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considered. “Not sure that I know. I can’t keep track of everybody in town. Characters keep blowing back and forth, especially in a glorified tourist camp like this. We didn’t have any reason to keep tabs on Anglin — until now. He might have been prospecting. At least, he hasn’t been in town very often lately.” He knelt by the dead man again.
    Barselou gave the meat grinder a whirl. “Just a suggestion, Lieutenant, but a careful search of his clothes — ”
    Lay, already rummaging through the dead man’s pockets, didn’t bother to look up and Barselou let his voice trail off. He eased forward to stand near the body watchfully. The black automatic, familiar to the Conovers, came out first, to be placed on the shiny linoleum. A dirty handkerchief, a small compass and a notebook, pocket-size and with all the pages blank, joined the gun on the floor. After a thorough search, the pile also included a few coins, a half-empty pack of cigarettes, a box of pocket matches and wallet. The wallet contained a driver’s license made out to a Homer Anglin, nineteen dollars in currency, a Social Security card and nothing else.
    Lay got up and rubbed his knees. Barselou bit his lip and tapped the police officer’s shoulder, drawing him to one side.
    Sin sighed. “Do you think we can go now?”
    “Shouldn’t be long now,” her husband said offhand. He was trying to read lips across the kitchen.
    “Why don’t you ask the lieutenant if it’s okay? I need some fresh air pretty bad.”
    Lieutenant Lay came ambling back. “Say, Conover, when you told me your story why didn’t you tell me that Anglin said something to you before he died?”
    “He didn’t.”
    “Barselou says — ”
    John Henry’s temper flared. “Barselou’s got a lot of ideas. Why doesn’t he have one about that waiter of his that started us on the whole thing?”
    The police ambulance clanged outside in the alley, its siren dying to a groan. John Henry guessed the expression on Lay’s ugly face was supposed to pass as a grin. At least, after the noise had died down, Lay said, “Oh, we all have ideas.” And he let that Conovers go.
    As they walked down the alley, John Henry said, “Whew!”
    Sin slid her hand under his arm and agreed. “Was that the adventure you wanted with your dinner?”
    “No,” he admitted morosely. “I didn’t want to see anybody get hurt. It never seems that bad in stories. When people in stories stumble into a murder, they always come up with a clue.”
    Sin moved closer to him and nodded silently.
    “Darn!” said John Henry.
    “What’s the trouble, honey?”
    “Tripped.”
    He kicked some soft trash aside and they walked on. Behind them, they could hear a loaded stretcher scrape into the ambulance.
    The soft trash was an Arab burnoose. Lieutenant Lay didn’t find it, either.

CHAPTER FOUR
    THEY TURNED into the palm-guarded cement walk that wound up to the hotel’s front entrance. A rainbow of floodlights, carefully concealed in the shrubbery, bathed the area in carnival hues and threw grotesque shadows across their path.
    A lizard scuttled suddenly away from their footsteps. Sin suppressed a shriek, doing her best not to let their unexpected Saturday night get her down.
    John Henry pursed his mouth. “If we only had some idea what that Barselou is up to — ”
    “It’s nothing that concerns us, Johnny. We don’t know he’s up to anything. I mean, it wasn’t his fault that poor fellow got shot in his alley.”
    “Look at it this way, Sin. We get that funny queen card in his restaurant and it’s delivered to us by a waiter in one of Barselou’s costumes. We go up to his office, which is probably just what he wanted. As soon as we’re there, you remark that we’re tired from our trip and Barselou says it’s a long drive from San Diego.”
    “Oh,” said Sin softly.
    “Right. How did he know we were from San Diego? We weren’t carrying avocados or anything.”
    “Johnny, he’s been checking up