Harry Frost had accompanied his wife to many an air meet to buy her aeroplanes, and he watched this one with a knowledgeable eye. He was impressed. The Italian’s final invention was a hell of a machine, as different from the last aeroplane Frost had bought for Josephine as a hawk was from a pigeon. The previous, the one from which Josephine had seen him shoot the bastard, had been a sturdy biplane. This was a mono, with a single wing, and even after it stopped rolling across the infield it still looked fast and nimble just sitting there.

His jaw tightened as he focused his horse-racing field glasses. There she was, jumping off, with the big grin she got on her face when she really liked an aeroplane. She didn’t look like she was mourning her boyfriend, and she didn’t look like she was missing her husband, either. He felt the blood flush hot under his beard. He mopped his brow. Time to do the deed.

He started down from the grandstand. The guard at the gate stopped him. He showed the infield entry badge he had bought the night before from a drunken track official in a Hempstead saloon, and the guard let him pass. He walked across the horse track and stopped dead, rocked by the sight of his own face on a poster nailed to the inside rail.

WANTED
Murder Suspect
HARRY FROST
REWARD
*** $5,000 ***
(Armed and Dangerous—Do Not Approach!!! )
Wire or Telephone
VAN DORN DETECTIVE AGENCY
“We Never Give Up. Never.”

Frost’s brain started racing. Why were Van Dorns hunting him with wanted posters? What did Van Dorns care about him killing Marco Celere? What the hell was going on?

His printed face glared back at him.

It was the standard Van Dorn poster. Frost remembered it well from his Chicago days, when the private detectives were careening around the city trying to stop him by arresting the people who worked for him. When that failed, they had tried to get people to inform on him. A few dead informants put a stop to that, he recalled, grunting a laugh.

We Never Give Up?

Never?

Oh yeah? You gave up on me, pal.

He laughed again because the drawing they had mocked up of his face looked pretty much like he used to before he grew his beard. Frost was only vaguely aware that laughing to himself out loud drew the attention of others heading to the infield. None, however, connected his bearded face to the beardless poster.

Suddenly the laughter turned sour on his tongue.

Another wanted poster blared from the rail—same as the first—“WANTED / Murder Suspect / HARRY FROST / REWARD / *** $5,000 *** / (Armed and Dangerous—Do Not Approach!!! ) / Wire or Telephone / VAN DORN DETECTIVE AGENCY / ‘We Never Give Up. Never’”—except this one had a picture that showed what they guessed he would look like if he had grown a beard.