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have the child, and you--you're going right along with us. You're going to stay at the same hotel with us! You're going right along in the car. You're--"
          She stopped, and we stood there looking at each other. The three of us in the car, we knew what that meant. Little by little we were nearer, until we were touching.
          "Oh, my God, Frank, isn't there any other way out for us than that?"
          "Well. You were going to stick a knife in him just now."
          "No. That was for me, Frank. Not him."
          "Cora, it's in the cards. We've tried every other way out."
          "I can't have no greasy Greek child, Frank. I can't, that's all. The only one I can have a child by is you. I wish you were some good. You're smart, but you're no good."
          "I'm no good, but I love you."
          "Yes, and I love you."
          "Stall him. Just this one night."
          "All right, Frank. Just this one night."
     
     
    CHAPTER 7
     
                "There a long, long trail a-winding
                Into the land of my dreams,
                Where the nightingale is singing
                And the white moon beams.
     
                "There a long, long night of waiting
                Until my dreams all come true,
                Till the day when I'll be going down
                That long, long trail with you."
     
     
          "Feeling good, ain't they?"
          "Too good to suit me."
          "So you don't let them get hold of that wheel, Miss. They'll be all right."
          "I hope so. I've got no business out with a pair of drunks, I know that. But what could I do? I told them I wouldn't go with them, but then they started to go off by themselves."
          "They'd break their necks."
          "That's it. So I drove myself. It was all I knew to do."
          "It keeps you guessing, sometimes, to know what to do. One sixty for the gas. Is the oil O.K.?"
          "I think so."
          "Thanks, Miss. Goodnight."
          She got in, and took the wheel again, and me and the Greek kept on singing, and we went on. It was all part of the play. I had to be drunk, because that other time had cured me of this idea we could pull a perfect murder. This was going to be such a lousy murder it wouldn't even be a murder. It was going to be just a regular road accident, with guys drunk, and booze in the car, and all the rest of it. Of course, when I started to put it down, the Greek had to have some too, so he was just like I wanted him. We stopped for gas so there would be a witness that she was sober, and didn't want to be with us anyhow, because she was driving, and it wouldn't do for her to be drunk. Before that, we had had a piece of luck. Just before we closed up, about nine o'clock, a guy stopped by for something to eat, and stood there in the road and watched us when we shoved off. He saw the whole show. He saw me try to start, and stall a couple of times. He heard the argument between me and Cora, about how I was too drunk to drive. He saw her get out, and heard her say she wasn't going. He saw me try to drive off, just me and the Greek. He saw her when she made us get out, and switched the seats, so I was behind, and the Greek up front, and then he saw her take the wheel and do the driving herself. His name was Jeff Parker and he raised rabbits at Encino. Cora got his card when she said she might try rabbits in the lunchroom, to see how they'd go. We knew right where to find him, whenever we'd need him.
     
          Me and the Greek sang Mother Machree, and Smile, Smile, Smile, and Down by the Old Mill Stream, and pretty soon we came to this sign that said To Malibu Beach. She turned off there. By rights, she ought to have kept on like she was going. There's two main roads that lead up the coast. One, about ten miles inland, was the one we were on. The other, right alongside the ocean,