the line of my eyes. She smiled then and slipped out of her fur coat. Whisking the green beret off of her head, she said, “Your coat.”

I shrugged out of it and she put it with hers in a small closet near the front door.

I looked her up and down then, making no attempt to hide the fact that I was taking a surface inventory. She was wearing slacks; they were dark green and showed off her figure.

My hands felt damp. I wiped them on my thighs.

She smiled and waved her arm toward a low sofa in front of the fireplace. “Make yourself at home, Matt. What’ll you have to drink?”

“Anything.”

She went into the kitchen. A moment later I heard the slam of a refrigerator door and then the crack of an ice cube tray being opened. I walked to the kitchen entry and stood there looking at her.

“Bourbon?” she said over her shoulder.

“With something sweet.”

She mixed the drinks and we went to the sofa in front of the fireplace. I sat down.

“Do you like music?” she asked.

I shrugged my shoulders.

“I like the classics,” she said.

There was a record player beside the sofa with a record on it. She clicked a switch on the player and music, low and soft, filled the room. Then she sat down beside me and put her leg against mine all the way up.

I looked at her.

“Why do you want me?” she asked over the rim of her glass, her eyes probing mine.

“Why does a man want any woman?”

“I don’t know. That’s what I want you to tell me.”

I thought about it. Why did I want her? What crazy thing was it that had me sitting with her in the front room of her place? Me, a guy with a helluva sweet wife and a decent future. Why the hell was I here? Why was I jeopardizing everything I had and everything I might have? There didn’t seem to be a logical answer.

“You can’t tell me?” she said softly.

I stared at my feet. “No.”

I felt her hand crawl over my thigh then. “Don’t let it bother you, Matt,” she said. “I’ve never had a satisfactory answer either.”

I gulped my drink and put the glass on the floor.

“Matt?”

Twisting, I looked up at her. She was smiling cozily.

“I want to dance for you,” she said.

“Dance?”

“You’ll like it,” she said softly.

Too puzzled to move, I sat there on the sofa watching her. She began to sway with the music coming from the record player. Her mouth was fixed in a half-smile, lips open, straight white teeth gleaming. Her eyes became slits. She whirled around the room, head high, breasts straining. I watched her, fascinated. And then she was back in front of me, her body swaying suggestively. I saw her hand go to the buttons on the front of her blouse. The buttons came open and in one swirling motion she stripped out of the blouse and flung it away from her. She wasn’t wearing a bra. The naked half of her body was a honey-colored sheen in the lamplight, breasts tip-tilted. She turned her back to me. One hand opened the slacks above her hip and the slacks inched down. Suddenly she whirled around and the slacks dropped to the floor. She stepped out of them and danced forward and into my arms.

I wrapped one hand in her hair and jerked back her head. Her hands ripped open my shirt as I mashed my lips against hers.

Finally, I picked her up and carried her across the room. She kicked open the closed door.

She threw despairing looks over her shoulder, and each time he was a little closer with the weapon raised high and eager.

Waiting for Mr. and Mrs. Carson, Gretta fell asleep on the living room couch. Hers was a shallow, troubled slumber, shot through with a dream.

She was in a long, narrow corridor of darkness, a faint light shimmering at the far end. She couldn’t see the walls, but each time she tried to escape, she ran into them.

The corridor tipped and tilted in such a way as to make her dizzy. And down it rang his laughter, echoing as in a great, empty chamber.

She threw despairing looks over her shoulder, and each time he was a little closer with the weapon raised high and eager.

It was a razor, and it threw out a phosphorescent glow. It loomed over her, larger and larger. His face was somewhere in the background. A pale blob. She couldn’t see him clearly, only the razor. His laughter rose higher and higher until it filled the whole corridor.

She renewed her efforts to get away. Her heart beat wildly. A faint hope was born in her. She was gaining on him now. Leaving him behind.

Then the corridor tipped up at an angle too steep for her to hold her footing. She fell to her knees. Her toes dug to get her feet beneath her once again. Her hands clawed the hard, slick floor of the corridor until the nails tore loose.

With a gasp of despair, she knew her efforts were useless. She began sliding down the corridor. It was like a slick chute.

She slid faster and faster. Straight toward the man with the razor. It became a giant razor. It came slashing down...

She screamed as a hand shook her. She snapped awake with a nervous jerk of her whole body that almost threw her off the couch.

She pulled back, rigid, staring at the face before her.

Mrs. Carson said, “My dear, whatever is the matter? You were carrying on dreadfully in your sleep.”

“Was I?” Gretta felt the fine beads of sweat on her face. Her heart was still hammering and her breath was short. The razor had seemed so certain to claim her that it was hard for a moment to realize that she was here in the Carson’s apartment with Mrs. Carson’s plump middle-aged face before her filled with concern.

Mr. Carson stood beside his wife, still in his topcoat and hat. Where the years had pleasantly softened his wife, they had had the opposite effect on him. He somehow reminded Gretta of a hard, coiled spring. All his movements were brisk. His face was narrow with each bone sharp and clear beneath the stretched mask of skin.

“Are you ill, Gretta?” he inquired. His tone indicated that he had no real feeling about the matter. He never used any other tone.

“No, sir,” Gretta said.

Mrs. Carson did not dismiss her concern easily. She was a sweet, vague woman. Stupid, Gretta had decided upon first meeting her. But rather kind.

“Perhaps you’ve eaten something that upset you and gave you a nightmare, dear,” Mrs. Carson said.

“No, not at all,” Gretta said. Her voice was cool. She was rapidly gaining possession of herself. She was both ashamed and angry that they should have seen her show of weakness. She stood up, a short, rather heavy set girl. She wore her usual severe, tailored suit. Her face was without makeup, her brows thicker than most girls because she didn’t pluck them.

As she turned to get her coat from the living room cloak closet, Gretta felt Mrs. Carson’s gaze following her. Gretta could almost read the thoughts behind the puffy features. If Gretta had eaten something here to make her sick, maybe Gretta wouldn’t come again. And that would be a calamity in Mrs. Carson’s selfish little world. For Gretta wasn’t like most girls of her age, flighty, their minds filled with thoughts of boys, boys, boys. Mrs. Carson wouldn’t trust her two precious children with just any sitter. Mr. and Mrs. Carson hadn’t married until late in life. Mrs. Carson had given birth to two children, a boy and girl, before natural changes common to her years had precluded further results. As a consequence, Gretta thought she doted over the children with an affection that was stupid, vain, and a little sickening.

“Here,” Mr. Carson said suddenly. “I’ll bet this is what brought on the nocturnal horrors.”

Gretta turned. Mr. Carson had picked up the newspaper from the couch. Gretta had been reading it, pondering over what she had read, just before she had fallen asleep.

The paper rattled in Mr. Carson’s hand. “Razor killer claims a third victim,” he read. “The body of an elderly man, his throat slashed with a razor...”

Mrs. Carson clapped her hands over her ears. “Oh, please dear, I can’t bear to hear such horrid stuff.”

Mr. Carson looked at his wife with contempt. Then he turned his gaze toward Gretta. “You were reading this when you dozed off?”

Gretta nodded.

“Ah,” said Mr. Carson, “you see. That did it. I’ll bet your mind pictured all sorts of things. The rustle of the wind outside became his footsteps creeping up the fire escape. A touch of moonlight at the window was his face.”

“Please, please,” Mrs. Carson said. “I’d die at the thought of him ever coming here. Oh, my precious darlings...”

She rushed across the room, down a short hallway, and there came to the living room the sound of her opening a door. She returned in a moment, fanning her face with a limp hand. “They’re sleeping like angels, the dears. Please, let’s have a cup of tea. I do need something to brace me. Why don’t they catch that horrid man and take his razor away from him?”

“I guess they’re trying,” Mr. Carson said.

“Oh, I suppose so,” his wife said. “But why don’t they do something? He’s operating in this end of town. We have no idea when he might — oh, dear, I think we really should hire someone to protect the children.”

“You mean a bodyguard?” Mr. Carson asked.

“Don’t you think it would be a good idea, dear?”

Mr. Carson laughed in sour humor. “The man we hired might be the very one. He could be any Tom, Dick, or Harry. Outwardly, by day, a respectable business man even. You never know. He could be living in this very building.”

Gretta slipped quickly into her coat, pulling her eyes from Mr. Carson’s face. Mrs. Carson let a short, quick breath out of her red, puffy lips. “It’s dreadful. I won’t sleep a wink— Oh, Gretta, must you go now?”

“Yes, ma’m.”

“Oh, dear, that long walk you have...”

“It’s only six or eight blocks.”

“But alone... So late...”

“I’ll be all right.”

“Let Mr. Carson take you.”

“Sure,” Mr. Carson said. “I’ll drive you over, Gretta.”

He looked at her, and she was aware of her youth and his age. How old and repulsive he became suddenly, looking at her in that way!

“No,” she said, “you don’t have to bother.”

“It’s no bother.”

“I said no!” Gretta said.

“Well,” Mrs. Carson said. “We were only thinking of you, dear, trying to be nice.”

“But I think you need him here more.”

“I am upset,” Mrs. Carson admitted.

“You see? Well, good night.”

Gretta left the apartment, closed the door quickly behind her. She hesitated in the hallway a moment. Memory of the dream she’d had on the couch tried to come creeping back into her mind. She shook her head and walked quickly down the hallway.

It was late and the sidewalks were dark, deserted, and in this residential section there were few automobiles moving on the street at this hour. Across the street, a delicatessen was just closing, and down on the corner, the lights of a bar looked lonely.

Gretta started resolutely down the sidewalk. She fought thoughts of the razor fiend from her mind. She was afraid even of the thought of him, so afraid that a shiver, almost like a shiver of pleasure, passed over her.

She must put her mind to thinking of something else. Something deep, heavy, engrossing. She had a very brilliant mind, she knew. So much so that it set her apart, made her a kind of lone wolf. Girls were too frilly and boys too silly when they were her age. She knew all about Existentialism and could follow the torturous turns and twists of the philosophy of Nietzsche.

It all made for a great deal of loneliness when girls knew only to giggle about a dance and boys pawed at you with their revolting hands.

There’d been a boy once. Anthony. Her first year in high. Frail and gentle he had been, and her heart had gone out to him. They used to walk, he holding her hand shyly, and talk real talk about political philosophy and economic systems.

Then Anthony’s parents had moved away and taken him with them, of course. She’d cried for two whole days, brittle hard tears, and had told herself that she would never be the same again.

Engrossed in her thoughts, she passed the lighted bar with only a vague realization that it was there. She crossed the intersection, reaching the dark corner where business establishments had closed hours before.

It was then that she thought she heard footsteps. They were sharp, rapid.

She glanced over her shoulder, her heart almost stopping. There was no one.

She began shivering. The street seemed to have grown colder. How much further to her home? Five, six blocks. How could she ever manage to walk that distance?

She took a faltering step, another. Her right hand was against the building for support. Suddenly, the support wasn’t there. She had reached the corner of the building, was standing at the mouth of an alley. Heat seeped from the buildings into the alley and out of the alley over her.

She stood as if clinging to the warmth for a moment. And while she was there, a car came down the street. Light glided before it. Touched her briefly. Then the car stopped at the curb.

She threw her startled glance toward it. The door of the car opened. A man was getting out.

He came around the car. He stood looking at her the way he had looked at her in the apartment.

“You forgot your money, Gretta,” Mr. Carson said. “And Mrs. Carson was so fearful about your walking alone...”

He was coming toward her. She took a step back into the alley.

“No,” she said.

“Now, Gretta, it was only a dream. You’re not still upset, are you?”

She walked backward into the alley, staring at him. Why hadn’t she realized? The fiend could be anybody. A respectable business man, even. He had said so himself. He’d been having his private joke up there in the apartment talking about the fiend as he had.

“Gretta!” he said sharply as he moved after her.

A feeling of calm came over her. Her hand came up slowly, dipped into her bosom, came out holding the razor. It was an old-fashioned razor. She’d found it one day while rummaging through the attic for old books. The weight of it in her hand had given her a strangely pleasant feeling.

Mr. Carson was quite close to her now. She could see the anger on his face. Then something quite different was there as he saw the razor.

She struck quick and hard with all her young strength. The razor bit. Deep. Clean.

She saw him clutch his throat and fall.

She bent over him to look at the evil fiendishness in his face. Then she wiped the razor on his coat, replaced it under her tailored blouse and walked out of the alley.

She moved down the sidewalk without fear. She could go home now. Home to her room and deep, deep thoughts. The razor had saved her. The fiend was dead.

She knew.

Hadn’t she had to kill him four times?

“You’re old enough to know what you want to do,” she said. “But I’m glad I warned you.”

The girl sat alone in the curved leather booth of the bar. A half consumed glass of sherry was on the table before her. She made no move to touch it. She sat with her hands in her lap. She had sat this way, absolutely motionless, for the past ten minutes.

A man entered the bar. His brief first glance at the girl became a lingering one as he slowly passed her booth. In looking at her with appreciation, he joined the company of every man in the place. There was little talk. And not a moment passed that at least one man wasn’t glancing toward the girl who sat there, unmoving and alone.

She seemed unaware of the undefinable something she had brought into the bar. It wasn’t her beauty alone that attracted attention. She was small, but very shapely. Dressed in black. She wore her glossy blonde hair cut short, with a hint of curl at the ends, and casual bangs that accentuated the dreamy quality of her large dark eyes. Her smooth tanned complexion heightened further the hint of ageless mystery in her eyes.

Yet for all the enticement and sophistication of the girl there was a quality of terrible innocence about her. This quality reached out and made men at the bar feel more masculine than they had in a long time. It reached out and touched them, and some of them would therefore remember her before they went to sleep that night, or while answering absent-mindedly the question of a wife.

Her eyes stayed on the clock behind the bar. It was a pretentious clock, ringed with orange neon, its face illuminated by a pale orange glow. The hands indicated that the time was exactly nineteen minutes before twelve. The clock was ten minutes fast, an aid in getting the last, lingering customers out of the bar by legal closing time.

Twenty-nine minutes before midnight.

The girl’s lips parted; she had small, gleaming, even teeth. The pink tip of her tongue touched her lips briefly. She sipped the sherry at last.

Twenty-eight minutes.

The man who had just entered the bar continued to look at her over his shoulder while he walked to the bar and ordered a highball.

The bartender put the drink before him. The man raised his brows in a question, making it clear by a jerk of his head in the girl’s direction that he was asking about her. The bartender glanced toward the girl and shrugged.

The man tasted his drink, turned slowly, and stared boldly at the girl.

She was still watching the clock.

Twenty-seven minutes.

Holding his drink, the man moved across the short intervening distance until he was standing beside the booth. He was a tall, rangy man of about thirty, dark in coloring, nice looking without being handsome. He stood without speaking for a moment; then he said, “Hello.”

The girl looked at him. He took a quick breath as those luminous eyes of hers met his.

“What did you say?”

He smiled. “I said hello.”

“Oh — hello.”

“May I buy you a drink?”

“I have one,” she said quietly. It was neither a rebuff nor an invitation. She continued looking at him, studying him. He took a quick pull at his drink as if he were losing his poise.

“Are you waiting for someone?” he asked.

He was the center of attention now. Not open attention. Guarded glances. Nobody was drinking right now. The bartender was busy with his bar cloth, but the movement was strictly mechanical.

The man’s face reddened a little, as the girl took a long time in answering.

“Yes,” she said finally, “I am waiting for someone, I suppose.”

The invitation was there now, in her low voice, her eyes, but the man hesitated — as if there were something he failed to understand. For an instant, as he turned his back to the bar, he appeared sorry that he had started the whole business.

He glanced over his shoulder again at her, however, caught the eyes that quickly cut away. His smile returned as he took his poise back in hand.

“We could say you were waiting for me,” he said with an attempt at lightness.

“Yes, we could.”

“Then may I sit down?”

“By all means. And come to think of it, I’ll have another sherry.”

The man sat down. Like an almost audible rustle, attention was turned from him. Men were drinking again, discussing baseball, business, women in low tones. The man had carried the ball into the end zone. He had done what every man in the place would have liked to do. He had picked up the girl, made the conquest.

Yet he was not completely at ease.

The girl was still looking at the clock.

Twenty-two minutes.

Her gaze didn’t waver even when the bartender brought her sherry. Her profile was delicate and lovely; but a large part of her wasn’t there, staring like that at the clock.

The man coughed politely.

She turned to look at him. “Oh, I am sorry,” she said. “Thank you for the sherry.”

“You live around here?” he asked. “I haven’t seen you before.”

“I just came to town.”

“I hope you’ll like it here. It’s a nice little burg, though it gets pretty cold in winter.”

“I think I’ll like it very much,” she said, “for as long as I’m here.” She smiled at the man. Up close, her teeth had a faintly pointed look.

The man cleared his throat. “By the way, my name’s Larry.”

“Mine’s Jeannine.”

“It rather fits you,” he said.

“Does it?”

“I mean, innocent and yet kind of — unknowable.”

Little sparks went off deep in her eyes. “I think I like that.”

She looked again at the clock.

Nineteen minutes.

Her cheeks became pink; in her eyes the sparks became a flare of excitement.

“Do you work here in town?” Larry asked. “Transferred here maybe?”

“What?”

“I asked if you worked here.”

“Oh, no, I’m visiting a friend. A girl who was my roommate in college. I haven’t seen her since she was married. I’ve been in Florida.”

“Nice down there.”

“It depends on what happens to you.”

His brows raised. “Only something nice could happen to someone like you.”

“Is that the beginning of a line?”

“No. I mean it. Really. Anybody who’d even think anything bad about you should be treated like a mad dog. They’d be out of their minds.”

Her face pinked with pleasure. She sipped her sherry and looked at him over the rim of her glass. He tossed off his second drink and ordered a third.

Her eyes were on the clock again.

Sixteen minutes.

He tossed off his drink straight. He was beginning to feel them. He signalled for another before she had touched her fresh sherry.

“Listen,” he said. “I think that clock’s got you hypnotized.”

“Is my looking at it that noticeable?”

“I guess it is,” he said. “I just noticed, didn’t I?”

She smiled; there was a trace of invitation in it now. “Why don’t you have another drink?”

He hesitated, as if there were something he didn’t understand. Something strange. Something that only a deep seated instinct reached out and touched. Then he gave a what-the-devil shrug and ordered another drink.

“If you’re planning to find work here,” he said, “maybe I could help you. I run a fairly good real estate business. Belong to some clubs. Know quite a few people.”

“Are you married?”

“No.”

She smiled. “You hesitated. You are married.”

“Well, I don’t see much of her.”

“Misunderstood husband?”

“No, I just don’t like her. But there are two kids and...” His voice trailed off.

“It makes no difference,” she said. “But aren’t you gambling a lot?”

“You mean, just sitting here, talking to you?”

“Well, you’re a respectable businessman, you say. A family man. Scandal would hurt you very much.”

“My wife knows how I feel about her.”

“Oh, well, that does make things simpler for you, doesn’t it.”

“I suppose you could say that.”

“Simpler for us,” she said softly.

In the dim light of the bar, she was a gifted artist’s most beautiful creation. Almost too lovely to be real.

His breath quickened. “I think we’re going to understand each other.”

“You’ll never understand me,” she said.

“I’ll try.”

“You shouldn’t try too hard. I warn you.”

“Instead of a warning, I’ll have a drink,” he said.

“You’re old enough to know what you want to do,” she said. “But I’m glad I warned you.”

He smiled expansively. “I know how to take care of myself.”

“I knew you’d say that.”

“How did you know?”

“I know you quite well.”

“How could you?” he laughed. “I only met you minutes ago.”

“No, I met you a long time ago. In many different places. There are a lot of men like you in the world, Larry. Wife, couple of kids, a business — all pretty light stuff when they’re weighed against a thrill.”

“Hey, you need a drink.”

“All right.”

“None of that lecture stuff. How do you like that — we meet the way we did, and you start a lecture.”

“I just want to make sure I really know you.”

“You know enough. I’m a nice guy. I go for you in a big way. That’s all you need to know.”

“Okay,” she said. “We’ll never mention it again.”

“That’s fine,” he said. He paused. One of his words had been thick. He laughed. “Another drink, I need. And you’re beautiful.”

“Am I?”

“Positively.”

“More beautiful than your wife?”

“Make her look like a frump,” he said.

“Beautiful enough to die for?”

“Say now...”

She became cool, remote.

“Look,” he said. “You throw a question like that at me...”

“Yes, Larry?”

“Well, in a manner of speaking, I guess a guy could say you’re that beautiful.”

She leaned back in the booth, began laughing softly.

His eyes sobered. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Cut that out,” he said.

“Why?”

“It gives me the willies. It’s— You’re like two people, Jeannine. One of them little and delicate and innocent. The other...”

“Yes, Larry? Tell me.”

“I dunno. Mysterious, kind of. Puts ice in my blood.”

“So you’re afraid?”

“I’m not afraid of anything! Why should I be afraid of you?”

“Yes, why should you be?”

She turned her attention once more to the clock behind the bar.

Seven minutes.

A faint shudder, like a caress of strange pleasure, passed over her.

“Listen,” he said. “I got to know about that clock.”

“It’s only a clock,” she said.

“Not to you. It ain’t to you.”

“I’m waiting, Larry.”

“Yeah, until when?”

“Midnight.”

“What happens then? The coach turn into a pumpkin?”

Her dreamy eyes searched his face. “You’re beginning to get drunk, Larry.”

“So what?”

“Sure you don’t want to go home?”

“Nope. I’m sticking with you. Meantime, I want to know what’s with that clock.”

“It’s telling me something, Larry. Every tick is a whisper. Like soft, dragging footsteps, taking a last walk.”

He was silent a moment. He blinked at her. His eyes cleared somewhat, came into focus.

“Last walk? Let’s not talk morbid, doll.”

“You asked me.”

“Yeah, but this last walk business. Why should the clock remind you of that?”

“It paints a scene for me, Larry. I can see every detail. Wouldn’t it be funny if the clock stopped at midnight?”

“That clock won’t stop, not unless the electricity goes off.”

“I know — it will keep going. On and on. One midnight is just like another to the clock.”

“That’s right — and what’s so different about this one?”

She didn’t answer him. Her eyes were on the clock.

Four minutes.

A pulse was beating in the hollow of her throat. She glanced at him. “Meet me down on the corner, will you?”

“Now why should I—”

“I don’t want to be seen leaving with you. Leave, Larry. Now!”

“Well, okay,” he said rather stiffly.

“I won’t be long,” she said. “You’ll be there?”

His face lost its sudden touch of ill humor. “Sure, but don’t keep me waiting.”

Larry slid out of the booth, paid the tab, and left.

The girl watched the clock.

One minute.

Light came and went in her eyes. Her teeth gleamed.

Midnight.

She slumped back in the booth, as if exhausted.

In a far off state penitentiary a man had been seated. A switch had been thrown. Impulses, like unleashed demons, had crashed through wires, relays. The man had died, for the capital crime of rape.

Larry was standing impatiently on the corner. He came forward to meet her. She stopped, waiting. At her left was the mouth of an alley.

Larry reached out to take her arm. But as he looked in her eyes, he became frozen, hand outstretched.

“Beast,” she said. “You beast.”

Her hand went up and tore the shoulder of her dress. Then she began screaming.

Larry grabbed her, tried to shut her up by shaking her. They were like that when the shout of the cop came toward them.

Larry stood in confusion a moment. Then he broke and ran. He heard the shouted command to stop, two sharp cracks of a gun... pain, a falling into a deep black pit of pain...

“Hold it!” I levelled the .32. “Don’t draw!” He didn’t listen to me. He had the revolver out.

I wasn’t flattered when Munro Dean walked into my office. I’d been hearing about Dean since ’49, when I was still a hotel dick for the Statler chain. He’d taken his case to every private investigator east of Chicago. Half of them had turned him down. The others had strung him along for a few days of expense money, and then sent him off with a shrug and a promise to “keep the file active.”

I kept him waiting outside for a couple of minutes, while I worried a hangnail on my thumb. Then I invited him in.

He walked like it was a struggle, and there wasn’t enough flesh on his frame to excite a starving buzzard. The skin was molded to his face so that you had a pretty good idea of what kind of a skull his head would make. It wasn’t easy to look Munro Dean in the eyes.

“Have a seat,” I said, with professional briskness. “Seems to me I’ve heard your name before, Mr. Dean.”

“Probably,” he answered. “Were you ever with the police, Mr. Tyree?”

“Not exactly. But I’ve got a lot of friends on the force. It was something about your wife, wasn’t it?”

“Yes. It happened in 1948, October. In Rahway, New Jersey. A man — killed her. A slim, dark man, with bushy black hair. I came home from work and saw him running out the back door. The police never caught him.”

“I see. And you’re still interested in finding this man.”

He laughed abruptly, but without a change of expression. “Interested? Yes, I’m interested. I’ve been looking for him since it happened. You know that, Mr. Tyree. All you — people know that.”

“Mm.” I drew up a pad and poised a pencil over it. “Well, suppose we go into some detail. Have the police—”

“They’ve closed their books on the case. But I haven’t, Mr. Tyree. I’ve never given up. I’ve had at least forty private detectives looking for him. None have helped. Some of them — his face clouded — have taken advantage of me.”

It was time to clear things up.

“Look, Mr. Dean. Guys like me are in the business for money. Only some of us take the long view. Some of us figure that a real unhappy client is a bad advertisement. If I don’t think I can help you, I’ll hand you your hat.”

I was talking too loud, and I knew it. But Munro Dean was like some gaunt symbol of failure, a patsy for the Fates. You either rubbed your hands gleefully and picked his pocket, or you got sore and shouted at him.

“You can help me,” he said finally.

“What makes you so sure? Nobody else could.”

“But you can. Because I’ve found the man.”

I dropped the pencil. “Well. So what can I do now, Mr. Dean? Why not call in the police?”

“Because they’d pay no attention. Too much time has passed. They’ve lost interest.”

“Nuts.”

“It’s true. I can’t really prove this is the man. For one thing, he’s changed. He’s lost his hair. He’s fatter. He’s older. But he’s the man.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Because I am.” His eyes, two burned-out lumps of coal, suddenly glowed. “That face is engraved, here.” He tapped his forehead. “It’s funny, you know that? All those experts, all those years. Nobody could find him. And just by chance, I see him at a lunch counter—”

“It happens,” I said curtly. “Don’t forget, Mr. Dean, your description wasn’t much help. Maybe you’re the only one who could have spotted this man.”

“Perhaps. But now I need help, Mr. Tyree.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to act as go-between for this man and myself. I want you to arrange a little meeting.”

“What for?”

“What do you suppose?”

I stood up. “Look, pal. The last time I set up a target was at Fort Dix. I’m not interested in that kind of work.”

“Please. I just want to talk to this man. I want to make sure.”

“It could be dangerous, you know. If he is your wife’s killer, and if he knows you are—”

“That’s where you can help. Arrange the meeting, but don’t let him find out my name.”

I took my seat again and sighed. It was an offbeat assignment, but the only one that had crossed my battered desk in two weeks. Beggars don’t get many choices, and the rent on my cubicle of a LaSalle Street office was looming like the National Debt.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s have the story.”

I’m in the morgue, Helen thought in terror. Help me! Somebody help me!

Helen Johnson struggled back from the black abyss of nothingness. She had a strange awareness of someone being near. Vaguely, through the pounding in her head and the roaring in her ears, she thought she heard voices. Detached voices — soft, faraway, floating voices. She struggled to hear, not understanding the words.

Where am I, she thought. What’s happened?

Memory eased its way back into her thoughts, slowly, falteringly at first. Then it flooded over her in waves. Mamie had booked her for the night. That man, she thought, the one she hadn’t liked. He had insisted on her or no one. She remembered that he had become angry over something she had said, had demanded his fifty bucks back. She remembered the look on his face when she had laughed at him. Remembered his reaching for the heavy ornament by his bed, raising it, bringing it crashing down. Now this, she thought, puzzled.

Voices invaded her thoughts. She could identify some of the words now. Dead! Someone is dead, she thought. Had she killed him? Helen weighed this thought a moment, sifting it back and forth. No, she thought, he hit me! That’s all I remember. Somebody else must be dead. Shimmering forms began to take shape before her eyes. The thought flashed through her mind that she must have been unconscious with her eyes open. She hadn’t opened them, but the blackness was fast disappearing. Voices again, floating over her, around her. Sudden flashing lights. The shimmering forms slowly took shape. A blurred face stared down at her. The face disappeared and Helen found herself staring fixedly at the ceiling light directly overhead. She tried to avert her eyes. Nothing happened. The face blocked her view again. Its lips moved.

“It’s a shame, lieutenant. Good lookin’ gal like that. So he wanted his fifty bucks back. Didn’t have to kill her for it!”

Blackness sifted slowly down upon her. The voices mingled with the droning in her ears. She fought against the blackness. She couldn’t understand. Some girl is dead, she thought, but that can’t be. Might it be one of Mamie’s girls?

Voices again. The light came back into focus.

“Well, that about wraps it up. You boys through?”

“Just one more shot, lieutenant.” A twinkling flash of light. “That’ll do it. She’s all yours, lieutenant.”

“Here. Cover her with this sheet till the boys from downtown get here.”

“What a body. Bet it was worth fifty bucks a night, huh, lieutenant?”

“You can tell this gal worked indoors; no suntan anywhere.”

“Real blonde, too. Wow!”

Helen’s view was suddenly obstructed by something white and billowy that wafted down upon her. The thought that had been pushing at the edge of her consciousness, finally got over and into it. Helen thrust the thought away, fearfully. As the whiteness closed about her she involuntarily tried to turn her head. Nothing happened. She struggled to grasp the significance. She tried to move her hand, her fingers, anything. But nothing happened. She had no feeling. I’m... I’m paralyzed, she thought, panic rising in her. The pushing thought emerged again; her mind tried to discard it, but it stayed, stubbornly. It’s me. They think I’m dead! her mind screamed. I’m alive! Somebody help me! Please! Somebody help me!

Voices again. Helen listened intently. Maybe they hadn’t sent for a doctor yet. That’s it! The doctor will know.

“There she is, boys. A real doll. Take a look!”

The whiteness whisked away. It must be a sheet, she thought. The light glinted down at her. She heard a long, low whistle.

“Boy, what a dish. Why, hell, if he didn’t want her, I’d of been glad to take her off his hands.”

“At fifty bucks a night? That stuff’s way out of your class, buster.”

“What’d the M.D. say, lieutenant?”

“Blow on the head. Can’t see it though. Not a mark on her!”

The whiteness floated down on her again. My God, thought Helen. They really think I’m dead. Even the doctor who examined me. Of course he made a mistake. I’m not dead! Oh, dear God, dear God, let them see that I’m alive. Please!

Helen knew she was being carried. The light got dimmer. I must tell them somehow, she thought, I must! She fought to move. Nothing happened. Absolutely nothing! She was floating again, floating, the blackness closing in. She fought it. Time stood still. Gradually reason groped its way back. Someone was near. She knew! She heard street sounds. Then voices.

“Les’ll be madder’n hell, bringing a stiff in this time of night. It’s almost three.”

“Hell! He’s gettin’ paid for it. Soft job. All he’s gotta do is tag em’ and put em’ on ice.”

That’s me they’re talking about, thought Helen. Dear God, no! No! She sobbed within. The street sounds faded.

“Tell Les to get the wagon out here on the double. I wanta get back. Damn hospital’s bad enough, but the morgue really gets under my skin.”

“Know what you mean, boy. Know what you mean. Les’s got an easy job, but I wouldn’t take it for all the tea in China.”

“Les sure seems to like it. He’s a queer one. Gives me the creeps sometimes.”

I’m in the morgue, Helen thought in terror. Help me! Somebody help me! She heard movements, squeaking wheels. The whiteness became whiter, then dimmer. She heard echoing footsteps. Knew she was being moved again. Somebody here’ll see that I’m not dead, she thought. Les! This Les! He’ll see I’m alive. God! I’m going crazy. This isn’t real. It’s just a bad dream. I’ll try to forget it and I’ll wake up. She repeated this over and over to herself, comfortingly. Suddenly the whiteness lifted. A thought far back in the recesses of her mind pushed its way to the front, shouldering out all other thoughts. It’s for real! It’s not a dream! You’ll be burried alive — alive — ALIVE!

Blackness again. Then a light shining in her eyes. A new face, soft, blubbery, injected itself between her and the light.

“You boys brought me a real doll this time, didn’t you? My, what pretty yellow hair — and such a pretty face. If her eyes were closed, you’d think she was sleeping, wouldn’t you?”

“Yeah, yeah,” said the loud voice of one of the hospital attendants. “Sign this so we can get out of here, will yuh?”

The grinning face disappeared. A hand blocked the light from Helen’s face. Darkness! Then the bright light again.

“Hmm,” purred the soft voice. “Eyes don’t want to stay closed, do they, little one?”

“Come on, will yuh?” The hospital attendant’s voice again. “You can do that later.”

Footsteps faded. Helen’s eyes were riveted on the light overhead. Her mind refused to accept the reality of all this. Don’t leave me here alone, she thought. Please don’t leave me. Somebody’s got to know I’m alive! The blackness pressed against her, left her. Footsteps echoed down the corridor, closer, closer. A door clicked shut. A key turned in a lock. Les’s middle-aged, fleshy face appeared above her. Her eyes were glued to his large nose. Les leered at her, and her flesh began to crawl.

“Tomorrow they’ll cut you open to see what made you tick. Or rather,” he corrected himself, “to see what made you stop ticking.” He giggled. “Then you won’t be so pretty, will you, my charming little miss!”

Cut me open? Helen thought: An autopsy! That’s what he must mean. But I’m not dead. That’ll kill me for sure...

She blacked out momentarily. Got to let him know. Got to! She struggled within her prison. All that had been recently happening welled up inside her. I must — I must! She strained. Every fiber fought against the bonds that imprisoned her. Then, ever so slowly, Helen felt the little finger of her left hand begin to rise. It took an eternity to raise it half an inch, then let it drop. Raise it half an inch, let it drop. Les had stopped talking. Helen could hear the click of her fingernail against the metallic table on which she lay. It drummed loudly in her ears. Relief flooded over her. Now Les would know she was alive...

She saw Les grin broadly, stupidly. Had he heard the sound? Had he? Large beads of perspiration gleamed on his forehead. His expression cunning, mad.

“Your kind don’t die easy,” Les said. “I know what you were. We get lots like you.” He smiled lewdly. “Fifty bucks a night, huh! Pretty hot stuff, weren’t you? Huh? Huh?”

Helen knew Les wanted an answer. The man was insane. He knew she was alive and yet he didn’t go for help. Go away! Her thoughts were screaming. Get me out of here!

“Tonight,” Les said, “you’re working for free, baby. For free.”

Helen saw him slowly begin to unbutton his jacket, draw nearer, nearer. This can’t be happening, she thought over and over. Les’s bare chest shadowed her. His face, his slobbering mouth, covered hers. Her mind cried out: No! No!

Les was standing beside her now, dressed again. His gleeful babbling had stopped. And his sudden silence was fear. And she saw the fear of punishment for what he had done in his wet brown eyes, as well as in his silence. But her mind was too spent to cry out. What more could be done to her? Nothing. Nothing...

Les’s face suddenly loomed large. Larger and larger. The ceiling reeled as he lifted her in his arms. There was the motion of walking, which suddenly stopped. The empty expanse of the ceiling; she could see nothing else.

Then, the smooth flowing whiteness of a sheet engulfed her. No! NO! Her mind was screaming in agony now as Les slid her into her own, private, refrigerated compartment.

I said to the blonde, “Just when were you attacked, Miss Haliburton, and what was the man’s name?”

I won’t say I had completely forgotten the Charles Turner case when I was reminded of it by something George Novy told me. Novy’s information concerned the strip act a woman who lived in the apartment house across the areaway from his put on for his benefit each night. No district attorney is likely to forget the case which started him up the political ladder. But that case was five years in the past, and I doubt that I’d thought of it in three.

“You better be careful,” I advised Novy with a smile. “I tried a case once where the defendant started out by peeping in a neighbor woman’s window. He got twenty-five years to life.”

George Novy looked at me in astonishment. He was just out of law school and brand new to the district attorney’s office. “Twenty-five to life just for peeping?” he asked.

“I said he started by peeping. The peeping overexcited him, and he ended up with rape.”

My newest assistant grinned. “This wouldn’t be rape. This gal knows I’m watching, and deliberately puts on a show. I think I’ll accept the invitation one of these nights.”

“Charlie Turner claimed his peep-show actress knew he was watching too. He still got twenty-five to life.”

“Charlie Turner?” Novy said. “I remember that case. I was a freshman in law school then. You did handle that prosecution, didn’t you?”

“It was the case that made me,” I said. “If it wasn’t for Charlie Turner, I’d still probably be an assistant D.A. Frank Garby would probably be district attorney instead of me, and I certainly wouldn’t be running for the senate.”

“Aren’t you being a little modest, chief?” Novy asked.

I shook my head. “Public life is just as speculative a profession as acting. You need the one big break in both. In acting, it may be getting called to take over for a sick star on the night a movie talent scout is in the audience. For a public prosecutor with political ambitions, the big break is almost always a highly-publicized criminal case. Mine was Charles Turner.”

George Novy cocked a dubious eyebrow.

“Just consider,” I said. “Before the Turner case I was just an unknown assistant district attorney like you, the junior of eight in Saint Francis County. Nine hundred and ninety-nine voters out of a thousand had never heard of me. By the time the case was over, there wasn’t a person in the state who didn’t know who I was. Which made it almost mandatory for the party to by-pass the other seven assistants plus Frank Garby, who even then was first assistant D.A., when it came time to pick a new district attorney candidate because old Harry Doud wanted to retire.”

“You may have something there,” Novy said reflectively. “Even after five years, you see, I remembered you tried that case. And I’ve only actually known you three months. Next time a juicy rape case comes up, how about throwing it my way? I’ve got political ambitions too.”

“You keep peeping in that woman’s window, and you may end up the defendant in a rape case instead of the prosecutor.”

“It would almost be worth it,” Novy said with a faraway look in his eyes. “She’s not as young as she could be, but what a body she’s got! You ought to drop over some evening and see the show.” He went off into a detailed anatomical description of his exhibitionistic neighbor, but I wasn’t listening. My thoughts had drifted back five years to the case which gave me my big break.

She wanted him to follow her. He did. It went like clockiwork...

Sylvia walked the street. Haggerty, the cop, and Mr. Tambollio of the corner grocery watched her coming, turned to watch her go. Three of the Purple Pythons, on their way to a gang meeting, offered a suggestive remark; laughed as she passed them by, head high. Sylvia was an oddity in the neighborhood. The untouchable. The word had gotten around. “She’s new,” they said. “She’s young,” they said. “So maybe she’s a virgin. There are such things,” they said. They watched and waited... an easy thing to do.

Her full-skirted green dress accentuated her young pointed breasts, clung to her slender waist, swung in rhythm with her hips. Her high-heeled sandals, striking the dirty pavement, punctuated the evening sounds. Her long, gold-brown hair curled up to lie loosely on her shoulders. Haggerty sighed, shook his head. She was an open invitation — and someday somebody would take her up on it.

She passed the brick warehouse, wearing its chalked obscenities, and turned the corner. The neighborhood lost sight of her there, went on with its business. Love, hate, live, die. Routine matters.

Sylvia knew when he began to follow her. She hadn’t actually seen him, not this time, but she knew he was there and that he was coming after her.

She paused, as she always did, in front of the windows of Solly Klein’s Pawn Shop, looking out of habit for the watch. It was still there. Little bits of fading sunlight struck its beauty, reflected back in twinkling reds, whites, greens. It lay in eye-catching splendor in its black velvet bed. The most beautiful watch in the world, she thought, encrusted with rubies, diamonds, emeralds. He was still behind her.

She turned quickly, hair swinging free, skirt swirling, went on. The sky was darkening now, getting ready for the night. She stopped, studied a display of second-hand furniture through dingy panes. She couldn’t hear him, but something moved just briefly behind her in the shadows. Sylvia smiled a tight little smile. She didn’t know how to be afraid.

She went on and as the darkness obscured the streets, they grew deserted. He was closer, she thought, and she clutched her plastic shoulder bag with both hands. Soon, somewhere in the vacantness of the concrete while the buildings listened, he would show himself. She slowed down her pace, expected him.

A man turned the corner from the opposite direction, came toward her. His legs wobbled and he clung to the buildings for support. Sylvia stepped daintily around him, felt his bleary eyes slide down her body.

“Where are you hurrying to, baby?” The words were thick, wheedling. She was almost by him and he stumbled forward, caught her arm. “I said — where are you going, baby?”

She pulled her arm away, turned the anger of her blue eyes on him.

“Take your hands off me,” she said. Her voice was steady.

The drunk leaned forward, barring her way. He smelled of dirt and urine and cheap wine. His trousers were damp down the front.

She reached into her bag when the voice came up behind her, young, loud, full of fury.

“Let her alone, you old bastard.”

He was there now, in the open, and he swung a young hard arm. The old man swayed, a look of surprise on his gray face, fell. She watched him as he lay twitching. Then she looked up.

It was the one she had expected.

He was tall, slender, with sloping shoulders and a narrow waist. He had a shock of black hair, combed into oily waves and that grew like a dark lawn before each ear. The skin on his face was stretched tight over sharp cheekbones, a long nose. His eyes were black slits. His wide thin mouth was smiling, but his eyes were wary. All the eyes she had ever looked into had been wary.

“You need somebody to walk with you,” he said and took her arm. She moved away with him. His leather jacket brushed against her. She waited for him to speak.

“I’m Patsy,” he said. “You’re Sylvia, aren’t you?”

She kept her eyes on the pavement.

“I spotted you,” he said. “You’re new in the neighborhood. I’ve seen you come by lately. Where do you go — every night?”

She shrugged. “Away. Walking. Sometimes to the park.”

He released his hold a little, satisfied with the tone of her voice. “You got a guy?”

She looked up at him then. His lips were slightly parted, like a little boy waiting for a treat. She gave it to him.

“No,” she said.

The street lights had come on, but all around them was the night. He pulled her closer.

“You have now,” he said and with an expert movement swung her around.

He kissed her, breathing hard. His lips were rough. She was quiet in his embrace, testing her emotions. Then she moved. She brought her knee up sharply, accurately from long practice. As he reeled away from her against the building, she went for her bag.

“You God damn little bitch,” he said, and crouched, moved to spring.

She brought her hand forward where he could see it. The scissors sparkled dully, their blades open in her clenched fist.

“They’ll pick the eyes right out of you,” she said coldly. “Nobody takes me over, just like that.”

He hesitated a moment, then moved toward her. She stood her ground, readied her weapon. He stopped.

She thought a minute, then began to speak, choosing her words carefully. “I’ve been waiting,” she said, “for the right guy. But it isn’t going to be just any big stud that I put in with.” She ran one hand down the curve of her body. “I’ve got something to offer. Something special.”

He started to say something, to move to her. She brandished the scissors.

“Patsy,” she said. “I’ve heard of you. You’re the big wheel of the Robber Barons. I’ve heard of you.”

A puzzled expression crossed his face. “I’m the bossman,” he said.

“Yeah. Big rep you got. Anything for a ride and Patsy’s the conductor. That’s what I heard.”

His confidence was coming back. White teeth gleamed in the dark oblong of his face.

“You’ve got the word,” he said. “It isn’t just any skirt that gets this boy. I take only the best.”

She nodded. “I’m the best. I’m something special, I am. Choice merchandise, wrapped up in a pretty package. Just waiting for a buyer.”

His tongue came out. He licked his lips. “I’ll buy,” he said. “How much?”

She laughed, a gay tinkling laugh.

“I come high,” she said. “I come dear.”

He moved a step closer. This time she did not stop him.

“Anything,” he said and his voice was hot. “I made up my mind when I saw you, when I heard you weren’t shelling out. Anything.”

“You’re the one who made the offer,” she said, opened her bag with her other hand, dropped the scissors in.

He swarmed over her.

She looked up at him and the night became blacker. “Anything?” She asked softly.

“Anything,” he said and they moved at the same time. Their mouths met, moved against each other like living things.

His hands roamed her body. He whispered against her hair. “Where? Where?”

She melted into him. “I don’t care.”

He tried to control himself. “The park? It isn’t far.”

She shook her head. “Cops,” she said. “An alley?”

He kissed her. He couldn’t keep his mouth away, his hands still.

Together they moved — further and further into the darkness...