“It’s not in Skip’s name, or his uncle’s name. His uncle works for a man—I’ve heard Skip mention the man’s name but I can’t remember it. I wouldn’t want to put in a long-distance call anyway, asking about Skip. You know, if the cops are wise, the phone could be bugged, or the uncle even taken in on suspicion—oh, hell, anything could have happened!”

She flung herself at him, clutched him, squeezed so tight that Eddie was astonished at her frantic strength. “Don’t go! Don’t go!”

Eddie loosened her grip patiently. “Now of course Skip’s uncle doesn’t know anything about the Havermann job,” he went on, thinking aloud. “So he won’t know, unless Skip got to him, that Skip needs help. That’s what I’ve got to do, get to him and explain that Skip’s in trouble, must be shot up and ought to be found and taken to a doctor.”

She threw back her head, brushed at her hair, looked directly into his eyes. “I know it isn’t Skip who’s hurt. He’s too smart, too clever and quick. If anyone is shot, it’s somebody else.”

“It has to be Skip,” Eddie explained. “Stolz is okay. The paper said so.”

At the last Karen offered Eddie the one gift she thought would keep him, and he accepted it instantly and delightedly, loving her passionately for the offering of it; but when it was done he got up from the bed and put on his clothes and went out, instructing her to lock the door after him.

Thinking to cut some distance from the trip, he took the Ventura Boulevard route for San Fernando Valley, planning to enter L.A. through North Hollywood and Cahuenga Pass; and in an isolated part of the west valley, surrounded by walnut groves and areas of rocky hills, everything but what the headlights showed blanketed in moonless dark, the old car burned out a bearing, the engine exploded with a grinding breakage, and he was stranded. He was nowhere near L.A., had no idea what the next town might be or where it was. Karen and Mrs. Mosby’s café might as well have been a thousand miles from him. All he could do was to wait in the car until daylight.

When Mrs. Mosby came over from her own place at about seven, Karen was already up and dressed, had the cot folded and stacked in a corner, the pad rolled and tied, the borrowed bedding placed neatly on top. She was in the dining room, stacking dishes. Coffee water was boiling.