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whispered conversations, the occasional exchange of money.
        Fred Slaughter owned the cafeteria, as well as the bar next door and Lord only knows what else. He was a man of many and varied interests.
        Well, it was probably one of the reasons he was able to warn her about men like Riddle. He knew them and did some sort of business with them.
        At first she had thought that it was only because Slaughter liked her and had a sort of fatherly interest in her. He'd been nice about giving her the job, had seemed to take an interest in both her and Vince, whom he knew all about. But she'd soon learned that his interest was anything but fatherly.
        Not that he'd been insistent or anything. Just made his pass, the way most men did sooner or later. Tried to take her out and when she had made her position very clear to him, had been a little nasty. But he hadn't tired her and after a while he'd left her alone.
        Slaughter had plenty of women and she guessed that he just hadn't wanted to bother. She was a good cashier, so he left her alone and had gone on about his business.
        By this time she had begun to realize that whatever Slaughter's business was, it involved a lot more than just owning a bar and cafeteria.
        Thinking about it. her mind once more went back to Vince. It had been very tough after their mother died. She and Vince were seventeen at the time and Vince was in reform school. They'd picked him up in a stolen car and sent him away, and Sue was living alone with her mother at the time. She'd already had to leave school herself and was working.
        The authorities had investigated, after the funeral, but when they found that she had a job and was able to support herself they had lost interest and had left her alone.
        That job had ended after a year when a new boss came in and made things difficult. She'd quit and that was when she got the job in the cafeteria. Slaughter had learned about Vince and he must have had excellent connections because he'd been able to get him out on parole.
        Vince was supposed to go to work as a bus boy in Slaughter's place, but he hadn't lasted long. He'd had a fight with a waiter and the manager had fired him. Slaughter heard about it, but he'd merely shrugged his shoulders.
        "The kid will get another job," he said. "In the meantime, don't worry about it. I'll tell the parole officer he's still working here, until "he finds something else."
        The trouble was, Vince hadn't found anything else. It had been a couple of months now, and Sue slowly began to realize that Vince wasn't even looking. Instead, he was hanging around with Jake and with Dommie and some of the others.
        Sue leaned up on her elbow and snapped on the table light. She found a pack of cigarettes and hunched a pillow under her shoulders so that she was half sitting up in bed.
        Yes, she would have to talk with Vince in the morning. Vince wasn't the brightest boy in the world, but Sue knew that he wasn't really bad. He had sworn he hadn't known the car was stolen, but the judge hadn't believed him and they'd sent him away. In a sense, it was a tragedy. He'd been a different boy when he'd come back.
        She finished the cigarette and stubbed it out and once more turned off the light and settled down in the bed. She was determined to get some sleep. She wanted to talk with Vince the first thing in the morning and she had a date at eleven o'clock at the television station for a commercial tryout. She wanted to be fresh and rested when she got there.
        She'd just stop thinking about Vince and worrying about him-at least for the time being. He'd listen to her. There was no use worrying about it now. She just wished, though, that he'd get home. It was dangerous for him to be running around this late at night. If the parole board should find out…
        By one-thirty, Sue Dunne had fallen into a restless, fretful sleep. Several