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a dividend for me, and another one of those things for Mr. Corday.”
    “Yes, Chief Latson. If you’re through with those papers, Mr. Corday, I could remove them.”
    “I’m through, Ernest. And switch me to a Tom Collins; I’ve had my vitamins.”
    Ernest’s teeth were the whitest any man ever owned; his hair the smoothest. He gathered up the four papers, and was gone like a genie.
    “I hate waiters,” Jim Latson said. “Always make me feel I should have changed my shirt.”
    “You’re about to get your revenge on the Waiters’ and Stewards’ Union,” Corday said.
    Latson laughed, his easy, thumb-on-the-world laugh. “Guild? That case is shaping up nicely. We got one setback: negative on the paraffin test. But I got a statement from the food checker at the Belmont; one of her duties was to see that no waiter left the kitchen without having his white gloves on. So we dug around, and there, by golly, were a pair of white gloves behind a garbage can; whataya know?”
    “Paraffin positive,” Corday said. “And done without my crystal ball. I’ll bet I can tell you where you were this afternoon. Answer: the pistol range.”
    “Yep,” Latson said. “Sure. Departmental regulation one-one-seven thirty-two: all officers will carry gun and badge at all times, on and off duty; one-one-seven thirty-three: each officer of the department will fire eighteen rounds of ammunition per month on the Police Club range, said ammunition to be paid for by the officer firing; and in the event that the score for said rounds shall average less than seventy, PPC standards, an immediate report shall be made to the Personnel Bureau, which will take steps to see that the officer firing this—”
    Corday interrupted rudely: “That’s enough, Latson, that’s enough. You’re God’s great cop, aren’t you? You can recite the manual backwards, fire a hundred target, PPC, repair a police radio, take lab tests and—” he paused, swallowing, “and frame waiters.”
    “What are you sore about?” Latson asked mildly. “You swung and you missed. Result—I’m building you up a case that’ll probably get you elected D.A. next term. Smith tells me he’s stepping up, the party likes him for governor… Ernest, if you’d let your hair grow, I’d marry you.”
    The maitre d’ was setting up for a ceremony as intricate as a voodoo rite. In front of Jim Latson he placed a glass holding an ice cube; off to one side was a martini mixer, with the long glass stirrer cocked at its most alluring angle; on a little plate covered with a glass dome were two pimento-stuffed olives, two anchovy-stuffed olives, and two pickled onions.
    Now Ernest dumped the ice cube into a little bucket, placed the bucket on the floor. He wiped the chilled glass with a spotless napkin, placed it back in front of Latson, gave the cocktail two slow stirs, and lifted the glass dome.
    This was the time for a breathless pause; Ernest was duly breathless as his eyebrows raised at Jim Latson. The chief gravely pointed a little finger at one of the onions, and Ernest breathed again, the crisis past.
    The onion went in the glass, was drowned in the almost colorless cocktail, and again the maitre d’ lost his breath. Jim Latson gravely lifted the glass, sipped, and smiled.
    Ernest breathed, placed Corday’s Tom Collins in front of him briskly, removed the tomato-stained glass, and was gone.
    Dave Corday gave a disgusted grunt.
    “I still hate waiters,” Jim Latson said. “But I’m a guy believes in spreading sunshine as I go. You came here to watch Palmer blackmail me, didn’t you?”
    Corday’s stomach knotted. Jim Latson was, at one time, all the things he hated most in the world. The ease with which the cop had gotten to the top of the department, the careless grace Latson showed with women, the social expertness with waiters, college professors, businessmen—they were all the things Dave Corday did not have and knew now he would never have. He said, “Yes. I