Eddie didn’t argue because he wouldn’t admit even to himself the squeamish dismay in his own vitals. He had to measure up and quit being a drag on Skip. He and Skip had been friends for years, ever since grammar school, with Skip the leader and organizer and Eddie the follower. Even the separations, while one or the other served time in reformatories and jails, hadn’t broken the pattern. “What do you think you’ll see? The money?” he asked finally.

They went out to the car again. Skip said, “I’ve got to make sure it’s on the up-and-up and Karen isn’t just handing me a line. I want to see the old woman and the inside of the house, and check what Karen told me. If I see the relative counting his dough, all the better.”

Eddie sensed that Skip, in spite of what he said about Karen, was pretty sure of her. Skip had never had any trouble with women lying to him. Something in his face and manner discouraged it.

They drove back the way they had come. The last of the twilight had faded and the street lamps had a yellow brightness against the night. In the block next to the Havermann property a thin grove of young eucalyptus trees straggled down from the hilly rising almost to the curb. Here and there were a few wild and neglected lantana thickets almost as high as a man’s head. Eddie parked, got out, looked around. He nodded toward the hills. “Up there. Get it?”

Eddie could make out only the line of hills against the sky, the thicket dark among the trees. “What do you mean?”

“High ground. We go on up there and circle around, we can look down. Down into the house.” Skip shuffled his shoes. “Anything looks interesting, we’ll creep in close.”

He started off with Eddie following in his tracks. Dead leaves crackled underfoot and occasionally out of the dark the lantana brushed them with a thorny prickle. When they came to a clear spot Eddie paused and looked back and was surprised at how far they’d climbed above the road. The lights of Pasadena across the Arroyo Seco made a great glow to the east and south. To the right, far away, downtown L.A. lit up the horizon.

“Come on,” Skip muttered. He circled east toward the upper end of the Havermann place. There was lawn here, glimmers of light through the thick old trees. “Well, let’s try a little closer.”