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it and take it in and store it, and arrange to have that heap driven in to the pound."
    The man went away. Ken Branks stretched and yawned. "He had a little over twenty left out of the forty, Mr. McGee. These things have a pattern. The way I see it, Taggart went out to do some cruising on your money. So he hit a few bars, and got somebody agitated, and that somebody followed him on back here and went in after him with a knife. In the dark, probably.
    Taggart did pretty good. The place is pretty well busted up. From the wounds, the guy was hacking at him, and got him a dozen times on the hands and face and arms before he finally got him one in the throat. So somebody left here bandaged up and spattered all to hell with blood.
    It won't be hard, I don't think. Leg work. Hitting all the likely saloons and finding where the trouble was, and who was in it. We'll pretty Taggart up for a picture we can use to show around here and there. Don't expect to see your name in the paper. Or Miss Gardino's. It won't get big coverage. The season is on, you know. Can't upset the sun-loving merrymakers." We got out of the car.
    He shook his head and said, "Some poor son of a bitch is out there tonight burying his clothes, throwing the knife off a bridge, trying to scrub the blood off his car seat, and it won't do him a damn bit of good. By God, nobody can get away with making a pass at his girl. She can drive up to Raiford once a month and pay him a nice visit. You can take off, Mr. McGee. If I remember something I should ask you, I'll be in touch."
    As I drove away, my neck and shoulders felt stiff with tension. I was under no illusions about Mr.
    Branks. I remembered how he had maneuvered me into the light to give me a thorough inspection. And I pretended not to see the flashlight beam as somebody had checked my car over while he was talking to me.
    Branks would check me out with care and precision, and Nora too, and when his estimate of the Page 23

    situation did not pay off, he would go over us again.
    A single lamp was lighted in Nora's living room. I saw Shaja, still in her blue robe, get up from the chair and come to unlock the door. I followed her into the living room. "How is she doing?"
    "She fell to sleep, not so long ago." I noticed that she had brushed her hair, put on her makeup.
    "Such a wicked think," she said. "My hoosband, yes. One could expect, from a prison sickness.
    Some kind. Her Sam, no. Please to sit. You drink somesink, maybe?"
    "If you've got a beer."
    "Amstel? From Curacao?"
    "Fine."
    She went to the kitchen and brought back one for each of us, in very tall tapered glasses, on a small pewter tray.
    "About him returning, she was so excite. So 'appy. It breaks my heart in two."
    "Shaja? Is that the way you say it?"
    "For friends, just Shaj. It comes from a girl in an old story in my land. For children. A princess turnink to ice slowly."
    "Shaj, I had to tell the police she went there with me."
    "Of course!"
    "The way I told it, I made Sam a lot less important to her. I'll tell you exactly what I told them, and you remember it and tell her as soon as she wakes up. A man named Branks will come to see her. She should tell him exactly the same thing. It shouldn't be hard, because most of it is the truth."
    She agreed. I repeated what I had said to Branks. She gave little nods of understanding.
    When I had finished she frowned and said, "Excuse. But what is wrong to tellink this man she was in love with her Sam, all the three years he was gone? Is no crime."
    "There is a reason for it. You see, there is something else too."
    I saw a little flicker of comprehension in her eyes, product of a mind nicely geared to intrigue.
    "Somesink she does not know yet?"
    "That's right."
    "But you will tell her?"
    "When she feels better."
    She was thoughtful for long moments. She looked over at me. "You do not see her often, but Page 24

    you are a good friend, no?"
    "I hope so."
    "I am her friend too. She is good to me for a long time