"w.i.l.l.y!"

"Want me to fix you one of your crazy gin on the rocks, or do you want to do it?"

"w.i.l.l.y!"

"What I can do, pal, I can send up this Barbara I"ve got doing some PR for the place, living here in the house, little bit of a thing, she learned ma.s.sage in Tokyo, and it"s the d.a.m.nedest thing, she uses her feet. She walks on your back. You wouldn"t believe. Let me send her up, you"ll never regret it. Pretty little thing."

"Sit the h.e.l.l down!" I roared.

He backed up and sat down and wiped his mouth. "I was only-"

"w.i.l.l.y, the room, the bottle, a girl walking on me... What in G.o.d"s name has gotten into you?"

"Anything you want in this hotel is yours. It is only to ask. Okay?"

"What makes me so important all of a sudden?"

"You"ve always been important to me, McGee."

Then light dawned. I stared at him. I laughed. He didn"t. I said, "w.i.l.l.y, your grapevine works too fast."

"I hear what I have to know."

"Like I"m working for Frank Sprenger?"

"Remember one thing. This is the first time his name has ever been mentioned between us."

"Why should you and I have ever talked about Sprenger?"

Some of the tension went out of him, and his shoulders came down about an inch. "I"m not asking you what you"re doing for him, am I?"

"I"m not doing anything for him, w.i.l.l.y."

The shoulders went up again. "You took his money. That I know."

"I took his money."

"Some of the things you"ve done haven"t been all the way bright, McGee, but if you are saying what you seem to be saying, then you are being a hundred and ten percent stupid. If you take Sprenger"s money, you do something he wants done. If you don"t do it, you don"t get to give the money back. You don"t jerk around with any Frank Sprenger."

"We"re involved here in semantics, w.i.l.l.y."

"You said you"re not doing anything for him."

"I"m not doing anything against him."

Shoulders went all the way back to normal. "Oh! Then that"s what you"re doing for him. Not doing anything to screw him up. Which means he thinks you can or will be able to."

"One small item and not much money."

He nodded. "Like that thing we-" He stopped himself. "Like if he was involved in some kind of investment and didn"t get what he thought he was buying, and somebody wanted you to help with the real stuff."

"Are these rooms bugged without you knowing for sure?" I asked him.

"People are in and out all day. I do the best I can for the owners. And the owners would want me to tell you this, Travis. And you tell Frank Sprenger for me. Any friend of his, any time, the best we got is what he gets. I personally guarantee it."

"I"ll tell him what a d.a.m.ned good job w.i.l.l.y Nucci does for the owners. But I"d wager he knows that already."

"I try my best. What do you want? Just ask."

"I might want something later. Maybe later we could take a little walk together by the ocean and talk."

"I"ll tell the switchboard, when you phone me it goes through right away."

"Thanks, w.i.l.l.y."

At the door he paused and turned. "Even if the only part you want is the ma.s.sage, I"d recommend her. You"ll sleep like a baby." I declined. He shrugged and left.

I tried Mary Alice for ten more rings. I tried Hirsh Fedderman. The woman said, "This here is Mrs. Franck speaking, a neighbor, I am sitting with Mr. Fedderman who is now sleeping at last, thank G.o.d."

"Was Mary Alice McDermit there? Or is she still there?"

"Here there is only me, Mrs. Franck, and there is Mr. Fedderman, like I said already, sound asleep. Who did you ask?"

"Mrs. McDermit. She was there today. When did she leave?"

"How should I know if I don"t know her? I didn"t meet everybody that comes here. This dear old man, he is blessed with friends. All day long too many people coming to see him, tiring him out, bringing enough food, we could feed Cuba maybe."

"Mary Alice works for him. She"s a young woman with long black hair, six feet tall."

"Ah! Oh! You should say so. That one. Yes. Such a size person they are growing these days. It is something in the food. What time is it now? Nearly nine? So she left at four o"clock, five hours ago. You missed her by a little. If she ever comes back, who shall I say is calling?"

"Thank you, never mind. How is Hirsh?"

"How do you think he is? That nice woman being killed in her own home by wicked children, fifteen years she worked for him, a faithful loyal person. His heart is broken in two. That"s all that is wrong."

"I know it would be wrong to wake him up, and you wouldn"t even if I asked you. So would you happen to know if a woman who used to work for him is still alive. I think her name is Moojah."

"Of course Miss Moojah is alive! Wasn"t she here today, bringing a hot ca.s.serole? She"s in the book. Why don"t you look? How many Moojahs are there going to be? She lives in Harmony Towers, that has a three-year waiting list for senior singles. Miss Moojah will be alive when all of us have pa.s.sed away, believe it."

After I hung up, I checked the directory. Yes indeed. A. A. Moojah. I wrote the number on the phone-side scratch pad, just as the phone rang.

"h.e.l.lo?"

"Oh, great! Just dandy!"

"I called you twice. No answer. How did you find me?"

"Meyer told me."

"Meyer phoned you?"

"I didn"t say that, sweetie. Meyer is sitting smiling at me like some kind of an owl."

"An owl. You mean he"s here in... Oh."

"Yes indeed. Here I am in all my pretties, making my poor dear little yellow car go seventy-five on the turnpike."

"It always seems to me like downhill from there to Miami."

"If and when I feel like it, I"ll check that out."

"When do you expect to feel like it? I have some things I want to talk to you about."

"Meyer is a wonderful conversationalist. I"m going to have another delicious drink, and then we"re going to go eat somewhere nice. So don"t wait up for me."

I started to explain that so many things were happening, it was too inefficient to try to commute, but I realized I was talking to an empty line.

I broke the seal on the bottle and was pleased to find that my personal icemaker made those nice little cubes the size of professional dice. After one sip I got out the card which one of my two visitors had given me-either Harry Harris or Dave Davis. The unlisted phone number was written on the back in red ballpoint.

When the phone was answered, I could hear music and laughter in the background. The girl said, "Whatever you were looking for, we got it."

"What I am looking for is Frank."

"We got... oops. Wrong way to go. Whom is speaking?"

"McGee. T. McGee."

"Just stand there," she said. She did not cover the mouthpiece perfectly, and I heard her bawling over the background noise, "Frank, somebody name McGee. You wannit?"

She came back on and said, "He"ll come onto an extension in just a sec."

"h.e.l.lo?" he said. "Let me hear you hang up, Sissie."

She let us both hear it, like a good rap on the ear with a tack hammer. "Sorry about that," he said. It was a deep, easy voice. "And sorry I couldn"t come to see you the other day. I got tied up. I told them not to give out a name. Just the number where you could get in touch with either of them."

"They didn"t give out any name, Mr. Sprenger. If it was in connection with something I was involved in, concerning a Mr. Fedderman, then I could add two and two, but I wasn"t sure, of course. Then something made me sure."

"Such as?"

"I was over on the beach, and I stopped at the Americana for a drink, and somebody I know came over and said she understood I"m working for you now."

Five seconds of silence. "I find that very very interesting. You wouldn"t want to give me the name?" interesting. You wouldn"t want to give me the name?"

"No, I wouldn"t. But she doesn"t work for you, as far as I know. I didn"t appreciate it."

"How am I supposed to take that?"

"I don"t know how you want to take it, Mr. Sprenger. I just don"t want any confusion in anybody"s mind about whose problems I"m supposed to be taking care of."

"Why don"t you come to my office tomorrow, say about ten o"clock, and we can discuss your investment problems?"

"I found your Lincoln Road address in the book. About eleven would be better, I think."

"I"ll see you whenever you arrive. Right now you and I are even with the board. I consider it full value received. Okay?"

I said everything was just fine. I hung up, smiling. It was worth a thousand dollars to him either way. If I was trying to con him into thinking there was a leak in his administrative apparatus, it was worth it to know I was dull enough to try to con him. On the other hand, if there was a leak, he was tough and smart enough to find it. I knew there was a leak. And I knew that if it was a plant, my friend w.i.l.l.y Nucci was too shrewd to set himself up by letting the plant know where the information was going. One thing seemed reasonably certain. Frank Sprenger would have it sorted out by the time I met with him on Monday. And be duly grateful. I could guess how his mind would work. Absolute loyalty, absolute silence, these are required, are so critical, they are seldom even mentioned. Any violation of this credo is a form of voluntary suicide. The reason is that if the unreliable one talks to someone who intends no harm, and if someone who does does mean harm can learn of the defection, then the threat of exposure is deadly enough to extract the same information for other uses. There are two reasons why they use the same sort of cell structure as do intelligence apparatuses. It limits the availability and dissemination of potentially damaging information. And it makes it a lot easier to track down any leak. mean harm can learn of the defection, then the threat of exposure is deadly enough to extract the same information for other uses. There are two reasons why they use the same sort of cell structure as do intelligence apparatuses. It limits the availability and dissemination of potentially damaging information. And it makes it a lot easier to track down any leak.

I stretched out on a chaise, drink at hand, scratch pad at hand, and began working my way through a tangle of phone lines toward Sergeant Goodbread. I finally persuaded a communications person to patch me through to Goodbread"s vehicle.

"McGee, I can"t make any kind of statement. You know that."

"This is sort of personal. When you can get to a phone, call me. The sooner the better."

It took him six minutes to get to a phone. "It better be good," he said. "I still haven"t been home yet. I"m dead on my feet."

"I want to give you some information, but I don"t want to give you all of it."

"Have you lost your mind?"

"What I want to do is get you all the way off that idea of the daughter being involved or kids being involved."

"We"ve got Judy. She came home this morning and saw a police car and thought her old lady had turned her in, so she and her friends drove right on by. Friday night she and her friends drove up to Orlando to go to Disneyworld. They looked so scruffy they couldn"t get in. So they drove over to Rocket Beach and spent the day, six of them, in an old VW camper and tried to stay over night, but the law took them in to see if they were on any wanted lists, then rousted them south out of the county. It looks as if it will check out all the way, if we have to. After they drove by the house, they went to a friend"s place, whose parents are off at some kind of convention. Anyway, at about six this evening, some other friend called up that house to ask the girl if she"d heard about Mrs. Lawson getting killed and the cops looking for Judy. So the kid got smart and phoned in, and I had her brought in. It really shook her up. It"s violation of probation, and n.o.body in custody of her. What would happen, she would go to the state school."

"If it weren"t for the general?"

"He and his wife and the sister came in and talked to the girl. He wanted to bust her right out, right now, but the only way he could do it, it would turn into news. I want it to stay quiet. If the man who did it suddenly hears there is going to be every kind of heat and pressure he ever heard of, he could be long gone."

"The man?"

"She came home with him yesterday, say. She brought him to her place. They ha.s.sled. She started to try to run. He grabbed her by the hair to yank her back, not meaning to kill her, but he was too rough. Broke vertebrae. The spinal cord was pinched and lacerated. The time of death they say was maybe about two-thirty, but the injury could have happened then or earlier. There would be a lot of paralysis, but the heart and the breathing could have kept going an hour after the neck was snapped, maybe longer. She went down, and he probably started to get out of there, then decided to confuse everybody. I had a h.e.l.l of a job convincing that old man to lay back. Judy"s release can be arranged quietly tomorrow."

"Where are they staying?"

"Now it"s your turn, McGee."

"I"m not pleading or begging. I"m just telling you that it would be a very nice gesture on your part, Sergeant, if you would accept what I want to tell you without going after what I really have to hold back."

"I"ll decide after I hear the first part."

"There is a good chance that some person or persons unknown believed that Jane Lawson might have something very valuable hidden in her apartment."

"How valuable?"

"Four hundred thousand, maybe."

"Is there a chance they got it?"

"If there is a chance it was there, there is a chance they got it."