A Horse's Head

Concluding a new novel

Synopsis: It was a rare spring day. Mullaney--one year out of marriage and long out of touch with Lady Luck--had a hot tip on the fourth at Aqueduct and was killing himself trying to borrow $50 when the black Cadillac limousine pulled up and a distinguished-looking gentleman named Gouda invited him inside at gunpoint. "Take me out to Aqueduct," Mullaney said jokingly; but they took him to a stonecutter s establishment next to a cemetery and told him he was going to be a stand-in for a corpse that had a date in Rome.

"The original corpse jumped out of the car on Fourteenth Street," Gouda explained. "This gentleman will make a fine corpse." Gouda's boss, the man with the gold K tie tack, agreed. And the plane to Rome was waiting to take off. But Mullaney did not want to be a corpse. "We have no choice," K said, "therefore, you have no choice." It sounded very logical.

They made him put on a black burial suit; the jacket was heavy and too tight, though the lining made a nice whispering rustle. "Perfect," K said. "Put him in the coffin." He was still objecting when someone hit him over the head.

He woke up half believing he was a corpse in Rome. Instead--as he learned--the coffin had been hijacked on the way to the airport, Gouda was dead and Mullaney was being taken back to New York to meet Grubel, a criminal mastermind who was now running the show. Grubel was ugly, but Merilee, the girl in Grubel's apartment, definitely was not. Grubel wanted to know the where abouts of a certain half million dollars in heist money.

"I suggest you tell me, sir, or we may be forced to kill you," he said to Mullaney.

"If you kill me," Mullaney heard himself say, "you'll never find out where the money is." Suddenly he knew where it was.

"I know where the money is," he said, "and I'll be happy to get it for you, but... I'd have to go for it alone."

"Take the girl," Grubel said, giving her a gun.

Mullaney and Merilee shook off a pair of Grubel's clumsily tailing gorillas by ducking into the public library and finding a deserted, book-crammed room.

"We're going to make love on a bed of five hundred thousand dollars," he told Merilee.

"The money," she moaned.

"Turn you green," he whispered.

"Yes, yes, turn me."

"Spread you like honey," he said.

"Oh, yes, spread me."

"Afterward, he sat up. "Are you ready?" he asked, tearing the lining of the jacket.

"I am ready," she said, her eyes glowing.

"Here it comes," Mullaney said, "five hundred thousand dollars in American money, ta-rah!" and he allowed the lining to fall away.

4: Callahan

The packets of bills fell to the floor just like the rain Mullaney had expected--plop, plop, plop, great big drops of bills falling to the marble floor of the library and raising a cloud of dust that at first obscured his vision a bit and caused him to believe that perhaps he was not quite seeing what he thought he was seeing. Plop, plop, plop, the packets kept falling out of the jacket and pattering all around, while he and the girl stared down at their $500,000 rain, and the dust settled, and they kept staring down at the packets, and Mullaney wanted to weep.

The packets were worth exactly tencents, because that is how much The New York Times costs on a Friday, and that is exactly what these were made of--The New York Times. Mullaney kept staring down at the packets that someone had cut very nicely into the shape of dollar bills and then stacked and bound neatly with rubber bands, each packet slim enough to be sewn into a funeral jacket. He did not raise his eyes from the slowly settling dust, because, to tell the truth, he was a little embarrassed about facing the girl.

"It seems to be newspaper," he said, and cleared his throat.

"Yes, indeed," Merilee said.

They kept staring at the cut stacks of newspaper.

"Oh," the girl said at last, "I get it."

"Yes, it's only newspaper," Mullaney said.

"You didn't know, is that it?"

"What do you mean?"

"You didn't know about the newspaper."

"Of course not. How could I----" He stared at her in sudden realization. "You mean you knew?"

"Oh, yes, indeed; we all knew."

"But how? How could you possibly----"

"Because Gouda was working for us."

"Gouda?"

"Yes. Didn't you know that, either?"

"No, I didn't know that, either," Mullaney said, thinking, Where there is cheese, there is also sometimes a rat. Gouda.

"Oh, yes, indeed," Merilee said. "And he took the five hundred thousand dollars out of the jacket and put the paper scraps in its place."

"I see," Mullaney said. "But what happened to the five hundred thousand dollars?"

"He delivered it to Grubel, just the way he was supposed to."

"I beg your pardon?"

"He delivered it to Grubel."

"The five hundred thousand dollars?"

"Well, give or take."

"Then Grubel already has the money."

"Well, no."

"No?"

"No."

"Who does have it?"

"K, I would imagine. Or one of his fellows."

"But if it was delivered to Grubel----"

"It was delivered to Grubel, yes, indeed," Merilee said, "but someone must have known the switch would take place."

"I don't understand."

"A triple cross," Merilee said.

"I still don't understand."

"The money Gouda delivered to us was counterfeit."

"This is all very confusing," Mullaney said.

"Oh, yes, indeed," Merilee agreed.

"K and his fellows knew Gouda was going to switch the bills, so they substituted counterfeit money for the real money, which counterfeit money Gouda subsequently stole, leaving paper scraps in its place?"

"That's it," Merilee said, and giggled.

"But why should K and his fellows go to all the bother of shipping a coffin to Rome if they knew there were only paper scraps in the jacket?"

"I don't know," Merilee said. "But that's why Grubel had the coffin hijacked. When he realized the bills were counterfeit, he assumed the real money was still hidden in the coffin someplace."

"But it wasn't."

"No."

"And apparently it's not in the jacket, either," Mullaney said. He looked at the jacket again. There was nothing terribly remarkable about it. It seemed to be an ordinary-looking jacket, made of black wool, he supposed--or perhaps worsted, which was probably wool, he was never very good on fabrics, volume FA-FO--with four round black buttons on each sleeve near the cuff and three large black buttons at the front of the jacket opposite three buttonholes in the overlapping flap; a very ordinary jacket, with nothing to recommend it for fashionable wear, unless you were about to be buried. He opened the black-silk lining again and searched the inner seams of the jacket, thinking perhaps a few hundred thousand dollar bills were perhaps pinned up there somehow; but all he felt was the silk and the worsted, or whatever it was. He thrust his hand into the breast pocket and the two side pockets and then he searched the inner pocket on one side of the jacket and then on the other, but all of the pockets were empty. He crumpled the lapels in his hands, thinking perhaps the real money was sewn into the lapels, but there was neither a strange sound nor a strange feel to them. To make certain, he tore a lapel stitch with his teeth and ripped the entire lapel open, revealing the canvas but nothing else. He was extremely puzzled. He buttoned the jacket and looked at it buttoned, and then he unbuttoned the jacket and looked at it that way again, but the jacket stared back at him either way, black and mute and obstinate.

"Well," he said, "I don't know. I just don't know what the hell it is."

"Oh, my," the girl said. "Oh, my my my my my."

"Mmm," Mullaney said.

"Oh, my."

They were silent again.

Into the silence there came the unholy clamor of a ringing bell, startling Mullaney so much that he leaped back against the wall and then was surprised to find himself shaking. He had not realized until just this moment that the worthless collection of clipped newspapers at his feet represented something more than just the end of a gambler's dream. This pile of garbage containing yesterday's baseball scores and war casualties, yesterday's stock prices and theater reviews, this worthless pile of shredded garbage lying in the dust at his feet also contained, if Mullaney were willing to read it correctly, an obituary notice announcing the untimely demise of one Andrew Mullaney himself, to take place in the not-unforeseeable future. It was one thing to consider running out on Smokestack Grubel when you were in possession of half a million dollars and a beautiful blonde. It was another to think of running out on him when you had only a mangled copy of this morning's Times and a blonde who was beginning to get a distinct hangdog expression. He could not understand the hangdog expression, but there it was, spreading across her mouth and drawing down the corners of her eyes. Oh, boy, Mullaney thought, I'm going to be in pretty big trouble soon.

"That's why you should always get the money first," the girl said suddenly, as though she had been mulling it over for quite some time.

"I guess so," Mullaney said. He slung the jacket over his arm, thinking he might just as well hang onto it, in the event he had a brilliant inspiration later, which inspiration seemed like the remotest possibility at the moment.

"Oh, boy, Grubel's going to kill you," Merilee said.

"Mmm."

"Grubel's going to absolutely murder you."

"Listen, did you hear a bell?" Mullaney said.

"What?"

"Just a few minutes ago? I think it's closing time. I think we'd better get out of here."

"I think you'd better get out of New York," the girl said. "I think you'd better get off the planet earth, if you want my advice, because Grubel is going to kill you."

"Well ..." Mullaney said, and he hesitated, because he was about to make a speech, and he rarely made speeches. He was going to make a speech because he incorrectly assumed everything was ending instead of just beginning, and he thought it would be nice to say something to commemorate the event. He started thinking about what he was going to say as he led the girl toward the red light burning over the exit door at the far end of the labyrinth. By the time they reached the door, he knew what he wanted to tell her. He put his hand on her arm. The girl turned and stared up at him, her flaxen hair aglow with spilled red light, her eyes wide and solemn and fitting to the occasion.

"Merilee," he said, "I really thought the money was inside this jacket, and I can't tell you how sad it makes me that it was only paper scraps. But in spite of that, I remember what happened before I opened the jacket. I remember you, Merilee. And so whatever happened afterward doesn't matter at all; the disappointment doesn't matter, the possibility that I'm now in danger doesn't matter, none of it matters except what happened with you. That was good, Merilee, that was something I'll never forget as long as I live, because it was real and honest and, Merilee, it was just really really good, wasn't it?"

"No," the girl said, "it was lousy."

• • •

The guard at the front door of the library bawled them out for lagging so far behind all the others and causing him to unlock the door after he had already carefully locked it for the night--did they think he had nothing to do but lock and unlock doors all night long? Mullaney supposed the guard did have a great many other things to do, so he didn't argue with him, he just meekly allowed himself to be let out of the library and then he walked down the steps and stood with the girl near one of the lions and figured they would have to say goodbye. She would go back to Grubel, he supposed, and he would go he didn't know where.

"Well..." he said.

"I'm supposed to shoot you, you know," she said.

"You might just as well," he answered.

"I'm terribly sorry the relationship didn't work out," she said.

"So am I."

"But I don't think I could shoot you."

"I'm grateful," Mullaney said.

"When they get you--they'll get you, you know ..."

"I know."

"... You just tell them you escaped, OK? That's what I'll tell them."

"OK, that's what I'll tell them, too."

"Well," the girl said, and glanced over her shoulder.

"It was very nice knowing you," Mullaney said.

"Oh, yes, indeed," she answered, and walked away.

We'll meet again, he thought, not really believing that they would. He thrust his hands into the pockets of the too-short trousers and began walking downtown on Fifth Avenue. A breeze had sprung up and he was a bit chilly now, but the jacket was in tatters and he was too embarrassed to wear it. He began wondering about the jacket. He was very good at deductions based on the condition of the track and the number of times out and the number of wins and losses and the weight of the jockey and all that. He was also very good at figuring the true odds on any given roll of the dice as opposed to the house odds, and he could calculate, within reason, the possibility of, say, drawing two cards to a flush, very good indeed at doing all of these things--which was why he'd lost his shirt over the past year. Well, hadn't actually lost his shirt, was actually still in possession of his jasmine shirt, which was a bit too flimsy for a cool April night like this one. Nor was he really convinced that he was not a very good gambler; he was simply a gambler who'd had a run of bad luck. Being equipped, therefore, with a coolly calculating mind that was capable of figuring combinations, permutations and such, he put it to (continued on page 104) Horse's Head (continued from page 100) use in speculating about the jacket, and the first thought that occurred to him was that K and his fellows knew its secret and that he had better find them as soon as possible. The only trouble was that Mullaney didn't know where he had been this morning, other than that it was on the edge of a cemetery. Wait a minute, he thought, wasn't there a sign, didn't I notice a sign, something that caused me to think of Feinstein's funeral; no, the hearse in the back yard made me think of his funeral, an excellent hearse, that and the marble stones, in memory of--wait a minute, one of them had a name on it, now hold it, what was the name on that stone, just a minute, the large black marble stone, and across the face of it, in loving memory of...

Who?

In loving memory of all the pleasures I will no longer enjoy on this sweet green earth.

In...

Loving...

Memory...

Got it! he thought, as it came to him in a terrifying rush, in loving memory of Martin Callahan, loving husband, 1935--1967, crazy! and he hoped it wasn't just a dummy stone left around the yard for prospective customers to examine for chiseling styles.

He found an open drugstore on 38th Street and looked up the name Martin Callahan in the Manhattan telephone book, discovering that there were two such Callahans listed and thinking, so far, so good, I've got 20 cents, and a phone call costs a dime, and there are only two Martin Callahans, so I can't lose. He went into the phone booth and dialed the first Martin Callahan and waited while the phone rang on the other end. There was no answer. This was Friday night. If this was the quick Callahan, he might very well be out stepping. Mullaney hung up, retrieved his dime (which was one half of his fortune) and dialed the second Martin Callahan.

"Hello?" a woman said. There was the sound of music in the background, laughter, voices.

"Hello," he said, "my name is Andrew Mullaney. I was out at a cemetery this morning----"

"What?" the woman said.

"Yes, and happened to see your husband's beautiful stone..." He paused.

"Yes?" the woman said.

"Your husband was Martin Callahan, wasn't he?"

"Yes, he died last month," she said.

"Well, I'd like to get a stone just like his," Mullaney said, "but I can't remember where I saw it. Would you remember the name of the stonecutter?"

"I don't talk to strangers on the telephone," the woman said, and hung up.

"But..." Mullaney said in retrospect, and then sighed and put the receiver back onto its hook.

His dime came clattering into the coin-return chute.

He stared at it in disbelief for a moment and then lavishly thanked God and the New York Telephone Company for this kind omen, which, he was certain, signaled a change of fortune for him. Encouraged now, he consulted the telephone book once again, discovered that the late Martin Callahan's widow lived on East 36th Street and headed there immediately, hoping to convince her in person that it was quite all right to divulge the name of a stonecutter, even to a stranger.

The name on the mailbox was M. Callahan and the apartment listed was 4B. He took the elevator up to the fourth floor and heard music and voices and laughter the moment he stepped into the corridor. The sounds were coming from behind the door to apartment 4B. The widow Callahan, though recently deprived of her husband, was apparently having herself a Friday-night bash. Vigorously, Mullaney banged on the door and waited. He heard the clattering approach of high heels and the chain being drawn back and the door being unlocked.

The door opened.

"I called just a few minutes ago," he said. "About the stonecutter."

"Well, come on in, honey, and have a drink," the woman said.

The woman was Nefertiti; the woman was Cleopatra as she must have really looked; the woman was colored and in her late 20s, her skin as brown as tobacco, her eyes glowing and glinting and black, her hair cropped tight to her skull, huge golden earrings dangling, mouth full and parted in a beautiful wicked smile over great white sparkling teeth, the better to eat you with, my dear; he had written sonnets about girls like this.

There was behind her the insinuating beat of a funky jazz tune, Thelonious Monk or Hampton Hawes; there was behind her the smoky grayness of a room indifferent to skin, the insistent clink and clash of whiskied ice and laughter, the off-key humming of a sinewy blonde in a purple dress, the finger-snapping click of a lean dark Negro in a dark-blue suit; there was behind her the aroma of bodies, the aroma of perfume. And--also behind her, also seeming to rise from far behind her where lions roared to the velvet night and Kilimanjaro rose in misty splendor--rising from far behind her, like mist itself, and undetected by her as she stood in smiling welcome in the doorway, one long brown slender arm resting on the door jamb, was a scent as comforting as a continent; he had written sonnets about girls like this.

"Well, come on in, honey, do," she said, and turned her back and went into the room.

He followed her in, watching her lovely sinuous behind in the tight Pucci dress as she walked across the room ahead of him. She turned a small pirouette, lifted one hand, wrist bent, and said, "I'm Mrs. Callahan, why'd you hang up?"

"You hung up," he said.

"That's right, I never talk to strangers on the telephone."

"So why'd you let me into the apartment?" he asked, logically.

"I'm partial to blue eyes."

"My eyes are brown."

"That's why I let you in."

"But you said----"

"I'm drunk, who knows what I'm saying?"

"What's your first name?" he asked.

"Melanie."

"Melanie Callahan," he said, testing it.

"Melanie is from the Greek," she said. "It means black."

"Why'd you let me in, Melanie?"

"Because you have the look of a man who is searching for something. I like that look, even though Mother always taught me to regard such a man with suspicion and doubt."

"Is that how you regard me?"

"Yes. What is it you're searching for?"

"Half a million dollars."

"Will you settle for the name of the stonecutter?"

"For the time being."

"Oh, my, what will the man want next?" Melanie said, and rolled her eyes. She extended her hand to him. "Come," she said.

"Where?"

"To get you a drink."

"And the stonecutter's name?"

"Later, man. Don't you trust me?"

"I trust you," Mullaney said.

"That's fine," Melanie answered, "because I have never trusted a white man in my entire life, including my recently departed husband."

"Then why are you helping me?"

"It's the blue eyes that get me," she said.

"They're brown."

"Yes, but I'm drunk. Also, I don't like you to look so suspicious and searching. I want you to look contented, man, contented."

"How will we manage that?" Mullaney asked.

"I have never kissed a man who did not look extremely contented afterward."

"Oh, do you plan to kiss me?"

(continued on page 158) Horse's Head (continued from page 104)

"I plan to swallow you alive," Melanie said.

• • •

The suspense was killing him.

The suspense at first was compounded of two equal parts: the hope that Melanie would give him the name of the stonecutter, so that he could leave here in all possible haste, and the possibility that she might at any moment swallow him alive. There was something very strange about Melanie, in that she had told him she did not trust any white man (he believed her), and yet she would not let him out of her sight, would not let go of his hand, would not stop rubbing her long, sinuous cat's body against him at every opportunity. He was beginning to suspect that she was naked beneath the clinging Pucci silk; and the notion of exploring this darkest heart, the possibility of being swallowed alive by a race and an intelligence that went back millenniums, consumed, as it were, by someone or something that simultaneously hated him and desired him, was tantalizing and terribly exciting. But conversely, and contradictorily, and contrarily, he was terrified that she would indeed envelop him in her blackness, completely enclose him in the centuries-old vastness of her mother womb, absorb him, cause him to disappear from view entirely, swallow him alive exactly as she had promised.

He noticed a rather fat and frizzled Negro woman sitting in an easy chair near the record player, moving her crossed leg in time to the music, so that her sandaled foot tapped out the beat on thin air. The woman was perhaps 50 or 55, and she was wearing a black muumuu, white pearls around her throat, hair cut just like Melanie's, in close, tight African style. She kept beating her foot on the air as though she were squashing white missionaries and Belgian nuns, her skin very black, her teeth very white, her black eyes staring at him. He wondered who the woman was, and then wondered how he could delicately ask about her.

Melanie saved him the trouble by saying, "I don't think you've met my mother."

"I don't think I have," Mullaney said. "Pleasure."

"The white man is a horse's ass," Melanie's mother said, not meaning anything personal.

"Don't mind her," Melanie said. "Would you help me take out some of this garbage?"

"The white man is fit for taking out the garbage," Melanie's mother said.

"Don't mind her," Melanie said. "The incinerator is down the hall."

"The white man is fit for the incinerator," Melanie's mother said, which sent a shiver up Mullaney's spine.

They gathered up the bags of garbage in the kitchen and carried them to the front door. At the door, Melanie said, "Why don't you go to sleep, Mother," and Mother replied, "The party's just starting."

"Very well," Melanie said, and sighed, and opened the door. She preceded Mullaney down the empty hallway toward the small incinerator room. He pulled open the furnace door for her and she dropped the bags of garbage down the chute. Below, somewhere in the bowels of the building, there was the sense if not the actual sound and smell of licking flames, a hidden well of fire destroying the waste of a metropolis. He released the handle and the door banged back into place. Below, the building throbbed with consuming fire, a dull, steady roar that vibrated into the soles of his feet and shuddered through the length of his body.

"Kiss me," Melanie said.

This is the gamble, he thought as he took her into his arms. This is why I took the gamble a year ago. I took it for this moment in this room, this girl in my arms here and now; I have written sonnets about girls like this. I took the gamble so that I could make love to women in the stacks of the New York Public Library; I took the gamble so that I could make love to women in incinerator rooms, black or white, yellow or red, lowering her to the floor and raising the Pucci silk up over her brown thighs. "I hate you," she said. "Yes," he said, "love me." He reached for the top of her dress, lowered it off her shoulders and kissed the dark skin. "I hate you," she said again. "Love me," he said. "I hate you, I hate you, I hate you," her teeth clamped into his lips, he could taste blood. He thought, She will kill me, and thought, This is the gamble, and remembered he had once very long ago made love to a Negro prostitute in a curbside crib and had not considered it a gamble. And had later told Irene that he had once had a colored girl and she had said, "How lucky you are," and he had not known whether or not she was kidding. Here and now, here with the fires of hell burning in the building below, here with a girl who repeated over and over again as he moved against her, "I hate you, I hate you, I hate you," he wondered about the gamble for the first time in a year and was surprised when their lovemaking abruptly ended.

"I hate you," she said, with excellent reason this time.

He told her he was sorry, which he truly was, and which he thought was a gentlemanly and certainly American thing to admit, as she pulled her dress down over her long brown legs and stood up. She said his apology was accepted, but that nonetheless he had been an inadequate and disappointing partner, whereas she had been hoping for someone with skill and virtuosity enough to perform on Ferris wheels, for example.

"I would be willing to do it on a roller coaster!" he shouted in defense, and then lowered his voice, whispering. "I'm truly sorry, Melanie."

Yes, she said, dusting off her Pucci dress and tucking her breasts back into the bodice, but you must admit there is something about the white man that can only engender hatred and distrust. The white man has been taking for centuries and centuries, she said, and he doesn't know how to give, you see, nor even how to accept graciously. The white man (he was beginning to feel as if he'd been captured by the Sioux) knows only how to grab and grab and grab--which is why you have that look on your face that Mother always warned me about--but he doesn't know what he really wants or even why the hell he's grabbing. The white man is a user and a taker and a grabber, and he will continue to use and take and grab until there's nothing left for him to feast upon but his own entrails, which he will devour like a hyena; did you know that hyenas eat their own intestines?

"No, I did not know that," Mullaney said, amazed and repulsed.

It is a little-known fact, Melanie said, but true. You must not think I'm angry at you, or would harbor any ill feelings toward you, or seek any revenge other than not permitting you to spend the night in my apartment, which would be impossible with Mother here, anyway. She despises the white man, as you may have gathered. I, on the other hand, like the white man, I really do. As a group, that is. And whereas it's true that I've never met one individually or singly of whom I could be really fond, including my recently departed husband, this doesn't mean I don't like them as a group. I am, for example, keenly disappointed in you personally, but this needn't warp my judgment of the group as a whole, do you understand? In fact, I suppose I should be grateful to you for proving to me once again just how undependable the white man really is, as an individual, of course. Trust him, let him have his way with you, and what does he do once again but leave you with empty promises, though I wouldn't march on Washington for something as trivial as this; still I think you know what I mean. Now, I suppose you think I'm not going to tell you the name of the stonecutter; but no, I'm not the type to seek revenge or to harbor any ill feelings, as I've already told you. I like the white man, I do. So I will tell you his name. And perhaps my generosity will remind you as you go through life that you once took a little colored girl in an incinerator room, grabbed her and took her and used her and left her not hating you, certainly not hating you, but nonetheless feeling a very keen disappointment in you, which I should have been prepared to expect. But grateful to you nonetheless for ascertaining it once again to my satisfaction. I am, in fact, extremely satisfied. Your performance was exactly what I expected, and therefore I am satisfied with my disappointment; do you understand what I'm saying?

"Oh, of course," Mullaney said, relieved.

"Well, good, then," Melanie said, and offered her hand and said, "Good luck, his name is McReady; I take the pill."

"I beg your pardon?"

"I take the pill, don't worry; it's McReady's Monument Works in Queens."

"Thank you," Mullaney said.

He watched her as she went back to her party, and then he took the elevator down to the street again, found a telephone booth and looked up the address of McReady's Monument Works in Queens. He began walking toward 42nd Street, aware that this was where he'd last seen Henry and George but assuming they would have given up the chase by now. He was approaching the subway when he noticed two pickets parading in front of a department store disgorging late employees. As he approached them, one of them smiled and said, "Shopping bag, sir?"

"Thank you," he said.

The shopping bag was white with large red letters proclaiming Judy Bond Blouses are on strike! Not being a union man himself but being of course in sympathy with workingmen all over the world, Mullaney accepted the shopping bag, dropped the tattered jacket into it and hurried to the subway station.

He was standing in line at the change booth, waiting to buy a token, when two men joined him, one on either side.

"We'll pay your fare," George said.

"Right this way," Henry said, and led him toward the turnstile.

5: Rollo

"Where are you taking me?" Mullaney asked.

"Someplace nice," Henry said.

"Very nice," George said.

"You'll remember it always," Henry said.

"You'll take the memory to your grave," George said, which Mullaney did not think was funny.

When the train pulled in, they waited silently for the doors to open and then got into the nearest car and silently took seats, Mullaney in the middle, George and Henry on either side of him. The shopping bag with the damn inscrutable jacket rested on the floor of the car, between Mullaney's feet.

They were heading for Queens.

There were a lot of people in the car, reading their newspapers or holding hands, or studying the car-card advertising, or idly gazing through the windows as the train clattered from station to station. Mullaney glanced across the aisle to the other side of the car, where a fat, dark-haired woman sat with her button-nosed little daughter, and then looked past them, through the windows. The train had surfaced, he could see the lights of Queens beyond. He suddenly realized he would be leaving the train by the doors on his right, in the center of the car, and he decided he ought to know how long it took for those doors to open and then close again. So he began counting as soon as the train stopped at the next station, one, two, thr---- the doors opened, four, five, six, seven, they were still open, people were moving out onto the platform, others were coming in, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, the doors closed, the train was in motion again. Well, that was a very pleasant exercise, Mullaney thought, but I don't know what good it will do me when the time comes to make my break.

He heard the sound of an alto saxophone and thought at first that someone in the car had turned on a transistor radio. New Yorkers were all so musical, always singing and dancing wherever they went, just like Italians, gay and lighthearted and singing, dancing, playing all the time. But as he turned toward the sound, he saw that a live musician had entered the far end of the car and was making his way, step by cautious step, toward where Mullaney and his potential assassins were sitting.

The man was blind.

He was a tall, thin man, wearing a tattered sweater, dark glasses on his nose, his head carried erect, as though on the end of a plumb line, the saxophone mouthpiece between his compressed lips. The saxophone was gilded with mock silver that had worn through in spots to reveal the tarnished brass beneath. A leather leash was fastened to the man's belt and led to the collar of a large German shepherd, who preceded the man into the subway car and led him step by step up the aisle, sitting after each two or three steps while the man continued playing a song that sounded like a medley of You Made Me Love You and Sentimental Journey. The man, though blind, was a terrible saxophonist, miskeying, misphrasing, producing squeaks in every measure. The German shepherd, dutifully pausing after every few steps into the car, walked or sat at the man's feet in what appeared to be a pained stupor, a glazed look on his otherwise intelligent face. The blind man swayed above him, filling the car with his monumentally bad music, while on either side people rose from their seats to drop coins into the tin cup that hung from his neck, resting somewhere near his breastbone, its supporting cord tangled in the leather strap that held the saxophone. The dog was similarly burdened, carrying around his neck a hanging, hand-lettered placard that read:

My Name is Rollo.

Do not pet me.

Thank you.

The blind man had reached the center doors of the car now. The dog dutifully sat again with that same pained and patient expression on his face, and Mullaney wondered why a nice-looking animal like Rollo would wear a sign asking people not to pet him. The train had pulled into another station and people were rushing in and out of the doors, shoving past the blind man, who immediately stopped playing. But as soon as the doors closed and the train was in motion again, he struck up a lively chorus of Ebb Tide and then modulated into Stormy Weather, which he played with the same squeaking vibrato and fumbling dexterity, while the dog continued to look more and more pained. They were still coming up the aisle, slowly making their way toward where Mullaney sat. He had not thought to count the time it took for the train to go from one station to another; that was his mistake, he now realized; he had counted the wrong thing. The blind man and Rollo stopped, the swelling sound of the saxophone drowned out the speculations of Henry and George (they were debating the possibility of garroting Mullaney) and filled the car with horrendous sound. Coins continued to rattle into the tin cup, music lovers all along the car reaching gingerly into the aisle and dropping pennies, nickels and dimes in appreciation as Rollo and the blind man moved a few steps, paused, moved again, paused again; they were perhaps three feet away from Mullaney now. The dog is probably vicious, he thought, that's why you're not supposed to pet him; he's a vicious dog who'll chew your arm off at the elbow if you so much as make a move toward his head. The train was slowing, the train was pulling into a station, Rollo and the blind man were moving ahead again, two feet away, a foot away, the train stopped, the dog sat in the aisle directly in front of Henry.

Mullaney begged the forgiveness of polite society, he begged the forgiveness of God, he begged the forgiveness of tradition, but he knew he had to save his life, even if the only way to do it was to take advantage of a blind man. He began counting the moment the train stopped, one, two, three, the doors opened, and he had 11 seconds to make his move, win or lose, live or die. He suddenly grabbed Henry's right arm, cupping his own left hand behind Henry's elbow, pushing his own right hand against Henry's wrist, creating a fulcrum and lever that forced Henry out of his seat with a yelp. The dog was sitting at Henry's feet, and Mullaney, counting madly (four, five, six, seven, eight, those doors would close at fourteen), hurled Henry directly at Rollo's pained, magnificent head, saw his jowls pull back an instant before Henry collided with the triangular black nose, saw the fangs bared, heard the deep growl start in Rollo's throat, nine, ten, eleven, he bounded for the doors as George came out of his seat, drawing his gun, twelve, thirteen, "Stop!" George shouted behind him, Mullaney was through the doors, fourteen, and they closed behind him. Through the open windows of the car, he could hear Rollo tearing off Henry's arm or perhaps ripping out his jugular, while the blind man began playing a medley of Strangers in the Night and Tuxedo Junction. George was across the car now and leaning through a window as the train began moving out of the station. He fired twice at Mullaney, who zigzagged along the platform and leaped headfirst down the steps leading below, banging his head on a great many risers as he hurtled down, thinking this was where he had come in, and thinking, By God, he missed me! He heard the train rattling out of the station and was certain he also heard applause from the passengers in the car as Rollo eviscerated poor Henry. He got to his feet the moment he struck the landing, began running instantly, without looking back, thinking, I'm free at last, I'm free of all of them, and running past the change booth and then bounding down another flight of steps to the street, not knowing where he was, thinking only that he had escaped, finding himself on the sidewalk, good solid concrete under his feet, glancing up at the traffic light, seeing it was in his favor and darting into the gutter.

He was halfway to the other side when he realized he had left the Judy Bond shopping bag on the train.

He stopped dead in the middle of the street.

Irene, he thought, you are better off without me, really you are, because not only am I a loser, I am also a fool, and was almost knocked flat to the pavement by a red convertible that swerved screechingly away from him, the driver turning his head back to shout a few swearwords, thereby narrowly missing a milk truck that went thundering past from the opposite direction. Mullaney stood rooted to the spot, suddenly wondering whether Irene (who had undoubtedly known other men since the divorce) had ever told any of them, for example, that he sometimes made muscles in front of the mirror, or that, for further example, he had once lain full length and naked on the bed, with a derby hat covering his masculinity, which he had revealed to her suddenly as she entered the room, with a "Good morning, madam, may I show you something in a hat?"--wondered, in short, if she had ever told anyone else in the world that he, Andrew Mullaney, was sometimes a fool, sometimes most certainly a horse's ass.

The thought bothered him.

He stood exactly where he was, unmoving in the center of the street, waiting for the light to change again and the traffic to ease. When it did, he walked back to the curb and thought, The hell with the jacket, I have had enough of chasing after pots of gold at the ends of rainbows; and that was when he saw the little girl with her mother. He recognized them at once as they came down the steps from the elevated platform, the dark-haired woman and the button-nosed little girl who had been sitting opposite him in the subway car.

The little girl was carrying his Judy Bond shopping bag.

"Hey!" he shouted, and began running after them. He saw the shopping bag going around the corner in a flurry of Friday-night humanity, a boy on a skateboard rushing past, two old ladies idly strolling and chatting, a man wearing a straw hat and drinking beer from a bottle; he saw only the disappearing end of the bag as it rounded the corner, and hurried to reach that corner, almost knocking over a man carrying a Christmas tree, a what?, turning to look back at the man--sure enough, he was carrying a goddamn Christmas tree in the middle of April--ran past the gardening shop on the corner, saw pines and spruces potted in tubs, said "Excuse me" to a lady in slacks and high-heeled pumps, turned the corner, saw a row of empty lots and a single huge apartment house, but not his shopping bag.

The little girl and her mother had disappeared.

6: Ladro

He stood on the sidewalk and counted 13 stories in the apartment building, and then started counting windows in an attempt to learn how many apartments there were. He figured there were at least ten apartments on each floor, multiplied by 13 (unlucky number), for a total of 130 apartments. It suddenly occurred to him that the Judy Bond shopping bag he had seen might not be his shopping bag. Suppose he knocked on 130 doors only to discover that the bag contained, for example, a pair of men's pajamas or a lady's bathrobe? Besides, even if it was his shopping bag, he still didn't know exactly why the jacket was worth retrieving. Only K and his fellows knew that. Mmm, Mullaney thought, and immediately hailed a taxi, coldly calculating the petty larceny he was about to commit against the driver, but figuring, C'est la guerre and giving him the address of McReady's Monument Works.

This has got to be the end of it, he thought.

If that really is my shopping bag, then I know where the jacket is, or at least approximately where it is--there's only one apartment building on that block and the girl certainly didn't vanish into thin air. On the other hand, K and McReady know the secret of the jacket. So the ideal thing is to form a partnership, 50-50, I tell you how to get the jacket, you tell me how to get the money, OK? Is it a deal?

No, they will say, and shoot me through the head.

But then they don't get the jacket.

I certainly hope they want that jacket.

"Have you been bereaved?" the cab driver asked.

"No, not recently," Mullaney said.

"I thought perhaps you had been bereaved, since you are heading for a gravestone place."

"No, I'm heading there to consummate a rather large business deal."

"Oh, are you in the gravestone business?"

"No, I'm..."

He hesitated.

He had almost said, "I'm an encyclopedia salesman," which he had not been for more than a year now.

"I'm a gambler," he said quickly.

When they reached McReady's, he asked the driver to wait at the curb for him and then went up the gravel path, debating whether he should pop in on the stonecutter without at least a preliminary phone call to announce the purpose of his visit. Suppose K was in the cottage with him, suppose they both began shooting the moment he opened the door? He noticed that a window was open on the side of the cottage, and whereas he didn't want to waste time trying to locate a phone booth, he saw nothing wrong with stealing over to the window and doing a little precautionary eavesdropping. He tiptoed across the gravel, ducked below the window and then slowly and carefully raised his head so that his eyes were just level with the sill.

McReady was alone in the room.

He was standing near a Tutankhamen calendar, alongside which was a wall telephone. He had the phone receiver to his ear and was listening attentively. He kept listening, nodding every now and then, listening some more and finally shouting, "Yes, Signor Ladro, I understand! But..." He listened again. "Yes," he said, "losing the body was inexcusable, I agree with you. But, Signor Ladro, I must say that I find this call equally inexcusable. I thought we had agreed... yes... yes, but... yes... what? Of course, the body was properly clothed. Yes, that does mean the burial garments were lost as well. Including the jacket, yes. But I told you, we're making every effort to locate the corpse.... Yes, of course, the jacket as well."

Mullaney's eyes narrowed. Go on, he thought. Talk, McReady. Tell the nice gentleman--who is undoubtedly a member of your international ring, I can tell by the way you're using your finishing-school voice and manners--tell the nice gentleman all about the jacket.

"Eight," McReady said.

Eight, Mullaney thought.

"No, at five to six."

At five to six, Mullaney thought.

"Three, that's correct," McReady said.

Oh, it's three, Mullaney thought.

"No, ten, eleven and nine, in that order."

Oh, my, Mullaney thought.

"Signor Ladro, I really find discussing... yes, I can understand your concern over the delay, but we thought it best not to contact... yes, I understand. But the matter is still a very delicate one, here in New York, at least. The... accident occurred only two nights ago, you know. One might say the body is still very very warm.... Good, I'm glad you do."

What is he talking about? Mullaney wondered. What the hell are you talking about, McReady?

"Well, all I can do is assure you once again that we're doing everything in our power to recover it.... Yes, quite securely fastened, there's no need to worry on that score. Besides, we had arranged for a decoy, Signor Ladro, as you know. So we feel confident that everything is still intact.... Well, no, we can't be certain, Signor Ladro, but... what? We had them drilled.... Yes, each one."

How's that again? Mullaney thought.

"No, before they were painted," McReady said.

Now he's talking gibberish, Mullaney thought, frowning.

"Black, of course," McReady said.

Mere gibberish.

"That is correct," McReady said, "you have it all, Signor Ladro. Please be patient, won't you? You will receive the coffin as soon as we can correct the problems on this end. We understand that's the family's wish and we are doing everything possible to comply.... Well, thank you. Thank you, Signor Ladro. Thank you, I appreciate that.... It was good hearing from you, too, Signor Ladro. Thank you. Please give my regards to Bianca. Ciao."

McReady hung up and then took a handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped his brow. Mullaney, crouching outside the window, was thinking furiously. McReady had reeled off a string of numbers, eight and three and nine and eleven, he could barely remember them all, were they some sort of code? He had also said, "At five to six," was that a time? Was he referring to a specific time, and was it New York time or Roman time? Ten, that was another one of the numbers, what did any of them have to do with the jacket or with the paper scraps Gouda had substituted for...

Wait a minute. Didn't McReady say the accident had occurred two nights ago? In that case, he couldn't have been referring to the highway accident involving Gouda, because that had happened only this afternoon; no, he had been referring to something else, something that was still very very warm, if I recall his words correctly, something that was still a delicate matter, here in New York, at least, something that...

"We had them drilled," McReady had said.

"Each one."

Had he been referring to a gangland killing, perhaps, a swap of assassinations; we kill somebody here in New York, you kill somebody there in Rome, even Stephen? But then, why the need for a casual corpse picked up on 14th Street, why not send the genuine item? Or items? There would have been more than one corpse, because McReady had said "them," he had very clearly and distinctly said, "We had them drilled," plural, them, not singular, him, her or it. But why would anyone want to paint the victims of a shooting?

Black, he thought. McReady had said, "Black, of course."

Black. Melanie is from the Greek, it means black.

The jacket was black, the lining was black, the buttons were black, the coffin was...

Oh, my God, Mullaney thought, eight and three!

Oh, my sweet loving merciful mother of God, oh, you smart son of a bitch, Mullaney, eight at five to six, oh, you genius, Mullaney, you are once again sitting on a fortune, you have cracked the code, you have pierced the plan, you have tipped to what these fellows have done and are planning to do, you are a bloody bluenosed genius!

Exuberantly, he rose from his crouching position outside the window.

The thing to do now, he thought, is to get back as fast as I possibly can to the girl who has my Judy Bond shopping bag. I don't need you anymore, gentlemen--not you, McReady, and not you, either, K, thank you very much, indeed.

Need him or not, K appeared at the mouth of the driveway just then, arriving in the same black Cadillac that had picked up Mullaney on 14th Street that morning.

Mullaney thought, I'm too close now to be stopped. I have doubled my bets and then retreated, doubled them again and retreated further still, but this time I'm going all the way, I am ready for the big kill, gentlemen, and you cannot stop me.

He ran for the taxicab waiting alongside the curb.

K had already seen him and was backing the Cadillac out of the driveway as Mullaney threw open the door of the cab and hurled himself onto the seat.

"That man in the Cadillac is a thief," Mullaney said to the driver. "Get me out of here! Fast!"

The driver reacted by putting the cab into gear and gunning it away from the curb, obviously delighted by this most recent of developments.

"What did he steal?" he asked.

"He stole something worth half a million dollars in a certain foreign nation, Italy, for example."

"That is a lot of cabbage," the driver said.

"That is a whole hell of a lot of cabbage," Mullaney said. "My friend," he said, "if you can get me where I'm going safely, without that fellow in the Cadillac catching me and killing me, I will give you a reward of five thousand dollars, which is exactly one percent of the total, and which is the biggest tip you're ever going to get in your life."

"It's a deal," the driver said.

"Share the wealth," Mullaney said, "what the hell. Have you ever been to Jakarta?"

"I have never even been to Pittsburgh."

"Jakarta is better."

"I am sure," the driver said. "Where is Jakarta?"

"Jakarta is in Indonesia and is sometimes spelled with a Dj," Mullaney said, recalling volume J-JO, See Djakarta, volume D-DR. "It is, in fact, the capital of Indonesia, which is the base of a triangle whose apex is the Philippines, pointing north to Japan. They have marvelous cockroach races in Jakarta."

"I have marvelous cockroach races in my own kitchen every night," the driver said.

"My friend, he is gaining on us," Mullaney said, glancing through the rear window.

"Have no fear," the driver said, and rammed the accelerator to the floor.

In a little while, he asked, "Is he still behind us?"

"No, I think we've lost him," Mullaney said, but was not at all sure.

7: Belinda

He asked the driver to wait for him at the curb and then went into the apartment building, trying to decide where he should begin--top floor? bottom floor? middle floor?

It is always best to start at the bottom, he thought, and work your way up, so what I'll do is go to the very bottom, which is the basement.

The basement was empty. He was starting upstairs, when he heard voices coming from one of the small rooms off to the side of the furnace. As he approached the room, he saw that it had been whitewashed and hung with cute nursery-type cutouts of The Cat and the Fiddle and Old King Cole, and the like. A bare light bulb hung over a wooden table, which had been lowered to accommodate the four tot-sized chairs around it. Three little eight-year-old girls were playing jacks at that table--you ought to be in bed already, Mullaney thought, it's way past your bedtime. The girls were each wearing pastel dresses that blended nicely with the yellow table and pink chairs and whitewashed walls and cute nursery-school cutouts. They were shrieking in glee at the progress of their jacks game and paid not the slightest bit of attention to Mullaney, who stood quietly in the doorway, watching.

One of the girls was the button-nosed tyke who, with her mother, had been sitting opposite him in the subway car. Her fist was clasped firmly around the handles of the Judy Bond shopping bag, which rested on the floor near her feet. She glanced up at him as he abortively hesitated in the doorway, her dark-brown eyes coming up coolly and slowly to appraise him.

"Hello," he said weakly.

"Hello," the other little girls chirped, but the dark-haired one at the end of the table did not answer, watched him intently and suspiciously instead, her hand still clutched around the twisted white-paper handles of the shopping bag.

"Excuse me, little girl," Mullaney said, "but is that your shopping bag?"

"Yes, it is," she answered. Her voice was high and reedy, it seemed to emanate from her button nose, her mouth seemed to remain tightly closed, her eyes did not waver from his face.

"Are you sure you didn't find it on a subway train?" he asked, and smiled.

"Yes, I did find it on a subway train, but it's mine, anyway," she said. "Finders, keepers."

"That's right, Belinda," one of the other little girls said. "Finders, keepers," and Mullaney wanted to strangle her. Instead, he smiled sourly and told himself to keep calm.

"There's a jacket in that bag, did you happen to notice it?" he asked.

"I happened to notice it," Belinda said.

"It belongs to me," Mullaney said.

"No, it belongs to me," she answered. "Finders, keepers."

"Finders, keepers, right," the other girl said. She was a fat little kid with freckles on her nose and braces on her teeth. She seemed to be Belinda's translator and chief advocate and she sat slightly to Belinda's right, with her hands on her hips, and stared at Mullaney with unmasked hostility.

"Look," Mullaney said, "I'm willing to pay for the jacket, if you'll only----"

"How much?" Belinda asked.

"Twenty cents," Mullaney said, which was all the money he had in the world.

"Ha!"

"Well--how much do you want?"

"Half a million."

"It's--it's not worth anywhere near that," Mullaney said, thinking the child was omniscient. "It's just an old jacket with a torn lining, it couldn't possibly be----" He wet his lips. An idea was forming, it was worth a chance. "How do you play that game?" he asked suddenly.

"You throw the ball up," Belinda said, "and it bounces, and if you're going for onesies, you have to pick up one jack each time before you catch the ball. When you're for twosies, you have to pick up two jacks each time. And so on."

"How do you win?" Mullaney asked.

"When you reach tensies," Belinda said.

"Tensies?"

"When you bounce the ball and pick up all ten jacks before you catch it again."

"All right," Mullaney said, "do you see this shirt?" He clutched the fabric between thumb and forefinger. "A good jasmine shirt, worth at least fifteen dollars on the open market, almost brand-new, worn maybe three or four times."

"I see it," Belinda said.

"OK. My shirt against the jacket in the bag, which is torn and worthless."

"What do you mean?"

"I'll play you for the jacket in the bag."

"Play me what?"

"Jacks."

"You've got to be kidding," Belinda said.

"She'll murder you," one of the other girls said.

"My shirt against the jacket, what do you say?"

Belinda weighed the offer. Her free hand clenched and unclenched on the tabletop, her lips twitched, but her eyes remained open and unblinking. The room was silent. Her friends watched her expectantly. At last, she nodded almost imperceptibly and said, "Let's play jacks, mister."

He had never played jacks in his life, but he was prepared to play now for a prize worth half a million dollars. He sat on one of the tiny chairs, his knees up close near his chin, and peered between them across the table.

"I'm Frieda," the fat girl with the freckles said.

"I'm Hilda," the other one said.

"How do you do?" he said, and nodded politely. "Who goes first?" he asked.

"I defer to my opponent," Belinda said, making him feel he had stumbled into the clutches of a jacks hustler.

"How do you--how do you do this?" he asked.

"He's got to be kidding," Frieda said.

"She'll mobilize him," Hilda said.

"Pick up the jacks," Belinda said. "In one hand."

"Yes?" he said, picking them up.

"Now, keep your hand up here, about this high from the table, and let them fall. Just open your hand and let them fall."

"OK," he said, and opened his hand and let the jacks fall.

"Oh, that's a bad throw," Frieda said.

"You're dead, mister," Hilda said.

"Shut up and let me play my own game," he said. "What do I do next?"

"You throw the ball up and let it bounce on the table, and then you have to pick up one jack and catch the ball in the same hand."

"That's impossible," Mullaney said.

"That's the game, mister," Belinda said. "Those are the rules."

"It has to be the same hand," Frieda said.

"Of course it has to be the same hand," Hilda said.

"Those are the rules."

"That's the game."

"Then why didn't you say so when I asked you before?" Mullaney said.

"Any dumb ox knows those are the rules," Belinda said. "Are you quitting?"

"Quitting?" he said. "Lady, I am just starting."

He concentrated only on the jacks and on the red rubber ball. He ignored the malevolent stares of the little girls ranged around him at the sawed-off table, ignored the suffocating heat of the room and the discomfort of the tiny chair on which he sat, ignored too, the knowledge that half a million dollars was at stake, concentrating only on the game, only on winning. He was a clumsy player. He seized the jacks too anxiously, clutched for the rubber ball too desperately, but he dropped neither jacks nor ball; and by the time he reached twosies, he was beginning to get the knack of the game. He did not allow his new confidence to intrude on his concentration. Twosies was the daily double, that was all, you picked the two nags most likely to win and then you picked the next two and the next two after that, and before you knew it, there were only two left on the table and you swept them up into your hand and reached clumsily for the falling rubber ball, but caught it, yes, clenched your fist around it, caught it, and were ready for threesies.

Threesies was merely picking the win, place and show horses in the proper order, three times in a row, and then there was only one jack left on the table, simple, bouncie bouncie ballie, scoop it up, catch the ball, there you are, my dears.

"I'm going to win," he whispered.

"Play," Belinda whispered.

He ignored their hard-eyed stares, their cruel, silent, devout wishes for his downfall; he ignored them and moved into foursies, it seemed to be getting easier all the time, all you had to do was scoop up four, and then four again, easy as pie; he closed his hand on the two remaining jacks and grinned at the little girls, who were watching him now with open hatred, and said again, not whispering it this time, "I am going to win, my dears."

"You are going to lose," Belinda said flatly and coldly and unblinkingly.

"We'll see," he said. "I'm for fivesies."

He dropped the jacks onto the table.

He scooped up five and caught the ball, scooped up the remaining five and caught the ball again.

"Sixies," he said.

He went through sixies in a breeze, feeling stronger and more confident all the time, not even noticing Belinda or her friends anymore, his full and complete concentration on the tabletop as he raced through sevensies and eightsies and ninesies and then paused to catch his breath.

"Play," Belinda said.

"This is the last one," he said. "If I get through this one, I win."

The room went silent.

He picked up the jacks. I must win, he told himself. I must win. He dropped the jacks onto the tabletop. Nine of them fell miraculously together in a small cluster. The tenth jack rolled clear across the table, at least two feet away from the others.

"Too bad," Belinda said. "You give up?"

"I can make it," Mullaney said.

"Let's see you," she said.

"All right."

The pile of nine first, he thought, then go for the one and then catch the ball. No. The one first, sweep it toward the bigger pile, using the flat of my hand, then scoop up all ten together and catch the...

No.

Wait a minute.

Yes.

Yes, that's the only way to do it.

"Here goes," he said.

"Bad luck," the three girls said together, and he threw the ball into the air.

His hand seemed to move out so terribly slowly, hitting the single lonely jack across the table and sweeping it toward the larger pile, the ball was dropping so very quickly, he would never make it, the pile of ten was now beneath his grasping fingers, he closed his hand, his eyes swung over to the dropping ball, he scooped up the jacks, the ball bounced, he slid his closed hand across the table and, without lifting it from the wooden surface, flipped it over, opened the fingers, spread the hand wide, caught the ball and was closing his hand again when he felt the ball slipping from his grasp.

No, he thought, no!

He tightened his hand so suddenly and so fiercely that he thought he would break his fingers. He tightened it around the ball as though he were grasping for life itself, crushing the ball and the jacks into his palm, holding them securely, his hand in mid-air, and then slowly bringing his clenched fist down onto the tabletop.

"I win," he said, without opening his hand.

"You bastid," Belinda said, and threw the shopping bag onto the tabletop. She rose from her tiny chair, tossed her dark hair and walked swiftly out of the room.

"You bastid," Frieda said.

"You bastid," Hilda said, and they followed Belinda out.

He sat exhausted at the small table, his head hanging between his knees, his hand still clutched tightly around the jacks and the rubber ball. At last, he opened his hand and let the jacks spill onto the table, allowed the rubber ball to roll to the edge and fall to the concrete floor, bouncing away across the basement.

The room was very still.

He turned over the Judy Bond shopping bag and shook the black burial jacket onto the tabletop. He fingered the large buttons at the front and the smaller buttons on the sleeves, and then he picked up one of the jacks and moved it toward the center front button. Using the point of the jack, he scraped at the button. A peeling ribbon of black followed the tip of the jack. Flakes of black paint sprinkled onto the tabletop. He smiled and scratched at the button more vigorously, thinking. There are three buttons down the front of the jacket (each about ten carats, Grubel had said), ten, eleven and nine, in that order, scratching at the button, chipping away the paint; and there are four smaller buttons on each sleeve, eight at five to six carats each; I am a rich man, Mullaney thought, I am in possession of half a million dollars' worth of diamonds.

He had scraped all the paint off the middle button now.

He grasped the button between his thumb and forefinger, lifted it and the jacket to which it was fastened toward the hanging light bulb. It caught the incandescent rays, reflected them back in a dazzling glitter. This must be the 11-carat beauty, he thought, it's slightly larger than the other two; I am a rich man, he thought, I am at last a winner.

"Hand it over," the voice behind him said.

He turned.

K was standing in the doorway to the room. Mullaney had no intention of handing over the jacket, but it didn't matter, because K immediately walked over to him and hit him full in the face with the butt of a revolver.

8: Irene

The sound of Furies howling in the cemetery beyond, Am I dreaming or am I dead? Mullaney wondered. Voices mumbling, K's and McReady's, "should have killed him before we put him in the coffin."

"I thought he would suffocate in the closed coffin."

"He didn't."

"Nor did I expect the coffin to be hijacked and opened."

"You should have been more careful."

"Are you in charge here, or am I?"

"You are, but----"

"Then keep quiet."

Mullaney dared not open his eyes, thinking, Were they in McReady's cottage again? Proximity to cemeteries makes me somewhat ill, he thought, or perhaps it's only getting hit on the head so often.

"We wouldn't have to be doing this twice if we'd done it right the first time," McReady said.

"We got the diamonds back," K said, "so what difference does it make?"

"Well, let's make sure he's dead this time."

"Drag him over here, near the coffin."

Someone's hands clutched at his ankles. He felt the floor scraping beneath his shoulders and his back, heard the rasping sound of cloth catching at splintered wood. They had not bound him, his hands and feet were free, he could still fight or run. He wondered how K had located him in the basement room, and then remembered he had left the cab sitting at the curb outside the building; that had been a mistake, a terrible oversight; I have been making a lot of mistakes lately, he thought, and I am very tired. Kill me and put me in the goddamn coffin, get it over with.

"Get the jacket," K said.

"We're lucky the buttons are still on it," McReady said.

"They're fastened securely. I had a hole drilled through the pavilion of each diamond----"

"The what?"

"The pavilion," K said. "The part below the mounting."

"You could have cracked those stones, you know."

"An expert did the job."

"How much did you say they're worth?"

"The three big ones are worth nine thousand dollars a carat."

"And the smaller ones?"

"Five thousand a carat."

"We'll have to shoot him in the back of the head," McReady said conversationally. "Otherwise it'll show."

"Yes," K agreed.

"Which is what we should have done in the first place."

"I told you I didn't know the coffin would be hijacked," K said.

"I still think we were careless."

"We were not careless. We wanted Gouda to think we'd received payment. We wanted him to steal the counterfeit money. We wanted him to think we were innocently shipping half a million dollars in paper scraps to Rome."

"Yes," McReady said sourly, "the only trouble is it didn't work."

"Let's get the jacket on him," K said.

"Let's shoot him first."

"Either way, let's get it over with."

Well, how about it? Mullaney thought, and would have made his move right then, but something was beginning to bother him and he did not know quite what it was. You had better move, Mullaney, he told himself, you had better move now and fast and figure out what's bothering you later, because if you don't, you're going to be figuring it out in a coffin.

"Lift him," K said.

"Why?" McReady asked.

"So I can shoot him in the back of the head."

McReady tugged at Mullaney's hands, pulling him up into a sitting position. He could hear K walking around behind him. With his eyes still closed, he felt something cold and hard against the back of his skull.

"Watch the angle, now," McReady said. "Don't send the bullet through his head and into me."

The gun moved away from Mullaney's head for just an instant as K considered the angle. In that instant, Mullaney yanked his hands free of McReady's loose grip and swung around in time to catch K just as he was crouching, knocking him back on his heels. There was a silencer on the gun, he saw, making it easier to grab but rendering it none the less deadly. They can kill me here in this cottage as easily as whispering in church, he thought, and reached for the gun, missing. There was a short, puffing explosion. A window shattered across the room. He clutched at K's wrist, grasped it tightly in both hands and slammed K's knuckles against the floor, knocking the gun loose. He lunged for the gun, straddling K as he did so, and then nimbly stepped over him and whirled to face both men, the gun level in his hand.

"It is now posttime," he said, and grinned. "Give me that jacket."

"The jacket is ours," K said.

"Correct. Give it to me anyway."

"The diamonds are ours, too," McReady said.

"No, the diamonds belong to a jewelry firm on Forty-seventh Street," Mullaney said, and suddenly realized what had been bothering him. The diamonds were neither theirs nor his. The diamonds had been stolen.

He frowned. "I..." And hesitated. "I want that jacket," he said.

"Are you ready to kill for it?" K asked. "Because that's what you'll have to do. You'll have to kill us both."

Mullaney was sweating now, the gun in his right hand was trembling. He could see the jacket draped loosely over McReady's arm, the middle button repainted black, an innocuous-looking burial garment that would be sent to Rome in exchange for enough money to buy a million and one Arabian nights; yes, he thought, kill them both. You have done enough for possession of that jacket today, you have done enough over this past year, all of it part of the gamble, you are a winner now, you are holding the winning hand at last, kill them!

He could not squeeze the trigger.

He stood facing them, knowing that he did not want to lose yet another time but knowing he had already lost because he could not squeeze the trigger, he could not for the life of him commit this act that would finalize the gamble.

"Keep the jacket," he said, "but find yourself another corpse."

He felt like crying, but he did not want to cry in the presence of these international people with high connections in Rome and God knew where else, did not want them to realize he was truly a loser. He backed toward the door of the cottage, keeping the gun trained on them, with one hand thrust behind him fumbling for the knob and opening the door, feeling the cemetery wind as it rushed into the room.

"Ciao," he said, and went out of the cottage.

• • •

He threw the gun into a sewer outside the cemetery and then began walking slowly, the first time he had walked slowly today, it seemed, slowly and calmly, hoping they would not follow him and really not caring whether they did or not. He thought his parting shot had been a very good one. "Ciao," he had said, losing the gamble but showing what a sport he was anyway, a tip of the hat, a wave of the hand, "Ciao," and it was all over. Well, he thought, at least Irene will get a kick out of this, Irene will grin all over that Irish phiz of hers if she ever finds out her former husband has blown it all in little more than a year; she will certainly have a few laughs telling her new and doubtless winning suitors that her husband was a fool and a loser, to boot.

He wondered again if she had ever told anyone that sometimes he was a fool.

He went into a sidewalk phone booth on the corner, took a dime from his pocket and dialed Irene's number. She answered on the second ring.

"Hello?" she said.

"Hello," he said, "this is Andy. I didn't wake you or anything, did I?"

"No, I was watching television," Irene said. "What is it, Andy? Why are you calling?"

"Well," he said, "I blew it all, Irene. It took me a year, Irene, but I blew it all. I've got ten cents in my pocket after this phone call, and that's it. I'm stone-broke after that, though I've got to tell you I almost had half a million dollars just a few minutes ago."

"Really, Andy?" she said. "Half a million?"

"Yes, I could have had it, Irene, I really could have..." He stopped. "Irene," he said, "I never came close to having it."

The line went silent.

"Irene," he said, "did you ever tell anybody about the time with the hat?"

"No," she said.

"Do you know which time I mean?"

"Yes, of course."

"Irene, did you ever tell anybody I was a fool?"

"You're not a fool, Andy."

"I know I'm a fool, I know I'm----"

"No, Andy..." She paused. Her voice was very low when she spoke again. "Andy, you're a very nice person," she said, "if only you would grow up."

"Take a gamble," he said suddenly.

"A gamble?"

"On me."

She'll say no, he thought. She'll say no and I'll walk off into the night with only a dime in my pocket, ten cents less than I started with this morning. Please don't say no, he thought. Irene, please don't say no.

"Irene?"

"Yes."

"Gamble."

"I'm not a gambler, Andy."

"Neither am I," he said, and the line went silent again. For a moment, he thought she had hung up. He waited for her to speak again and then he said, "Listen...listen, you're not crying, are you?"

"Andy, Andy," she said.

"Should I come there? Say yes, Irene."

She did not answer.

"Irene? Say yes. Please."

He heard her sigh.

"Yes," she said. "I'm crazy."

"I love you," he said.

"All right," she said.

"I'll be there in a minute. Well, not in a minute, because all I have is ten cents. It may take some time."

"Time we have," she said.

"Yes," he answered. "Time we have."

"But hurry, anyway," she said, and hung up.

He put the phone back onto the hook and sat unmoving in the booth, feeling the April breeze that swept through the open doors, watching the eddying paper scraps on the floor. He sat that way for a long time, with the paper scraps dancing at his feet, and he thought about the gamble he had taken and lost, and he still wanted to weep. And then he thought about the gamble he was about to take, the biggest gamble of them all, perhaps, and he simply nodded and rose at last, and went out of the booth and began walking back to Manhattan.

This is the second and concluding part of "A Horse's Head" by Evan Hunter.