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the rug. Then he lifted three boards, stuck his hand inside the hole, and dragged out the battered yellow cartridge case he had hidden there. When he lifted it, something thumped inside the locked case.
    “Wanna take a quick look, Otto?” Catell started to undo the latch.
    “For God’s sake, Tony, leave it closed. That gold is poison, Tony. It’s poison of the worst kind.”
    Catell had shoved the box inside the television set and started toward the door.
    “Tony, I beg you, I beg you to listen—”
    “Out of my way!”
    Catell had his hands full with the cabinet. He kickedat Schumacher with his foot and caught him on the shin. Schumacher doubled up with pain.
    “Out of my way, damn you. Now open this door.”
    Schumacher moved awkwardly, limping. He opened the door.
    “Tony, please—”
    “You heard what I said. I’ll get in touch with you. When I’m downstairs, throw this guy back out in the hall.” Catell was at the stairs already.
    “Tony! Tony, I’m sick!”
    Catell was running down the stairs. He was whistling again. For a moment Schumacher staggered with a new rush of nausea that choked his throat and blurred his vision. Then, sweating with the effort, he dragged the limp agent back out into the hall. Panting and weak, Schumacher closed his eyes. When he looked at the man on the floor again, their eyes met. With a horrible effort the hurt agent strained his injured throat and let out a weird, loud scream.
    As Schumacher staggered back into the room he could hear them clambering up the stairs. He was fumbling for his gun in the desk drawer. When they clattered up to the door, guns drawn, a rushing nausea curled Schumacher’s insides. He lost sight of them, and with a head-splitting effort he retched helplessly. He heard noise, he heard the crash of the guns, and when he retched the second time, there was blood in the vomit.
    They stepped up to him, dead in a mess on the floor, and they saw that he wasn’t even holding the gun right.
    At the corner of the street two men sat inside the closed truck among equipment and instruments. One sat at the short-wave radio; the other was fingering a Geigercounter. Suddenly the instrument crackled and ticked with a wild rush of discharges. Another ticker, standing nearby, did the same thing. The two men jumped.
    “Christ Almighty, what in hell was that?”
    Outside, a television repair truck turned the corner fast and lost itself in the traffic.

Chapter Four
    The taxi wound slowly through the late-evening traffic. A thin spring rain had been drizzling all afternoon, almost like a fog, and the lights of downtown Detroit looked hazy. Catell and Selma sat in the cab, far apart on the back seat, not smiling.
    “Hear the latest?” asked the cabby.
    He didn’t get an answer. Catell looked at Selma, who had wrapped a fox stole high around her neck, as if to protect herself from the thick dampness in the air.
    “Did you hear the latest about the killing?” said the cabby, a little louder this time. He was a determined man.
    “Answer the guy,” Catell hissed. “Act natural.”
    “Uh, no, I haven’t. What is the latest?” asked Selma.
    “Remember reading about that killing in Highland Park a few days ago, where the cops shot a guy called Shoemaker? Well, they found out who the other guy was. The other guy who was in with old Shoemaker.”
    Catell tensed and leaned forward a little, his hands curled on the back of the driver’s seat.
    “Yeah?”
    “Well, it turns out the other guy was a dame—beg pardon, a woman.” The cabby let that sink in, waiting for some sound from the back.
    “Oh, really?” Selma said at last.
    “That’s right. She was in the building all the time, disguised as a cleaning woman.” The cabby paused significantly and then said in a triumphant voice, “And here isthe pay-off: After the cops had went out, what does she do?”
    “What?”
    “She goes up to that Shoemaker’s apartment, and she goes ahead and cleans up the mess