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Get your people out on the floor. We’re still open for business. Musicians, get that music going. Waiters, your place is with the customers. Come on, now — let’s move!”
    Under his impact, the becalmed Ship of the Desert creaked, stirred and got under way again. The waiters and musicians faded away and the cooks bobbed their round hats over stoves and assembly tables, with only occasional surreptitious glances at the dead man.
    John Henry, his comforting arm around Sin’s shoulders, had turned her away from the morbid view. “There, there, honey. Everything’s all right now.” Her eyes were less shocked but her tan face still picked up some of the green from her dress.
    Barselou paced the narrow aisle between table and alley exit, his face uncivilized and angry. He pulled up by the Conovers and his voice was barely controlled thunder. “What do you know about this man?”
    John Henry answered him slowly, trying to look surprised. “Nothing. I never saw him before in my life.” He canceled Sin’s astonished objections by squeezing her waist.
    “He knew you.”
    “I wouldn’t say that. He fell into my arms, that’s all. He didn’t know I was going to open the door.”
    Barselou’s colorless eyes blazed at Conover’s innocent expression. He moved his lips a couple of times and then said softly, “All right — you don’t know him.”
    “Maybe it was a holdup that went wrong,” John Henry suggested. “Too bad he didn’t get a chance to talk.”
    Then Sin protested, “But, honey — he did say something to you!” and Conover’s warning squeeze came too late.
    Barselou hunched his wide shoulders forward and his face glowed. “So he said something to you!”
    “Well,” said John Henry, “he tried to say something, but he couldn’t quite make it. Too bad, too — it might have cleared the whole thing up.”
    “A pity,” agreed Barselou but none of the grim fervor left his expression. “It might have made things easier for everybody.”
    “Dead all right,” Lieutenant Lay said and got up from beside the body. Barselou, the Conovers, the cooks behind their now-cool stoves and two tan-uniformed policemen waited for him to work a miracle.
    The second in command of the Azure police department stood with his bowed legs apart and scowled at the wall. He was a lanky man in his middle thirties with a horse face and arms too long for his body. He needed a shave.
    The scowl swung on John Henry, “Mr. Barselou seems to have the idea that you knew him.” Conover shook his head and kept silent. Sin still leaned against him, but she wasn’t about to be sick any more and her tilted eyes were sharply alive. “Doesn’t matter,” Lay rasped. “He’s not hard to identify. Name’s Anglin.” He kept watching John Henry.
    When the scowl began to fade, the young man thought it was safe to ask, “Who was he?”
    “Oh, he hung around town a lot. Did lots of jobs. Been lots of different things. Prospected some.” He glanced at the sand that had spilled on the immaculate floor from Anglin’s clothes. “Was a guide once in a while. Used to deal faro over in Las Vegas — or so I heard.”
    “Lieutenant — ” Barselou interposed from where he was fiddling with a meat grinder. “Maybe that has something to do with the murder. A man like that is bound to make enemies.”
    “Maybe. A grudge killing. Some bozo he’s double-crossed — or cheated at cards. Then again, Mr. Barselou — ” Lay gave a macabre grin “ — this killing’s right up your alley.”
    Barselou didn’t smile.
    Sin said in a small voice, “Whoever it was, he was pretty persistent.”
    “I don’t get you, Mrs. Conover.”
    “Well, he was shot in the shoulder too, wasn’t he?”
    “Doesn’t mean anything. Most guys with guns can’t shoot worth beans, anyway.”
    “What’s Mr. Anglin been doing recently?” John Henry asked.
    “Glad to have the visitors take an interest in our crimes,” Lay muttered sarcastically. Then he