“You didn’t drop in just in the hope that you’d be in time for the brawl, did you Brady?” Lowry asked peculiarly.

“No, but I don’t know why I’m telling you.”

They walked down the street together.

“You didn’t have to tell them to take that boy along,” Lowry said.

Brady looked at him. “Say, what is this anyway? He belonged with the rest, didn’t he, and besides what’s it to you?”

“He’s been having a tough time, for one thing.”

“Cry about it in your column.”

“For another, I have a feeling you wanted to take him in the first place, fight or no fight. Sometimes two men cross each other’s paths and you know right off the bat that one of them is going to bend over backwards to make the other one miserable. There’s no sense in it but it happens that way.”

Brady’s eyes narrowed slightly. His square, fleshy jaw jutted out a little further.

“Sometimes, maybe it’s a good thing it’s that way,” he said. “Some guys need to be made miserable.” He stopped abruptly and faced Lowry. “I got nothing against you, Lowry, but I’ve often asked why they let you run around loose all over headquarters. You’re not only too damn nosy, you’re a pest.”

“Thanks, Brady,” Lowry said.

“Don’t mention it.”

Brady walked away quickly and turned the corner. Lowry strolled slowly in the direction of the Gazette Building.

* * *

In Dumas on Wilshire Boulevard, sleekly groomed men and women ate their midnight suppers, drank costly liquors and listened to the orchestra’s smooth rendition of a South American tango. Half a dozen couples danced in the semi-darkness, the women with frozen smiles on their faces, the men intent upon the steps they were taking. One of the dancers, a fortyish, bullet-headed man, pulled his partner toward him at the same time that he took a long backward stride. The awkwardness with which he executed the step made the girl laugh. He quickly relapsed into a series of more modest maneuvers which, if they made the dance look less like the tango, at least offered some degree of security from disaster.

“I was never much of a tango dancer,” he said.

“You’re doing very nicely,” she said quickly, anxious to make him forget that she had laughed at his clumsiness.

He held her closer, pressing his fingers into her bare back. He looked into her eyes and smiled, displaying a mouthful of large teeth. She returned the smile, putting a softness into her calm brown eyes, then she lowered the long black lashes as if the intensity of his gaze were too much for her.

“You’re lovely, Terry,” he said.