“Well, I wouldn’t confide in this one either. She might not last any longer than the others.”

“Who’s confiding? I never confided the time of day t’ none a them.” Harry sniffled into the phone. “Business is business and dolls is dolls. That’s my motto!”

Big Tom dropped it. “Busick just called.”

“Yeah, what’s he say now?”

“More of the same. Lay off, it don’t smell right. He’s got butterflies in his underpants.”

“Well, what you going t’ do?” Harry asked uncertainly.

“I’m going to pull it. To hell with him.” He waited, and Harry said nothing. “I don’t see what could be wrong.”

“Well, like you said yourself, it’s funny that it’s laying there where it is and nothing guarding it.”

“I’ve made up my mind to get it and take a look at it,” Big Tom said. “Then if there’s something queero we can have a bonfire. I wanted Busick outside just in case, but he won’t come back now.”

“Ah, we can do it ourselves, you and me,” Harry said with renewed confidence. “It’ll be a snap.”

“You know what to bring,” Big Tom told him. “Be here by ten.”

“Sure, I’ll be there.”

Big Tom put the phone into its cradle. The look of anger and disgust had smoothed from his face. He went out into the small kitchen again and found three newcomers mewing into the fish bowl. He fed them, then went out the rear door to the yard. Shaded by a big pepper tree, this area was cool and breezy. He walked the narrow bricked path back to the lath house. Before stepping inside he looked around carefully.

He watered the potted fuchsias and the ferns. He had another look outside. Then he went into a corner of the lath house and lifted a flat stone set into the creeping green moss. Below the stone was a small compartment lined with brick. From among other things Big Tom selected a plastic-wrapped object which had, in spite of the wrappings, the unmistakable shape of the Luger.

Carrying the wrapped gun, he went back into the house. He stood for a minute in his small front room, listening to the silence of the canyon. Then he sat down, unwrapped the Luger and inspected it thoroughly, meanwhile whistling through his teeth.

Skip went into the bathroom and examined his face. What Eddie had done looked like a mere scratch; the damage wrought by Big Tom darkened the whole side of his face. Skip washed and dried himself, brushed his teeth. He’d slept later than usual. Well, that was all right. He’d be up later tonight, too. He looked at himself again in the mirror, and the thought of Big Tom brought flickering lights into his eyes.