“You’re Eddie?” A touch of vindictive dislike appeared for a moment on Uncle Willy’s features, to be smoothed away at once as if by magic. “Oh yes. Eddie. Been a friend of Skip’s for a long time, haven’t you? You boys have been in trouble together, lots of trouble.” Uncle Willy came down the steps and faced Eddie closely. “Let me tell you just one thing. It’s time to change. It’s time for you to change and for Skip to change, to remake your lives, to give up the things that are going to ruin all the years ahead.”

This was not the sort of talk Eddie would have expected, since he knew from Skip of his uncle’s record.

“Now, Skip has gone,” Uncle Willy went on. “He was here packing his bag when I got home from the A.A. meeting and I talked to him, as much as he’d let me, and then he left. I’m not sure how much of an impression I made. Maybe I didn’t put it right. Maybe I should have waited until he was ready to listen. But now you’re here, and my conscience wouldn’t let me rest unless I’d told you a few facts for your own good.” He looked earnestly and determinedly into Eddie’s reluctant eyes. “The life you and Skip have led is nothing but a blind alley. It’ll get you nowhere.”

Eddie said, “Where is Skip, please? I wanted to make sure he was all right, not hurt, not shot up or anything.”

“He’s fine, perfectly fine,” Uncle Willy said. “It was Big Tom was shot up. Skip sneaked over there, wasn’t supposed to, of course, and heard it going on. Big Tom must of made a terrible booboo somehow. You just be thankful, Eddie my boy, that Skip eased you out of that job when he did. It could have been you on the receiving end of those bullets.” With a final, emphatic nod Uncle Willy went into the rear porch and shut the door.

Eddie rapped on the door, full of anxious questions, but Uncle Willy called from the kitchen, advising him to go away and behave himself. Finally Eddie left the place, went down the block to an intersection, bought a paper off a newsstand, and read the account of the finding of Big Tom, dead in his car, and the identification of Big Tom as the intruder at the Havermann house. There was no mention whatever of Skip, nor of himself or Karen.