LITMIR.BIZ

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motions like a fish kissing the side of a bowl, but no sound came out.

      Finally he managed to squeak, “Throw this son-of-a-bitch in the street, Gordy.”

      Gordy looked me up and down warily. He was a tall, rangily-built guy with enough muscle on him to take care of himself, but he didn’t have the spirit to go with the muscle. He didn’t seem to like the look on my face any better than the sheriff had.

      “Now let’s not have any trouble around here,” he said. “The sheriff says to get out of here, mister. You better go along.”

      I walked toward where he stood in the doorway. He eyed my approach uncertainly, but stood his ground. Two feet from him I stuck my face in his and said, “Boo!”

      He jumped about a foot in the air, sidestepped and left the doorway clear. I went on through without looking back at either of them.

       chapter eight

      THE FIRST THING Monday morning I phoned headquarters and asked for the Morals Division. Lieutenant Spooner wasn’t in, and neither was Harry Allerup. I left word asking for the first one who showed to call me back.

      A few minutes later Sunshine Sever called me onto the carpet in his office. He wasn’t beaming any ray of sunshine today. His scowl was as black as a hurricane warning.

      He waved a piece of paper at me and said, “Mike, I’ve got a formal complaint here from Sheriff Merz’s office. What in the devil did you say to the man?”

      “Just called him the crook he is.”

      The district attorney rose from his desk and prowled up and down the room with his hands clasped behind his back in overweight imitation of Felix the Cat. “Look, Mike,” he said in the patient tone of a grade-school teacher explaining a simple problem to the class dunce, “I’ve told you I like to keep friendly relations with other agencies. You can’t walk into a neighboring law-enforcement officer’s personal sanctum and throw around wild accusations.”

      “They weren’t wild,” I said. “It’s obvious he’s collecting a payoff from Tupper Smith.”

      “Can you prove it?” he snapped at me.

      Reluctantly I shook my head. “He has to be, Sunshine. Smith couldn’t operate without his protection.”

      Sunshine shook his head too, sadly and reproachfully. “You’re a law graduate, Mike. You know better than to make an accusation without evidence. Merz could sue you for defamation of character.”

      “He hasn’t any character,” I said. “Besides, there weren’t any witnesses.”

      He looked a little relieved. “At least that’s something. I hate to do this, Mike, but you won’t take my suggestions, so I’m making it an order. Stay within the city limits.”

      I hiked a couple of eyebrows. “During duty hours, you mean.”

      “I mean any time.”

      I shook my head regretfully. “This isn’t Russia, and you’re no commissar, comrade. I take your orders up to five P.M. After that I’m a private citizen. If you think I’m asking your permission to dine at some county roadhouse, or take a drive along the river, guess again.”

      “You know that isn’t what I mean,” he said impatiently. “Just stay out of the county as a representative of this office. I mean it, Mike. You clash with Merz again, and I won’t back you up an inch.”

      “How about this time?” I asked. “Going to write him a nice long apology?”

      He said shortly, “I’m going to acknowledge receipt of his complaint. Period. No comment one way or the other.”

      I grinned at him. Sunshine liked to keep inter-agency peace, but he didn’t like to kowtow. Despite his threat, I knew that if it came to a showdown, the D.A. would stand behind me like a rock.

      “I probably won’t see Merz again anyway,” I told him. “There isn’t much point in butting my head against a wall.”

      By noon, when I still hadn’t heard from either Lieutenant Spooner or Harry Allerup, I called the Morals Division again. I got hold of Spooner.

      “You were going to send Allerup over for a talk this morning,” I reminded him.

      “Jeepers, Mike,” he said with a mixture of embarrassment and regret. “I guess I goofed everything up. I was out all morning, and while I was gone the chief of detectives glooped him off for a special assignment. He’s on his way to Chicago to pick up a prisoner.”

      “Nuts,” I said heartily.

      “I’m really sorry,” Spooner said. “It never occurred to me something like that would happen, so I didn’t leave word with anybody that you wanted to see Allerup. I thought I’d just tell him myself.”

      “Well, it can’t be helped,” I told him. “When’s he due back?”

      “Not till Wednesday night. I’ll have him over to your office Thursday morning for sure.”

      “Okay, Stan,” I said. “Thanks.”

      Later that day I phoned the county hospital and learned that Gloria Townsend was now allowed visitors. I decided to hit Ross Memorial Hospital during the seven-to-eight visiting hour that evening. I needled Sunshine a little by telling him I was making the call not as an assistant D.A., but as a friend of the family.

      He only grunted.

      At Ross Memorial Hospital I made my way to ward 2-B and asked a passing nurse where I could find Miss Henning, the nurse who had been keeping me posted on Gloria’s condition. She said Miss Henning worked the day trick, so I asked for Gloria’s room number. She was in two thirty-six.

      Two thirty-six was a single room and Gloria was sitting up in bed. There were still bruises on her face, but the swelling had died and, except for a couple of discolored spots, she looked as beautiful as ever. Her long tawny hair was carefully brushed, she wore a touch of makeup and she had on a frilly bed jacket.

      She had two other visitors, a man and a woman. The woman, a lushly-built redhead with catlike green eyes and a full, sensuous mouth, looked me over calculatingly when I entered the room, judging my build, my clothes and my bank balance. Some women can’t help looking at every man they see like that.

      The man was enormous. He must have gone six feet six and over two hundred and fifty pounds. He had thick, unimaginative features, somewhat battered shoulders which made him look as though he wore football pads and no fat on him. Both the man and the woman were dressed expensively.

      Gloria looked at me without much enthusiasm and said, “Oh, hello, Mr. Macauley.”

      She introduced the man as her brother, Sid Trask, and the woman as Alice Dill. My first assumption, probably because of the calculating look she had given me, was that the redhead was a fellow call girl of Gloria’s, but then I got the impression that she was Sid Trask’s girl friend.

      Alice Dill said, “Mike Macauley? Seems to me I’ve seen that name in the papers. Aren’t you with the District Attorney’s office?”

      “I’m an assistant D.A.,” I admitted.

      Up to then the enormous Sid Trask had accepted me on probation, reserving judgment until he found out who I was and what I wanted. Now he glowered at me.

      I said to Gloria, “How you feeling, Gloria?”

      Before she could tell me, Sid Trask growled in the husky voice of a man who has been hit once too often in the Adam’s apple, “What’s this Gloria stuff, mister? Why’s she registered as Gloria Townsend, when her name’s Gladys Trask? And what business has the District Attorney’s office got with her?”

      I decided to ignore the first question and answer the second. “What makes you think it has any? Maybe I just stopped in as a friend.”

      This

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