What do you need, Heller? An engraved invitation?

I switched on the bedside lamp and got the phone book out of the nightstand drawer. Looked to see if Joe Costello’s home number was listed and it wasn’t. I called the FBI office and asked if Special Agent Hostetter was available and he was.

“Mr. Heller,” he said in his gruff, businesslike way, “don’t you ever sleep?”

“Not lately. I need a favor.”

“Always a pleasure to accommodate a taxpayer.”

“Can you give me Joe Costello’s unlisted number?”

“Any special reason?”

“I’m thinking of sending him flowers.”

A long pause. Then: “Stay on the line. I can get that for you.”

About a minute later, he kept his promise, and then I was dialing my buddy Joe at home. It rang a long time. I was hoping to rouse Costello himself, but the voice…“Yeah? Hello?”…was female and sleepy and properly irritated.

“Mrs. Costello?”

“Yes?” It sounded like she wasn’t sure.

“Sorry to call at this hour, but it’s important. Could I speak to your husband?” I had cooked up a reason for bothering Costello about being questioned at Police HQ on the cab-driving shooter. Which was basically true.

But she said, “He’s still at work,” and hung up.

The Tic Toc stayed open till three A.M., and it was just past that. When I called their Yellow Pages number, somebody was still there, cashing out or cleaning up. A male, probably the bartender, said, “I think he’s over at Ace Cab, workin’ on the books. He’s a night owl, Joe is.”

I got out of bed and into a Playboy-approved ensemble—sports shirt by Viyella, navy slacks by Corbin, and sports jacket by Cricketeer, one size up to allow for my holstered nine-millimeter semiautomatic pistol by Browning.

I felt good. As refreshed as if I’d just had eight hours of sleep and not twenty minutes of brooding. I snatched up Sandy’s pack of Chesterfields and the book of Coral Court matches on the coffee table. I only smoked in combat and certain civilian situations mirroring combat. So somebody was in trouble.

Maybe me.

I sucked smoke into my lungs and held it there and embraced it like an old friend I wasn’t afraid to hug just because we were both real men. I dropped the pack of smokes in my left-hand pocket, the matches, too. In my right-hand pocket I slipped a spare magazine of nine-millimeter cartridges.

Heading back into St. Louis on a morning that still thought it was night, I kept the Cadillac’s front windows down, letting the smoke out and the warm wind in. It rustled my hair like Stan the Man with a Little Leaguer visiting Musial and Biggie’s with his dad. Right now, the city was just a stray scattering of insomniac windows, neon signs and the dark husks of sleeping businesses; occasional headlights ahead and behind reminded me I wasn’t the last man on earth.

At this hour, empty taxis slept shoulder to shoulder in the smallish parking lot in front of the dingy white-brick vertical building with ACE CAB COMPANY on its picture window at right and two closed garage doors at left. As before, I parked across the way in front of the Swiss Chalet-style shopping arcade. My jacket was unbuttoned. When I reached the other side of the street, I tossed the butt sparking into darkness to sizzle in a gutter, then slipped the slumbering nine mil quietly from its cradle, ready to wake it up.