The young cop followed me inside, shut the door behind him, and gestured with a traffic-cop palm, as if I’d been charging toward him and not just facing him with folded arms.

His voice was high and reedy. “Now, you just stay put, buddy, till Lt. Shoulders tells you otherwise.”

“Name’s Heller. What’s yours, officer?”

He was already halfway out the door; his slim frame didn’t resemble Shoulders—his superior had a hulking physique. “Dolan. Patrolman Elmer Dolan.”

I gestured to the wall separating 50-A from 49-A. “That creep put a gun in the nightstand drawer. You’ll want to collect it.”

“Okay. Thanks, Mr. Heller.”

I stopped him with one last question before he closed the door on me: “You’re a rookie, aren’t you?”

“I am, yes, sir.”

“Well, keep your wits about you. That dope is on dope, boozed-up out of his gourd, and capable of just about any evil shit.”

He swallowed, nodded thanks and closed me in.

I looked at the phone by the bed and wondered if I should call Bob Greenlease. But all I had was Carl’s confession. And while I believed what that greasy-faced monster had told me, it was just the latest of several versions of the kidnap tale.

On the other hand, it had been chillingly credible, and the one thing I accepted as a certainty was that Bobby Greenlease was dead.

So I stared at the phone and it stared back at me. Was what I’d got out of Carl something appropriately shared long-distance with the father who’d been hoping against hope that $600,000 would bring his boy home alive and well?

A knock was followed by an announcement: “Lou Shoulders, Heller.”

I let the big baggy cop in. He had a raincoat on over his black suit, his tie black, too, and a shapeless gray fedora tugged on his skull indifferently—he had a circuit preacher look about him, right down to hard eyes in a soft face.

“He says his name is John Byrne,” Shoulders said, in his low, rumbly way. “Insurance agent from Elgin, Illinois. No driver’s license, though some other I.D. backs that up. But this is Steve Strand, aka Carl Something, right?”

“Oh yeah. His last name is Hall. Middle initial A, if his hatband is to be believed. From St. Joseph, Missouri, if he’s to be believed.”

“You smack him? He’s bleeding a bit.”

“Just once and not hard enough. And it was after he talked. I told him if he wanted the Chicago Outfit to wash his ransom money, he had to be straight with me about his role in the kidnapping. He copped to everything.”

I gave Shoulders a quick recap. I won’t lie to you: my voice caught a couple times.

The circuit preacher’s look turned mournful. “Yeah. I got kids, too. I wouldn’t mind shooting him trying to escape.”

He didn’t know how close I’d come to doing that without an excuse.

“So,” I said, “how can I help?”

“You can’t. You already done plenty, Heller—tied a red ribbon around this slimy cocksucker. We’ll take it from here.”