After a moment she held her head back so she could look into my eyes. “Donald,” she said, “I’m depending on you.” Then before I had a chance to say anything, she said, “Oh, Donald, you’re such a dear. It’s such a comfort to me, knowing that I have you to depend on.”

“Hadn’t we,” I suggested, “better get my mind on our work?”

“Oh, Donald, you will help me, won’t you?”

“What do you suppose I came back for?” I asked.

She was smoothing my hair back with the tips of her fingers. “I feel so much better already,” she said. “I feel that I can trust you, Donald. I’ve felt that way from the first. I’d do anything for you, Donald. There’s something about you that—”

“I want some money,” I said.

She stopped. “You want what?”

“Money.”

“What do you mean money?”

“Currency,” I said. “Lots of it.”

“Why Donald, I gave Mrs. Cool a retainer.”

“Unfortunately,” I said, “Mrs. Cool hasn’t joined any of the Share-the-Wealth movements— At any rate, not as we go to press.”

“But you’re working for her, aren’t you?”

“I thought you wanted me to work for you,” I said. “Perhaps I misunderstood you.”

“But, Donald, she’s working for me, and you’re working for her.”

“All right,” I said. “Have it your own way.”

She slowly pushed herself back so that the warmth of her body was no longer perceptible through my clothes. “Donald,” she said, “I don’t understand you.”

“All right,” I said. “I thought perhaps you would. It’s my mistake. I’ll go hunt up Bertha Cool.”

“How much money would you want?” she asked.

“Lots of it.”

“How much?”

“When you hear how much,” I said, “it’s going to knock the props out from under you.”

“But why do you want it?”

“For expenses.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to take the rap,” I said.

“Donald, tell me what you mean.”

I said, “Bertha Cool’s got funny ideas. She thinks she can use Bleatie as a red herring and blame this on him simply because Bleatie can’t be found. She might have done just that if it had been a simple bedroom killing. The way the cards stack up now, it can’t be done. A Kansas City police officer was killed. You know how cops feel about people who shoot police officers. They don’t like it.”

“What do you mean, you’re going to take the rap, Donald?” she asked, her eyes shrewd and calculating as she searched my face.

“I mean I’m going the whole hog,” I said. “I’m going to give you both an out. I’m going to say I shot him, but I’ve got to do it in my way.”

“But, Donald, they’ll hang you,” she said.

“They won’t hang me.”