He saw her before she saw him. She was tall, just a few inches shorter than he was. And her hair was long and golden. The plain black c.o.c.ktail dress emphasized her high, full b.r.e.a.s.t.s and her long, tapered legs.

Her face was good, too, except for a slightly hard look about it. Looks, he decided. Plenty of looks, but not a h.e.l.l of a lot of cla.s.s.

Automatically he wondered what angle she was working. She didn't come on like a hustler, but it was a cinch she was pushing her looks in one way or another. He sipped the chaser and waited for her to make her play.

He didn't have long to wait. Her eyes surveyed the room rapidly and she walked directly to him, taking the seat beside him. She ordered a gra.s.shopper and the bartender mixed the drink in a hurry and brought it to her.

Baron paid for her drink.

"Thanks," she said, smiling at him. "Are you with the convention?"

He shook his head. "I'm working the C out of Philly," he said, deciding to fill her in right away so she could save her time. If she was a pro she'd know enough to make her pitch straight instead of playing games; if she was in the rackets she would leave him alone.

She didn't seem to have heard him. "I came down with my husband for the convention," she said. "You know, the auto merchants are having this convention. It started yesterday."

He nodded briefly.

"My husband had this meeting tonight," she said. "He won't be back until one or two in the morning. It gets boring for a girl, just sitting alone in a room."

He smiled; she didn't waste her time. He made her grift at once-it had to be the badger game the way she was planting her story. She would take him to her room and then her husband would come on with a gun, pretending to be furious. The hubby would threaten to kill him and settle for a cash settlement, and that would be that.

But she wasn't being very smooth about it. She should pretend to be more reluctant and make him do a little more of the work. Otherwise the mark wouldn't swallow the bait whole.

"What's your name?"

"d.i.c.k Baron," he said. "I just got finished working the rag in Dallas." Now she would have to realize he was in the know.

But she seemed totally oblivious to what he had said.

"I'm lonely," she said. "And I've got a bottle up in my room. Would you like to come up with me?"

He almost broke out laughing. Now he had the whole picture. She was working the badger game, all right, but she wasn't a professional at it. That's why her approach was so lousy and why she was missing the lines he was throwing at her. She was a crook, but an amateur crook.

And if there was one thing Baron couldn't stand it was an amateur crook. They didn't know the ropes and all they did was make things rough for the smart boys. Here was this blonde now, working like a slave to con a con man. How dumb could you get?

"Sure," he said, deciding to play along. "Let's go upstairs."

On the way to the elevator she took his arm, which was another mistake. She should let him do all the work-that way he'd believe she was a straight chick taking a first fling. It would make him hotter for her and at the same time scare him silly when her partner came on the scene.

"My name's Sally English," she said. "My husband and I are from Cedar Rapids."

He nodded and she tightened her grip on his arm. "I suppose you think I'm a tramp," she went on. "I'm not, not really. Don't you think I'm a tramp?"

"I think you're swell," he said, thinking that anybody who made such a mess out of a simple badger dodge ought to starve to death.

"I've never done this before," she said. "I mean, pick up somebody I never met before and take him to my room. But I get so lonely."

In the elevator she leaned against him and he could feel the warmth of her flesh through the thin c.o.c.ktail dress. h.e.l.l, maybe he'd wind up making it with her if he played it right. She might be dumb, but she was certainly built for action. The top of her head was inches from his nose and he could smell her perfume. It was cheap stuff and she used a little too much of it. But there was no denying that it increased his desire for her.

Her room was on the floor beneath his. She led him inside and closed the door but didn't turn the lock, explaining that her husband couldn't possibly get home before one or two. Again, that was part of the pattern-but she shouldn't have bothered with the explanation. She was being too d.a.m.ned obvious about the whole thing.

She fished around in the dresser and came up with a fifth of blended rye, pouring tumblers full for each of them. He wondered idly whether she might be working it solo, planning on drugging him and picking his pocket. It was possible.

At any rate he had better things to do than swill cheap rye. When she wasn't looking he emptied his gla.s.s on the rug beneath the bed.

He slipped his arm around her and she turned to him, fastening her mouth on his. He kissed her and her tongue probed his mouth. Even if she played the rest of it wrong she knew what to do once she was in the bedroom, he decided. That one kiss had been enough to make him ache with desire for her.

Suddenly she stood up and reached behind her to unzip the dress. He stood up and helped, noting with approval that she wasn't wearing a bra. Everything under the dress was hers.

He had to draw in his breath. She had a superb body-firm and young and vibrantly alive.

He took a step toward her.

And then, right on schedule, a key turned in the lock, the door opened, and hubby walked in.

Baron was perfectly calm as he looked first at the man and then at the girl. The man should have had a gun; it would have made the situation more convincing. Outside of that the pair were effective actors. The girl was cringing against the wall. The man had fury blazing in his eyes and his hands were knotted into fists.

"Cut it," Baron snapped, suddenly angry at the amateur quality of the whole thing. "It doesn't work this time."

The man advanced on him, swearing.

Baron decided he had had just about enough of the whole thing. Besides, he wanted the girl, wanted her as he hadn't wanted a woman in a long time.

He meant to have her.

He met the man's rush neatly, blocking a punch and countering with a right to the chest. The man sagged and Baron chopped him savagely on the side of the neck.

Such a chop, properly done, kills a man. Baron had killed a man in just such a fashion several years back when he had to play it heavy for a change. This time he held back slightly with the blow. The man crumpled to the floor, alive but unconscious. He would remain unconscious for at least twenty minutes.

Baron turned to the girl. She was cowering against the wall, her eyes wide with terror that was quite probably genuine.

He laughed.

"Didn't expect that, did you? You ought to learn to tell who's a mark and who isn't."

"Please," she said. "Please."

"This time," he said, "you're going to have to go through with it. Maybe you'll learn better next time."

He took her by the shoulders and heaved her toward the bed. She stumbled for a few steps and sat down heavily. She didn't move.

Back in his own room Baron felt thoroughly relaxed for the first time in weeks. Sally English-or whatever her name might really be-was more woman than he had had in quite a while. She had one h.e.l.l of a body and she knew what to do with it.

Baron smiled, remembering and enjoying the memory. At first she had fought, but after a while she quit fighting and started to enjoy what she was doing.

He laughed suddenly, wondering what the poor dope of a partner would think when he came to. The guy had been expecting a mark, not a guy who would knock him cold. It served him right for being such a d.a.m.ned amateur.

Well, maybe they would drop out of the rackets now. The badger game was a short con to begin with and not an especially good one at that, but that pair wasn't cut out for anything so professional. Maybe the girl would hustle and the guy would pimp for her. He decided that the guy wasn't much better than a pimp. And the girl would make a fine hustler.

Amateur crooks. They only got in the way, lousing things up for the boys who knew which end was up. They didn't know who to take and who to pa.s.s up.

And they always got caught. And when they got caught they didn't know what to do, and so they wound up in the tank. Which, Baron reflected, was precisely where they belonged, the whole pack of them.

The professionals got caught too-but they didn't wind up in jail, not the smart ones. When they hit a town they found out who was the fixer and they established contact with the fixer before they started grifting. That way they stayed out of the jug.

If they got busted they either bought the cop right away or got word to the fixer, who bought whoever had to be bought. Sometimes the fixer would get to the mark and pay him off to get him to drop charges. That was the way most of the cannon mobs operated. If that failed, the fixer bought the judge. Almost any judge would square a small rap for the right price.

But amateurs! If a mark turned in Sally and her partner they would be lost. They might have the brains to get a lawyer, but if they did they'd still wind up doing a year or two apiece. Because the same judge who could be bought would go extra hard on an amateur, just to keep his record looking good.

The h.e.l.l with them, Baron thought. They deserved whatever happened to them.

Mentally he went over all the ways the pair had played the game wrong. To begin with, Sally's whole approach was too heavy. She should have sat down a stool or two away from him instead of right next to him. She should have let him offer to buy her a drink-the second drink, not the first. She should have mentioned her husband right away and then left the rest of it up to Baron.

And, of course, she should have caught on to what he was talking about. The first words he spoke were, "I'm working the C out of Philly." This meant, quite simply, that he was a confidence man who started originally in Philadelphia. But she didn't even listen to him.

Then, later, he had told her he had just finished pulling off a rag, a phony stock con. Anybody but a d.a.m.n fool would have caught that.

And her "husband" was just as stupid. He should have knocked first, then used the key. He was supposed to be expecting to find her in, so why in the h.e.l.l didn't he knock? And he should have had a gun. Not loaded, of course. Not even a real gun, if he wanted to play extra safe. But as soon as he came in swinging he was making things hard for himself. h.e.l.l, even a mark might have gotten lucky and clipped him one.

Well, that was all over. In a day or two he'd get a wire from Lou and head either for Denver or the coast. And he would have happy memories of Tulsa.

There was a knock on the door.

Baron swung himself off the bed, wondering who was at the door. Maybe the telegram, he thought. Or maybe Sally, back for another round.

He walked to the door and opened it.

The "husband" was at the door. There was a gun in his hand.

"Inside," the man said. "Get inside."

Baron backed up, puzzled. The man followed him and closed the door behind him.

"Look," Baron said, "go home. You made me for a mark and you missed. Quit while you're ahead."

The man said, "I'm going to kill you."

"You tried to cop a score and you blew it."

The man's eyes were blazing. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said. "All I know is you were with my wife. I just finished beating the c.r.a.p out of her. She won't be able to walk for a month. Now I'm going to kill you."

Baron just looked at him.

"She told me she was going to the movies," he went on dully. "I come back and she's with you. I always knew she was a tramp. I had to knock her silly before she'd tell me your name. And I had to give the clerk five bucks before he'd give me your room number.

"Now I'm going to kill you."

Baron started to laugh. No wonder their approach was so amateurish!

The man pointed the gun at him. Baron laughed again, thinking that it was really no time to laugh. But what the h.e.l.l else could he do?

The man pulled the trigger.

Baron sat down heavily on the bed and began laughing once more. He couldn't help it. In a few seconds he stopped laughing because he was dead.

BARGAIN IN BLOOD.

"YOU'VE GOT TO PROVE IT TO ME," she said. she said.

He puffed nervously on his cigarette before answering her. She was a very beautiful girl, very well put together and very desirable, and it wasn't often that a girl like this even bothered to talk to him. He had to be very careful; he didn't want to say the wrong thing and maybe spoil everything before it even got off the ground.

"How do you mean?"

She took the cigarette from his fingers and dragged deeply on it. "You know," she said, talking through the smoke. "You say you want me, right?"

"Right."

"That's important, Benny. A guy's got to want me or he doesn't get me. Dig?"

He nodded. He wanted her, all right. He wanted her from the first time he saw her, before he even knew her name. He wanted her so much sometimes that he couldn't sleep and just lay in bed thinking about her, thinking about the way her blond hair curled around her face and the way her body could twist a sweater out of shape.

All the time he thought about her, but he never expected to get her. Not him. Not Benny Dix, the little kid with the pimples. The little kid with no dough and no car to drive around in, the little kid n.o.body paid much attention to at all.

She had cla.s.s and he didn't; it was that simple. She was the type of chick who went with an important cat, a cat maybe like Moe. But she wasn't going with Moe now. She and Moe split, and now she was there for Benny. Maybe it didn't make sense, but it was nice. Real nice. She was so close to him now that he could reach out and touch her, and there was n.o.body else around the park, n.o.body to bother them.

"If you want me," she went on, "you got to show it. I need proof, Benny. You know why I broke with Moe?"

"Why?"

"No proof. Moe wanted me, but not enough to let me know it. You probably thought Moe was making it with me, didn't you?"

"I-"

"It's okay. Everybody thought so, but he wasn't. Not Moe or anybody else in this jerkwater town. Not because I'm cold, because I can be hot as a Nathan's hot dog for the right cat. But because I need proof. I could be hot for you, Benny."

He felt his hands starting to shake and struggled to control them. He'd give her the proof, whatever the h.e.l.l it was. It didn't matter: he had to have her, and that was all there was to it.

"What kind of proof?" His voice sounded hollow to him, hollow and nervous and tense, like when he was playing chickie and a cop car pa.s.sed right by the hardware store, and then the cop car slowed down and he didn't know what to do, whether he should holler chickie or just wait for the cops to take off. Then the cops stepped on the gas and disappeared, and that came out the right way.

She was looking at him now, her eyes drilling holes in his, studying him very carefully. There was something so intense and direct about her gaze that he wanted to turn away, as if she were staring at him the way he did when he undressed a girl with his eyes. But this was deeper-she was undressing his insides, trying to decide about him.

"I want you to kill somebody."

"What?"

She smiled. "That's right, Benny. You heard me right. I want you to take a blade and slip it right into a cat's guts, understand? That's the kind of proof I want."