"The bruise is just the right size and shape," the doctor said. "And that cut on your head comes from the seams on the leather casing."
"You're sure?" Malone said doubtfully. It did seem as if a car had a lot more dangerous weapons around, without resorting to blackjacks. If it had really wanted to damage him, why hadn't it hit him with the engine block?
"I'm sure," the doctor said. "I've worked in Emergency in this hospital long enough to recognize a blackjack wound."
That was a disturbing idea, in a way. It gave a new color to Malone's reflection on Greenwich Villagers. Maybe things had changed since he'd heard about them. Maybe the blackjack had supplanted the guitar. But that wasn't the important thing.
The fact that it had been a blackjack that had hit him was important. It was vital, as a matter of fact. Malone knew that perfectly well. It was a key fact in the case he was investigating.
The only trouble was that he didn't see what, if anything, it meant.
The doctor stepped back and regarded Malone's head with something like pride. "There," he said. "You'll be all right now."
"When?" Malone said.
"You're not badly hurt," the doctor said reprovingly. "You've got a slight concussion, that's all."
"A concussion?"
"Sure," the doctor said. "But it isn't serious. Just take these pills—one every two hours until they're gone—and you'll be rid of any effects within twenty-four hours." He went to a cabinet, fiddled around for a minute and came back with a small bottle containing six orange pills. They looked very large and threatening.
"Fine," Malone said doubtfully.
"You'll be all right," the doctor said, giving Malone a cheerful, confident grin. "Nothing at all to worry about." He loaded a hypojet and blasted something through the skin of Malone's upper arm. Malone swallowed hard. He knew perfectly well that he hadn't felt a thing, but he couldn't quite make himself believe it.
"That'll take care of you for tonight," the doctor said. "Get some sleep and start in on the pills when you wake up, O.K.?"
"O.K.," Malone said. It was going to make waking up something less than a pleasure, but he wanted to get well, didn't he?
Of course he did. If that Cadillac thought it was going to beat him....
"You can stand up now," the doctor said.
"O.K.," Malone said, trying it. "Thanks, doctor. I—"
There was a knock at the door. The doctor jerked his head around.
"Who's that?" he said.
"Me," a bass voice said, unhelpfully.
The Emergency Room door opened a crack and a face peered in. It took Malone a second to recognize Bill, the waffle-faced cop who had picked him up next to the lamp post three years or so before. "Long time no see," Malone said at random.
"What?" Bill said, and opened the door wider. He came in and closed it behind him. "It's O.K., Doc," he said to the attendant. "I'm a cop."
"Been hurt?" the doctor said.
Bill shook his head. "Not recently," he said. "I came to see this guy." He looked at Malone. "They told me you were still here," he said.
"Who's they?" Malone said.
"Outside," Bill said. "The attendants out there. They said you were still getting stitched up."
"And quite right, too," Malone said solemnly.
"Oh," Bill said. "Sure." He fished in his pockets. "You dropped your notebook, though, and I came to give it back to you." He located the object he was hunting for and brought it out with the triumphant gesture of a man displaying the head of a dragon he has slain. "Here," he said, waving the book.
"Notebook?" Malone said. He stared at it. It was a small looseleaf book bound in cheap black plastic.
"We found it in the gutter," Bill said.
Malone took a tentative step forward and managed not to fall. He stepped back again and looked at Bill scornfully. "I wasn't even in the gutter," he said. "There are limits."
"Sure," Bill said. "But the notebook was, so I brought it along toyou. I thought you might need it or something." He handed it over to Malone with a flourish.
It wasn't Malone's notebook. In the first place, he had never owned a notebook that looked anything like that, and in the second place he hadn't had any notebooks on him when he went for his walk.Mine not to question why, Malone told himself with a shrug, and flipped the book open.
At once he knew why the cop had mistaken it for his.
There, right on the first page, was a carefully detailed drawing of a 1972 Cadillac. It had been painstakingly colored in with a red pencil.
Malone stared at it for a second, and then went on to page two. This page carried a list of names running down the left margin.
Ramon O.Mario G.Silvo E.Felipe A.Alvarez la B.Juan de los S.Ray del E.
Ramon O.
Mario G.
Silvo E.
Felipe A.
Alvarez la B.
Juan de los S.
Ray del E.
That made sense, of a kind. It was a list of names. Whose names they were, Malone didn't know; but at least he could see the list and understand it. What puzzled him were the decorations.
Following each name was a queer-looking squiggle. Each was slightly different, and each bore some resemblance to a stick-figure, a geometrical figure or just a childish scrawl. The whole parade reminded Malone of pictures he had seen of Egyptian hieroglyphics.
But the names didn't look Egyptian, and, anyhow, nobody used hieroglyphics any more—did they?
Malone found himself thinking:Now what does that mean?He looked across at the facing page.
It contained a set of figures, all marked off in dollars and cents and all added up neatly. One of the additions ended with the eye-popping sum of $52,710.09, and Malone found that the sum made him slightly nervous. This was high-powered figuring.
On to page three, he told himself. Drawings again, both on that page and on the one facing it. Malone recognized an outboard motor, a store-front, a suit of clothing hanging neatly on a hanger, a motor scooter, a shotgun and an IBM Electrotyper. Whoever had done the work was a reasonably accurate artist, if untrained; the various items were easily recognizable and Malone could see a great deal of detail.
That, of course, was fine. Only it made no more sense than the rest of the notebook.
Malone riffled through a few more pages, trying to make sense of the contents. One page seemed to be a shopping list, with nothing more revealing on it thanbread, bacon, eggs (½ doz.), peaches (frz.), cigs., & ltr., fluid.
There was another list, farther on. This one said:Hist. 2, Eng. 4, Math. 3, Span. 2. What for Elec.?
That cast the first glow of light. Whoever owned the notebook was a student. Or a teacher, Malonethought; then, looking back at the handwriting, he decided that the owner of the notebook had to be in high school, certainly no farther along.
He went on flipping pages. One of them said, in large black capitals:HE'S BLUFFING!
A note passed in class? There was not any way of making sure.
Malone thought about the hypothetical student for a minute. Then something in the riffling pages caught his eye.
There were two names on the page he'd stopped at.
The first was:Lt. Peter Lynch, NYPD.It was followed by two little squiggles.
The second was:Mr. Kenneth J. Malone, FBI.
There were no squiggles after his own name, and Malone felt oddly thankful for that, without knowing exactly why. But what did the names mean? And who had—
"Uh ... Mr. Malone—" Bill said tentatively. "Thatisyour notebook, isn't it?"
"Oh," Malone said. He looked up at the cop and put on his most ingratiating smile. "Sure," he said. "It's mine. Sure it is. Just checking to see if I'd lost any pages. Not good. Losing pages out of a notebook. Never. Have to check, you know. Procedure. Very secret."
"Sure," Bill said uncertainly.
Malone took a deep breath. "Thought I'd lost the notebook," he said. "I appreciate your returning it."
"Oh," Bill said, "that's O.K., Mr. Malone. Glad to do it."
"You don't know what this means to me," Malone said truthfully.
"No trouble at all," Bill said. "Any time." He gave Malone a big smile and turned back to the door. "But I got to get back to my beat," he said. "Listen, I'll see you. And if I can be any help—"
"Sure," Malone said. "I'll let you know. And thanks again."
"Welcome," Bill said, and opened the door. He strode out with the air of a man who has just been decorated with the Silver Star, the Purple Heart and the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Malone tried a few more steps and discovered that he could walk without falling down. He thanked the doctor again.
"Perfectly all right," the doctor said. "Nothing to it. Why, you ought to see some of the cases we get here. There was a guy here the other night with both his legs all mashed up by a—"
"I'll bet," Malone said hurriedly. "Well, I've got to be on my way. Just send the bill to FBI Headquarters on Sixty-ninth Street." He closed the door on the doctor's enthusiastic: "Yes,sir!" and went on down the hallway and out into the street. At Seventh Avenue and Greenwich Avenue he flagged a cab.
What a place to be, Malone thought as the cab drove away. Where but in Greenwich Village did avenues intersect each other without so much as a by-your-leave?
"Statler-Hilton Hotel," he said, giving the whole thing up as a bad job. He put his hat on his head and adjusted it painfully to the proper angle.
And that, he thought, made another little problem. The car had not only hit him on the head; it had removed his hat before doing so, and then replaced it. It had only fallen off when he'd started to get up against the lamp post.
A nice quiet vacation, Malone thought bitterly.
He fumed in silence all the way to the hotel, through the lobby, up in the elevator and to the door of his room. Then he remembered the notebook.
That was important evidence. He decided to tell Boyd about it right away.
He went into the bathroom and tapped gently on the door to Boyd's connecting room. The door swung open.
Boyd, apparently, was still out painting the town—Malone considered the wordredand dropped the whole phrase with a sigh. At any rate, his partner was nowhere in the room. He went back into his own room, closed the door and got wearily ready for bed.
Dawn came, and then daylight, and then a lot more daylight. It was streaming in through the windows with careless abandon, filling the room with a lot of bright sunshine and the muggy heat of the city. From the street below, the cheerful noises of traffic and pedestrians floated up and filled Malone's ears.
He turned over in bed, and tried to go back to sleep.
But sleep wouldn't come. After a long time he gave up, and swung himself over the edge of the bed. Standing up was a delicate job, but he managed it, feeling rather proud of himself in a dim, semiconscious sort of way.
He went into the bathroom, brushed his teeth, and then opened the connecting door to Boyd's room softly.
Boyd was home. He lay in a great tangle of bedclothes, snoring hideously and making little motions with his hands and arms like a beached whale. Malone padded over to him and dug him fiercely in the ribs.
"Come on," he said. "Wake up, Tommy-boy."
Boyd's eyes did not open. In a voice as hollow as a zombie's, he said: "My head. Hurts."
"Can't feel any worse than mine," Malone said cheerily. This, he reflected, was not quite true. Considering everything it had been through recently, his head felt remarkably like its old, carefree self. "You'll feel better once you're awake."
"No, I won't," Boyd said simply. He jammed his head under a pillow and began to snore again. It was an awesome sound, like a man strangling to death in chicken-fat. Malone sighed and poked at random among the bedclothes.
Boyd swore distantly, and Malone poked him again.
"The sun is up," Malone said, "and all the little pedestrians are chirping. It is time to rise."
Boyd said: "Gah," and withdrew his head from the pillow. Gently, as if he were afraid he were going to fall apart, he rose to a sitting position. When he had arrived at it, he opened his eyes.
"Now," Malone said, "isn't that better?"
Boyd closed his eyes again. "No," he said.
"Come on," Malone said. "We've got to be up and moving."
"I'm up," Boyd said. His eyes flickered open. "But I can't move," he added. "We had quite a time last night."
"We?" Malone said.
"Me, and a couple of girls, and another guy. Just people I met." Boyd started to stand up and thought better of it. "Just having a good time, that's all."
Malone thought of reading his partner a lecture on the Evils of Drink, and decided against it. Boyd might remember it, and use it against him some time. Then he realized what had to be done. He went back into his own room, dialed for room service, and ordered a couple of pots of strong black coffee.
By the time a good deal of that was awash in Boyd's intestinal system, he was almost capable of rational, connected conversation. He filled himself to the eyebrows with aspirins and other remedies, and actually succeeded in getting dressed. He seemed quite proud of this feat.
"O.K.," Malone said. "Now we have to go downstairs."
"You mean outside?" Boyd said. "Into all that noise?" He winced.
"Bite the bullet," Malone said cheerfully. "Keep a stiff upper lip."
"Nonsense," Boyd said, hunting for his coat with a doleful air. "Have you ever seen anybody with a loose upper lip?"
Malone, busy with his own coat, didn't bother with a reply. He managed somehow to get Boyd downstairs and bundled into a cab. They headed for Sixty-ninth Street.
There, he made several phone calls. The first, of course, was to Burris in Washington. After that he got the New York Police Commissioner on the wire and, finding that he needed still more authority, he called the Mayor and then, by long-distance to Albany, the Governor.
But by noon he had everything straightened out. He had a plan fully worked out in his mind, and he had the authority to go ahead with it. Now, he could make his final call.
"They're completely trustworthy," Burris had told him. "Not only that, but they have a clearance for this kind of special work—we've needed them before."
"Good," Malone said.
"Not only that," Burris told him. "They're good men. Maybe among the best in their field."
So Malone made his last call, to the firm of Leibowitz & Hardin, Electronic Engineers.
Then he beckoned to Boyd.
"I don't see what I've been sitting around here for, all this time," his partner complained. "I could have been home sleeping until you needed me. And—"
"I need you now," Malone said. "I want you to take over part of this plan."
Boyd nodded sourly. "Oh, all right," he said.
"Here's what I want," Malone said. "Every red 1972 Cadillac in the area is to be picked up for inspection. I don't care why—make up a reason. A general traffic check. Anything you please. You can work that end of it out with the Commissioner; he knows about it and he's willing to go along."
"Great," Boyd said. "Do you have any idea how many cars there are in a city this size?"
"Well, we don't want all of them," Malone said. "Only red 1972 Cadillacs."
"It's still a lot," Boyd said.
"If there were only three," Malone said, "we wouldn't have any problems."
"And wouldn't that be nice?" Boyd said.
"Sure," Malone said, "but it isn't true. Anyhow: I want every one of those cars checked for any oddity, no matter how small. If there's an inch-long scratch on one fender, I want to know about it. If you've got to take the cars apart, then do that."
"Me?" Boyd said. "All by myself?"
"No," Malone said. "Use your head. There'll be a team working with you. Let me explain it. Every nut, every bolt, every inch of those cars has to be examined thoroughly—got it?"
"I've got it," Boyd said, "but I don't like it. After all, Malone—"
Malone ignored him. "The Governor of New York promised his co-operation," he said, "and he said he'd get in touch with the Governors of New Jersey and Connecticut and get co-operation from that angle. So we'll have state and local police working with us."
"That's a help," Boyd said. "We'll make such a happy team of workmen. Singing as we pull the cars apart through the long day and night and ... listen, Malone, when do you want reports on this?"
"Yesterday," Malone said.
Boyd's eyebrows raised, then lowered. "Great," he said dully.
"I don't care how you get the cars," Malone said. "If you've got to, condemn 'em. But get every last one of them. And bring them over to Leibowitz & Hardin for a complete checkup. I'll give you the address."
"Thanks," Boyd said.
"Not at all," Malone said. "Glad to be of help. And don't worry; I'll have other work to do." He paused, and then went on: "I talked to Dr. Isaac Leibowitz, he's the head of the firm out there—and he says...."
"Wait a minute," Boyd said.
"What?"
"You mean I don't have to take the cars apart myself? You mean this Leibowitz & Hardin, or whatever it is, will do it for me?"
"Of course," Malone said wearily."You re not an auto technician or an electronics man. You're an agent of the FBI."
"I was beginning to wonder," Boyd said. "After all."
"Anyhow," Malone said doggedly, "I talked to Leibowitz, and he says he can give a car a complete check in about six hours, normally."
"Six hours?" Boyd stared. "That's going to take forever," he said.
"Well, he can set up a kind of assembly-line process and turn out a car every fifteen minutes. Any better?"
Boyd nodded.
"Good," Malone said. "There can't be so many 1972 red Cadillacs in the area that we can't get through them all at that speed." He thought a minute and then added: "By the way, you might check with the Cadillac dealers around town, and find out just how many there are, sold to people living in the area."
"And while I'm doing all that," Boyd said, "what are you going to be doing?"
Malone looked at him and sighed. "I'll worry about that," he said. "Just get started."
"Suppose Leibowitz can't find anything?" Boyd said.
"If Leibowitz can't find it, it's not there," Malone said. "He can find electronic devices anywhere in any car made, he says—even if they're printed circuits hidden under the paint job."
"Pretty good," Boyd said. "But suppose he doesn't?"
"Then they aren't there," Malone said, "and we'll have to think of something else." He considered that. It sounded fine. Only he wished he knew what else there was to think of.
Well, that was just pessimism. Leibowitz would find something, and the case would be over, and he could go back to Washington and rest. In August he was going to have his vacation, anyway, and August wasn't very far away.
Malone put a smile carefully on his face and told Boyd: "Get going." He slammed his hat on his head.
Wincing, he took it off and replaced it gently. The bottle of pills was still in his pocket, but he wasn't due for another one just yet.
He had time to go over to the precinct station in the West Eighties first.
He headed outside to get another taxi.
The door didn't say anything at all except "Lt. P. Lynch." Malone looked at it for a couple of seconds. He'd asked the Desk Sergeant for Lynch, shown his credentials and been directed up a set of stairs and around a hall. But he still didn't know what Lynch did, who he was, or what his name was doing in the little black notebook.
Well, he told himself, there was only one way to find out.
He opened the door.
The room was small and dark. It had a single desk in it, and three chairs, and a hatrack. There wasn't any coat or hat on the hatrack, and there was nobody in the chairs. In a fourth chair, behind the desk, a huskily-built man sat. He had steel-gray hair, a hard jaw and, Malone noticed with surprise, a faint twinkle in his eye.
"Lieutenant Lynch?" Malone said.
"Right," Lynch said. "What's the trouble?"
"I'm Kenneth J. Malone," Malone said. "FBI." He reached for his wallet and found it. He flipped it open for Lynch, who stared at it for what seemed a long, long time and then burst into laughter.
"What's so funny?" Malone asked.
Lynch laughed some more.
"Oh, come on," Malone said bitterly. "After all, there's no reason to treat an FBI agent like some kind of a—"
"FBI agent?" Lynch said. "Listen, buster, this is the funniest gag I've seen since I came on the Force. Who told you to pull it? Jablonski downstairs? Or one of the boys on the beat? I know those beat patrolmen, always on the lookout for a new joke. But this tops 'em all. This is the—"
"You're a disgrace to the Irish," Malone said tartly.
"A what?" Lynch said. "I'm not Irish."
"You talk like an Irishman," Malone said.
"I know it," Lynch said, and shrugged. "Around some precincts, you sort of pick it up. When all the other cops are ... hey, listen. How'd we get to talking about me?"
"I said you were a disgrace to the Irish," Malone said.
"I was a—what?"
"Disgrace." Malone looked carefully at Lynch. In a fight, he considered, he might get in a lucky punch that would kill Malone. Otherwise, Malone didn't have a thing to worry about except a few months of hospitalization.
Lynch looked as if he were about to get mad, and then he looked down at Malone's wallet again and started to laugh.
"What's so funny?" Malone demanded.
He grabbed the wallet and turned it toward him. At once, of course, he realized what had happened. He had not flipped it open to his badge at all. He'd flipped it open, instead, to a card in the card-case:
KNOW ALL MEN BY THESEPRESENTS THAT Sir KennethMalone, Knight, is hereby formallyinstalled with the title ofKNIGHT OF THE BATHand this card shall signify his rightto that title and his high and respectedposition as officer in and ofTHE QUEENS OWN F.B.I.
KNOW ALL MEN BY THESEPRESENTS THAT Sir KennethMalone, Knight, is hereby formallyinstalled with the title ofKNIGHT OF THE BATHand this card shall signify his rightto that title and his high and respectedposition as officer in and ofTHE QUEENS OWN F.B.I.
In a very small voice, Malone said: "There's been a terrible mistake."
"Mistake?" Lynch said.
Malone flipped the wallet open to his FBI shield. Lynch gave it a good long examination, peering at it from every angle and holding it up to the light two or three times. He even wet his thumb and rubbed at the badge with it. At last he looked up.
"I guess you are the FBI," he said. "But what was with the gag?"
"It wasn't a gag," Malone said. "It's just—" He thought of the little old lady in Yucca Flats, the little old lady who had been the prime mover in the last case he and Boyd had worked on together. Without the little old lady, the case might never have been solved—she was an authentic telepath, about the best that had ever been found.
But with her, Boyd and Malone had had enough troubles. Besides being a telepath, she was quite thoroughly insane. She had one fixed delusion: she believed she was Queen Elizabeth I.
She was still at Yucca Flats, along with the other telepaths Malone's investigation had turned up. And she still believed, quite calmly, that she was Good Queen Bess. Malone had been knighted by her during the course of the investigation. This new honor had come to him through the mail; apparently she had decided to ennoble some of her friends still further.
Malone made a note mentally to ask Boyd if he'd received one. After all, there couldn't be too many Knights of the Bath. There was no sense in lettingeverybodyin.
Then he realized that he was beginning to believe everything again. There had been times, when he'd been working with the little old lady, when he had been firmly convinced that he was, in fact, the swaggering, ruthless swordsman, Sir Kenneth Malone. And even now....
"Well?" Lynch said.
"It's too long a story," Malone said. "And besides, it's not what I came here about."
Lynch shrugged again. "O.K.," he said. "Tell it your way."
"First," Malone said, "what's your job?"
"Me? Precinct Lieutenant."
"Of this precinct?"
Lynch stared. "What else?" he said.
"Who knows?" Malone said. He found the black notebook and passed it across to Lynch. "I'm on this red Cadillac business, you know," he said by way of introduction.
"I've been hearing about it," Lynch said. He picked up the notebook without opening it and held it like a ticking bomb. "And I mean hearing about it," he said. "We haven't had any trouble at all in this precinct."
"I know," Malone said. "I've read the reports."
"Listen, not a single red Cadillac has been stolen from here, or been reported found here. We run a tight precinct here, and let me tell you—"
"I'm sure you do a fine job," Malone said hastily. "But I want you to look at the notebook." He opened it to the page with Lynch's name on it.
Lynch opened his mouth, closed it and then took the notebook. He stared at the page for a few seconds. "What's this?" he said at last. "Another gag?"
"No gag, lieutenant," Malone said.
"It's your name and mine," Lynch said. "What is that supposed to mean?"
Malone shrugged. "Search me," he said. "The notebook was found only a couple of feet away from another car theft, last night." That was the simplest way he could think of to put it. "So I asked the Commissioner who Peter Lynch was, and he told me it was you."
"And it is," Lynch said, staring atthe notebook. He seemed to be expecting it to rise and strike him.
Malone said: "Have you got any idea who'd be writing about you and me?"
Lynch shook his head. "If I had any ideas I'd feel a lot better," he said. He wet his finger and turned the notebook pages carefully. When he saw the list of names on the second page he stopped again, and stared. This time he whistled under his breath.
Very cautiously, Malone said: "Something?"
"I'll be damned," Lynch said feelingly.
"What's wrong?" Malone said.
The police lieutenant looked up. "I don't know if it's wrong or what," he said. "It gives me sort of the willies. I know every one of these kids."
Malone took out a pill and swallowed it in a hurry. He felt exactly as if he had been given another concussion, absolutely free and without any obligation. His mouth opened but nothing came out for a long time. At last he managed to say: "Kids?"
"That's right," Lynch said. "What did you think?"
Malone shrugged helplessly.
"Every single one of them," Lynch said. "Right from around here."
There was a little silence.
"Who are they?" Malone said carefully.
"They're some kind of kid gang, social club, something like that," Lynch said. "They call themselves the Silent Spooks."
"The what?" It seemed to Malone that the name was just a little fancy, even for a kid gang.
"The Silent Spooks," Lynch said. "I can't help it. But here they are: Ramon Otravez, Mario Grito, Silvo Envoz, Felipe Altapor, Alvarez la Barba, Juan de los Santos and Ray del Este. Right down the line." He looked up from the notebook with a blank expression on his face. "There's only one name missing, as a matter of fact. Funny it isn't there."
Malone tried to look as if he knew what was going on. "Oh?" he said.
"Yeah," Lynch said. "The Fueyo kid—Miguel Fueyo. Everybody calls him Mike."
While interesting, this did not provide much food for thought. "Why should his name be on it especially?" Malone said.
"Because he's the leader of the gang," Lynch said. "The boss. The big shot." He pointed to the list of names. "Except for him, that's all of them—the Silent Spooks."
Malone considered the missing Mike Fueyo.
He knew perfectly well, now, why Fueyo's name was not in the book.
Who puts his own name on a list?
The notebook was Fueyo's. It had to be.
Lynch was looking at him expectantly. Malone thought of a question and asked it. "They know you?" he said.
"Sure they do," Lynch said. "They all know me. But do they know you?"
Malone thought. "They could haveheard of me," he said at last, trying to be as modest as possible.
"I guess," Lynch said grudgingly.
"How old are they?" Malone said.
"Fourteen to seventeen," Lynch said. "Somewhere in there. You know how these kid things run."
"The Silent Spooks," Malone said meditatively. It was a nice name, in a way; you just had to get used to it for a while. When he had been a kid, he'd belonged to a group that called itself the East Division Street Kids. There just wasn't much romance in a name like that. Now, the Silent Spooks—
With a wrench, he brought his mind back to the subject at hand. "Do they get into much trouble?" he said.
"Well, no," Lynch said reluctantly. "As a matter of fact, they don't. For a bunch like that, around here, they're pretty well-behaved, as far as that goes."
"What do you mean?" Malone said.
Lynch's face took on a delicately unconcerned appearance. "I don't know," he said. "They just don't get into neighborhood trouble. Maybe a scrap now and then—nothing big, though. Or maybe one of them cuts a class at school or argues with his teacher. But there's nothing unusual, and little of anything." He frowned.
Malone said: "Something's got to be wrong. What is it?"
"Well," Lynch said, "they do seem to have a lot of money to spend."
Malone sat down in a chair across the desk, and leaned eagerly toward Lynch. "Money?" he said.
"Money," Lynch said. "New clothes. Cigarettes. Malone, three of them are even supporting their parents. Old Jose Otravez—Ramon's old man—quit his job a couple of months ago, and hasn't worked since. Spends all his time in bars, and never runs out of dough—and don't tell me you can do that on Unemployment Insurance. Or Social Security payments."
"O.K.," Malone said. "I won't tell you."
"And there's others. All the others, in fact. Mike Fueyo's sister—dresses fit to kill, like a high-fashion model. And the Grito kid—"
"Wait a minute," Malone said. "From what you tell me, this isn't just a little extra money. These kids must be rolling in the stuff. Up to their ears in dough."
"Listen," Lynch said sadly. "Those kids spend more than I do. They do better than that—they spend more than Iearn." He looked remotely sorry for himself, but not for long. "Every one of those kids spends like a drunken sailor, tossing his money away on all sorts of things."
"Like an expense account," Malone said idly. Lynch looked up. "Sorry," Malone said. "I was thinking about something else."
"I'll bet you were," Lynch said with unconcealed envy.
"No," Malone said. "Really. Listen, I'll check with Internal Revenue on that money. But have you got a list of the kids' addresses?"
"I can get one," Lynch said, and went to the door.
It closed behind him. Malone sat waiting alone for a few minutes, and then Lynch came back. "List'll be here in a minute," he said. He sat down behind his desk and reached for the notebook again. When he turned to the third page his expression changed to one of surprise.
"Be damned," said. "There does seem to be a connection, doesn't there?" He held up the picture of the red Cadillac for Malone to see.
"Sure does," Malone said. "That's why I want those addresses. If there is a connection, I sure want to find out about it."
Ten minutes later, Malone was walking out of the precinct station with the list of addresses in his pocket. He was heading for his Great Adventure, but he didn't know it. All he was thinking about was the red Cadillacs, and the eight teen-agers. "I'm going to get to the bottom of this if it takes me all summer," he said, muttering to himself.
"That's the spirit," he told himself. "Never say die."
Then, realizing he had just said it, he frowned. Perhaps it hadn't really counted. But, then again....
He was on his way down the steps when he hit the girl.
The mutual collision was not catastrophic. On the other hand, it was not exactly minor. It fell somewhere between the two, as an unclassifiable phenomenon of undoubted potency. Malone said: "Oog," with some fervor as the girl collided with his chest and rebounded like a handball striking a wall. Something was happening to her, but Malone had no time to spare to notice just what. He was falling through space, touching a concrete step once in a while, but not long enough to make any real acquaintance with it. It seemed to take him a long time to touch bottom, and when he had, he wondered iftouchwas quite the word.
Bottomcertainly was. He had fallen backward and landed directly on hisglutei maximi, obeying the law regarding equal and opposite reaction and several other laws involving falling bodies.
His first thought was that he was now neatly balanced. His tail had received the same treatment as his head. He wondered if a person could get concussion of the tail bones, and had reached no definite conclusion when, unexpectedly, his eyes focused again.
He was looking at a girl. That was all he saw at first. She had apparently fallen just as he had, bounced once and sat down rather hard. She was now lying flat on her back, making a sound like "rrr" between her teeth.
Malone discovered that he was sitting undignifiedly on the steps. He opened his mouth to say something objectionable, took another look at the girl, and shut it with a snap. This was no ordinary girl.
He smiled at her. She shook her head and sat up, still going "rrr." Then she stopped and said, instead: "What do you think—"
"I'm sorry," Malone said in whathe hoped was a charming, debonair and apologetic voice. It was quite a lot to get into one voice, but he tried his very hardest. "I just didn't see—"
"You didn't?" the girl said. "If you didn't, you must be completely blind."
Malone noticed with hope that there was no anger in her voice. The last thing in the world he wanted was to get this girl angry at him.
"Oh, no," Malone said. "I'm not blind. Not blind at all." He smiled at her and stood up. His face was beginning to get a little tired, but he retained the smile as he went over to her, extended a hand and pulled her to her feet.
She was something special. Her hair was long and dark, and fell in soft waves to her shoulders. The shoulders were something all by themselves, but Malone postponed consideration of them for a minute to take a look at her face.
It was heart-shaped and rather thin. She had large brown liquid eyes that could look, Malone imagined, appealing, loving, worshiping—or, like a minute ago, downright furious. Below these features, she had a straight lovely nose and a pair of lips which Malone immediately classified as Kissable.
Her figure, including the shoulders, was on the slim side, but she wasvery definitely all there. Malone could not think of any parts the Creator had left out, and if there were any he didn't want to hear about them. In an instant, Malone knew that he had met the only great love of his life.
Again.
His mind was whirling and for a second he didn't know what to do. And then he remembered the Queen's Own FBI. Phrases flowered forth in his mind as if it were a garden packed corner to corner with the most exquisite varieties of blooming idiots.
"My deepest apologies, my dear," Sir Kenneth Malone said gallantly, even managing a small display bow for the occasion. "May I be of any assistance?"
The girl smiled up at him as she came to her feet. The smile was radiant and beautiful and almost loving. Malone felt as if he couldn't stand it. Tingles of the most wonderful kind ran through him, reached his toes and then ran back the other way, meeting a whole new set going forward.
"You're very nice," the girl said, and the tingles became positive waves of sensation. "Actually, it was all my fault. Please don't apologize, Mr.—" She paused, expectantly.
"Me?" Malone said, his gallantry deserting him for the second. But it returned full force before he expected it. "I'm Malone," he said. "Kenneth Joseph Malone." He had always liked the middle name he had inherited from his father, but he never had much opportunity to use it. He made the most of it now, rolling it out with all sorts of subsidiary flourishes. As a matter of fact, he barely restrained himself from putting a "Sir" before his name.
The girl's brown eyes widened just a trifle. Malone felt as if he could have fallen into them and drowned. "Oh, my," she said. "You must be a detective." And then, like the merest afterthought: "My name's Dorothy."
Dorothy.It was a beautiful name. It made Malone feel all choked up, inside. He blinked at the girl and tried to look manly and wonderful. It was an effort, but he nearly carried it off.
After a second or two he realized that she had asked him a question. He didn't want to disillusion her in any way, and, after all, an FBI agent was a kind of detective, but he thought it was only fair that she should know the whole truth about him right from the start.
"Not exactly a detective," he said.
"Not exactly?" she said, looking puzzled. She looked positively glorious when puzzled, Malone decided at once.
"That is," he said carefully, "I do detect, but not for the city of New York."
"Oh," she said. "A private eye. Is that right?"
"Well," Malone said, "no."
She looked even more puzzled. Malone hastened to explain before he got to the point where conversation was impossible.
"Federal Bureau of Investigation,"he said. After a second he thought of a clarification and added: "FBI."
"Oh," the girl said. "Oh."
"But you can call me Ken," Malone said.
"All right—Ken," she said. "And you call me Dorothy."
"Sure," he said. He tried it out. "Dorothy." It felt swell.
"Well—" she said after a second.
"Oh," Malone said. "Were you looking for a detective? Because if I can help in any way—"
"Not exactly," Dorothy said. "Just a little routine business. I'll go on in and—"
Malone suddenly found himself talking without having any idea why he'd started, or what he was going to say. At first he said: "Urr," as if the machine were warming up, and this stopped Dorothy and caused her to give him a rather sharp, baffled stare. Then he found some words and used them hurriedly, before they got away.
"Dorothy," he said, "would you like to take in a show this evening? I think I can get tickets to ... well, I guess I could get tickets to almost anything, if I really tried." His expression attempted to leave no doubt that he would really try.
Dorothy appeared to consider for a moment. "Well," she said at last, "how about 'The Hot Seat'?"
Malone felt just the way he had several years before when he had bluffed his way into a gigantic pot during a Washington poker game, with only a pair of fours to work with. At the last moment, his bluff had been called.
It had, he realized, been called again. "The Hot Seat" had set some sort of record, not only for Broadway longevity, but for audience frenzy. Getting tickets for it was about the same kind of proposition as buying grass on the Moon, and getting them with absolutely no prior notice would require all the wire-pulling Malone could manage. He thought about "The Hot Seat" and wished Dorothy had picked something easy, like arranging for her to meet the Senate.
But he swallowed bravely. "I'll do my best," he said. "Got any second choice?"
"Sure," she said, and laughed. "Pick any one you want. I haven't seen them all, and the ones I have seen are worth seeing again."
"Oh," Malone said.
"I really didn't expect you to get tickets for 'The Hot Seat,'" she said.
"Nothing," Malone said, "is impossible." He grinned at her. "Meanwhile, where can I pick you up? Your home?"
Dorothy frowned and shook her head. "No," she said. "You see, I'm living with an aunt, and I ... well, never mind." She thought for a minute. "I know," she said. "Topp's."
"What?" Malone said.
"Topp's," Dorothy said. "On Forty-second Street, just East of Broadway? It's a restaurant."
"I don't exactly know where it is," Malone said, "but if it's there, I'll find it." He looked gallant and determined. "We can get something to eat there before the show—whatever the show turns out to be."
"Fine," Dorothy said.
"How about making it at six?" Malone said.
She nodded. "Six it is," she said. "Now bye-bye." She touched her forefinger to her lips, and brushed Malone's cheek with the kissed finger.
By the time the new set of tingles had begun to evaporate, she had gone into the police station. Malone heaved a great sigh of passion, and held down a strong impulse to follow her and protect her. He wasn't quite sure what he was going to protect her from, but he felt certain that that would come to him when the time arrived.
Nevertheless, he had work to do, unpleasant as the idea had suddenly begun to seem. He pulled the list of addresses out of his pocket and looked at the first one.
Mike Fueyo.
Mike was the leader of the Silent Spooks, according to Lieutenant Lynch. Logically, therefore, he would be the first one to talk to. Malone tried to think of some good questions, but the best one he could come up with was: "Well, what about all those red Cadillacs?"
Somehow he doubted that this would provide a satisfactory reply. He checked the address again and started firmly down the street, trying to think of some better questions along the way.
The building was just off Amsterdam, in the Eighties. It had been a shining new development once, but it was beginning to slide downhill now. The metal on the windowframes was beginning to look worn, and the brickwork hadn't been cleaned in a long time. Where chain fences had once protected lonely blades of grass, children, mothers and baby carriages held sway now, and the grass was gone. Instead, the building was pretty well surrounded by a moat of sick-looking brown dirt.
Malone went into the first building and checked the name against the mailboxes there, trying to ignore the combined smells of sour milk, red pepper and here and there a whiff of unwashed humanity.
It was on the tenth floor:Fueyo, J.That, he supposed, would be Mike's widowed mother; Lynch had told him that much about the boy and his family. He found the elevator, which was covered with scribbles ranging from JANEY LOVES MIGUEL to startling obscenities, and rode it upstairs.
Apartment 1004 looked like every other apartment in the building, at least from the outside. Malone pressed the button and waited a second to hear the faint buzzing at the other side of the door. After a minute, he pressed it again.
The door swung open very suddenly and Malone stepped back.
A short, wrinkled, dark-eyed woman in a print housedress was eying him with deep suspicion. "My daughter is not home," she announced at once.
"I'm not looking for your daughter," Malone said. "I'd like to talk to Mike."
"Mike?" Her expression grew even more suspicious. "You want to talk to Mike?"
"That's right," Malone said.
"Ah," the woman said. "You one of those hoodlum friends he has. I'm right? You can talk to Mike when I am dead and have no control over him. For now, you can just—"
"Wait a minute," Malone said. He pulled out his wallet and flipped it open to show his badge, being very careful that he made the right flip this time. He didn't know exactly how this woman would react to The Queen's Own FBI, but he didn't especially want to find out.
She looked down at the badge without taking the wallet from him. "Hah," she said. "You're cop, eh?" Her eyes left the wallet and examined Malone from head to foot. It was perfectly plain that they didn't like what they saw. "Cop," she said again, as if to herself. It sounded like a curse.
Malone said: "Well, I—"
"You want to ask me stupid questions," she said. "That is what you want to do. I'm right?"
"I only—"
"I know nothing," she said. "Nothing of any kind." She closed her mouth and stood regarding him as if he were a particularly repulsive statue. Malone looked past her into the living room beyond the door.
It was faded, now, but it had once been bright and colorful. There was an old rug on the floor, and tables were everywhere. The one bright thing about the room was the assortment of flowers; there were flowers everywhere, in vases, in pots and even in windowboxes. There was also a lot of crockery statuary, mostly faded, chipped or worn in some way. The room looked to Malone as if its last inhabitant had died ten years before; only the flowers had been renewed. Everything else had not only the appearance of age, but the look of having been cast up as a high-water mark by the sea, which had receded and left only the tangled wreckage.
The woman cleared her throat and Malone's gaze came back to her. "I can tell you nothing," she said.
"I don't want to talk to you," Malone said again. "I want to talk to Mike."
Her eyes were very cold. "You from the police, and you want to talk to Mike. You make a joke. Only I don't think the joke is very funny."
"Joke?" Malone said. "You mean Mike's not here?"
Her gaze never wavered. "You know he is not," she said. "Ten minutes ago the policemen were taking him away to the police station. How then could he be here?"
"Ten minutes ago?" Malone blinked. Ten minutes ago he had been looking for this apartment. Probably it hadn't taken Lynch's men ten minutes to find it; they weren't strangers in New York. "He was arrested?" Malone said.
"I said so, didn't I?" the woman said. "You must be crazy or else something." Her eyes were still coldpoints, but Malone saw a glow of tears behind them. Mike was her son. She did not seem surprised that the police had taken him away, but she was determined to protect him.
Malone's voice was very gentle. "Why did they arrest him?" he said.
The woman shrugged, a single sharp gesture. "You ask me this?"
"I'm not a cop," Malone said. "I'm from the FBI."
"FBI?" the woman said.
"It's all right," Malone said, with all the assurance he could muster. "I only want to talk to him."
"Ah," the woman said. Tears were plain in her eyes now, glittering on the surface. "Why they take him away, I do not know. My Mike do nothing. Nothing."
"But didn't they say anything about—"
"They say?" the woman cried. "They say only they have orders from this Lieutenant Lynch. He is lieutenant at police station."
"I know," Malone said gently.
"Lieutenant Lynch wants to ask Mike questions, so police come, take him away." Her English was beginning to lose ground as tears came.
"Lynch asked for him?" Malone said. He frowned. Whatever that meant, he wanted to be there himself. And perhaps he could help the old woman in some way. Anyhow, he would try. She stared up at him Stonily. "Look, Mrs. Fueyo," he said. "I'm going down there to talk to Mike right now. And if he hasn't done anything, I'll see that he goes home to you. Right away."
Her expression changed a trifle. She did not actually soften, but Malone could feel the gratitude lurking behind her eyes as if it were afraid to come out. She nodded gravely and said nothing at all. He stepped away, and she closed the door without a sound.
He stood staring at the door for a few seconds. Then he turned and punched the elevator button savagely.
There wasn't any time to lose.
He walked back to the precinct station. Knowing the way, it took him about five minutes instead of the fifteen it had taken him to find the Fueyo residence. But he still felt as if time were passing much too fast. He ran up the steps and passed right by the desk sergeant, who apparently recognized him, and said nothing as Malone charged up the stairs to Lynch's office.
It was empty.
Malone stared at it and started down the hall again without knowing where he was heading. Halfway to the stairs he met a patrolman. "Where's Lynch?" he asked.
"The lieutenant?"
Malone fumed. "Who else?" he said. "Where is he?"
"Got some kid back in the tank, or somewhere," the patrolman said. "Asking him a couple of questions, that's all." He added: "Hey, listen, buddy, why do you want to see the lieutenant? You can't just go charging in to—"
Malone was down the stairs before he'd finished. He went up to the desk.
The desk sergeant looked down. "What's it this time?" he said.
"I'm in a hurry," Malone said. "Where are the cells? I want to see Lieutenant Lynch."
The desk sergeant nodded. "O.K.," he said. "But the lieutenant ain't in any of the cells. He's back in Interrogation with some kid."
"Take me there," Malone said.
"I'll show you," the sergeant said. "On duty. Can't leave the desk." He cleared his throat and gave Malone a set of directions.
There was a door at the end of a corridor at the back of the station. It was a plain wooden door with the numeral1stenciled on it. Malone opened it and looked inside.
He was staring into a rather small, rather plain little room. There were absolutely no bright beam lights burning, and there didn't seem to be any rubber hoses around anywhere. There were only four chairs.
Seated in three of the chairs were Lieutenant Lynch and two other police officers. In the fourth chair, facing them, was a young boy.
He didn't look like a tough kid. He had wavy black hair, brown eyes and what Malone thought looked like a generally friendly appearance. He was slight and wiry, not over five feet five or six. And he wore an expression that was neither too eager nor hostile. It wasn't just blank, either; Malone finally pinned it down as Receptive.
He had the strangest impression that he had seen the boy somewhere before. But he couldn't remember when or where.
Lieutenant Lynch was talking.
"... All we want, Mike, is a little information. We thought you'd be able to help us, if you wanted to. Now, how about it?"
"Sure," Mike Fueyo said. His voice was a little high, but it was well controlled and responsive. "Sure, lieutenant. I'll help if I can—but I just don't dig what you're giving me. It doesn't make sense."
Lynch stirred a little impatiently, and his voice began to carry a new bite. "I'm talking about Cadillacs," he said. "1972 Red Cadillacs."
"It's a nice car," Mike said.
"What do you know about them?" Lynch said.
"Know about them?" Mike said. "I know they're nice cars. That's about it. What else am I going to know, lieutenant? Maybe you think I own one of these big red 1972 Caddies. Maybe you think I got that kind of money. Well, listen, lieutenant, I'd like to help you out, but I'm just not—"
"The Cadillacs," Lynch said, "were—"
"Just a minute, lieutenant," Malone said. Dead silence fell with great suddenness. Lynch and all the others looked around at Malone, who smiled apologetically. "I don't want to disturb anything," he said. "But I would like to talk to Mike here for a little while."
"Oh," Lynch said sourly. "Sure. Sure."
"I'd like to ask him a couple ofquestions," Malone said. "Alone."
"Alone." Lynch said. "Oh." But there was nothing for him to do, Malone knew, except bow to the inevitable. "Of course," he said. "Go right ahead."
"You can stand outside the door," Malone said. "He won't get away. And you'd better hold this." Malone, knowing perfectly well that staying armed and alone in a room with a suspect was something you just did not do—for very good reasons—unstrapped his .44 Magnum and handed it to the lieutenant.
He left reluctantly, with his men.
Malone could understand Lynch's attitude. If Malone solved the case, Lynch would not get any credit. Otherwise, it might go down in his personal record. And, of course, the NYPD would rather wrap the case up themselves; the FBI was treated as a necessary interference. Unfortunately, Malone thought, Lynch had had absolutely no choice. He sighed gently, and turned his attention to Mike Fueyo, who was still sitting in his chair.
"Now, Mike—" he began, and was interrupted.
The door opened. Lieutenant Lynch said: "If you need us, Malone, just yell."
"You'll hear me," Malone promised. The door shut.
He turned back to the boy. "Now, Mike," he began again, "my name is Malone, and I'm with the FBI. I'd like to ask you a few—"
"Gee, Mr. Malone," Mike broke in eagerly. "I'm glad you're here."
Malone said: "Well, I—"
"These cops here have been giving me a pretty rough deal, you know?" Mike said.
"I'm sure they—" Malone began.
"But I've been looking for you," Mike went on. "See, I wanted to say something to you. Something real important."
Malone leaned forward expectantly. At last he was going to get some information—perhaps the information that would break the whole case wide open. He said: "Yes?"
"Well—" Mike began, and stopped.
"You don't have to be afraid of me, Mike," Malone said. "Just tell me whatever's on your mind."
"Sure," Mike said. "It's this."
He took a deep breath. Malone clenched his fists. Now it was coming. Now he would hear the all-important fact. He waited.
Mike stuck out his tongue and blew the longest, loudest, brassiest and juiciest Bronx cheer that Malone had ever heard.
Then, almost instantly, the room was empty except for Malone himself.
Mike was gone.
There wasn't any place to hide, and there hadn't been any time to hide in. Malone looked around wildly, but he had no doubts at all.
Mike Fueyo had vanished, utterly and instantaneously. He'd gone out like a light.