“Ain’t it a little beaut?” he asked.

“I’m not licensed in this state,” I said, which was a lie. The nine mil was under my left arm. Thank you, Richard Bennett.

Steve swung toward Hagan. “How about you, Johnny?”

“No can do, buddy,” handsome Johnny said through a stiff smile. “I’m on parole.”

Sandy came over in a lightning flash of red and plucked the gun from Steve’s palm, startling him. “Cute,” she said. “Just what we need, going out to dinner, case the waitress is a bitch.” Efficiently she emptied the bullets into her hand. “What’s an insurance agent doing with a gun?”

“Protection,” Steve said defensively, “what do you think? I carry around considerable sums of money, you know.”

She closed her fingers around the cartridges and swayed back to her purse, a black leather clutch, and dumped the slugs into it. Then she sashayed back and returned the gun.

Under the five o’clock shadow, Steve’s cheeks were as red as Sandy’s dress. “You think I don’t have more slugs?” Proving his point, he dipped a hand into a sport coat pocket and showed off his own handful of bullets.

But they were .25 caliber. Whose gun did they belong to? A female partner, maybe? That blowsy dame he seemed to have ditched?

Steve left the .38 under a pillow and we set out for the Harbor Inn. I did not suggest using my car, tucked away in one of the garages below, because Steve—if he was M—might recognize the Caddy from the ransom drop last night; Letterman and I had not been sure we hadn’t been watched.

We went in Hagan’s taxi and I sat in front with him, keeping an eye on the couple in the backseat. Looking out opposite windows, they had less chemistry than oil and water. Steve was smoking again, and it soon became clear he was a chain-smoker. Hagan had a cigarette going, too, and so did Sandy, and a nicotine cloud formed inside the cab.

“Not a smoker, Nate?” Steve asked with his sphincter of a smile. He was fidgety back there. The woman might have been waxworks but for her occasional blink.

“I smoked overseas during the war,” I said. “Gave it up when I got home.”

I’d smoked in combat but dropped the habit when I was recuperating at St. Elizabeth’s. The only time I got the urge in peacetime was when I found myself in a combat-tense situation. That was rare. Even last night, on that wooden bridge, hadn’t qualified.

The Harbor Inn did not have so much as a small body of water to cozy up to, and the only “seafood” served was catfish; it was just a small roadside joint with table and booth seating, a horseshoe-shaped bar, and—for a touch of class—linen tablecloths and bentwood café chairs. For a Monday night, the place was hopping, jukebox blaring and couples dancing. Hagan ordered fried chicken and the rest of us went for the open-face steak sandwich—the menu was limited after nine. Sandy seemed annoyed or maybe frustrated with her sweaty john, who seemed to sense that, sensitive individual he so clearly was.