"Give me a refill," I said.

The little man had cagy eyes and he used them on the whole room before he got around to me.

He came up the aisle, stopped at my booth, sat down across from me. "You gotta be Ed London," he said.

"That's right."

"You got the dough, London?"

I patted the left side of my jacket and felt my .38 snug in a shoulder rig. I patted the right side and touched the roll of bills Rhona Blake had given me. I nodded.

"Then we're in business, London. This is a place to meet and not a place to do business. Too many distractions."

He waved one hand at the bowling machine. I told him I had a drink on the way and he was willing to humor me. The bartender brought the drink. I paid for it. The little man didn't want anything and the bartender went back to tend the bar.

I studied the little man over the brim of my gla.s.s. He was a few years too old for the Ivy League shirt and tie. He had a low forehead to fit Lombrosi's theories of criminal physiognomy and a pair of baby-blue eyes that didn't fit at all. His nose was strong and his chin was weak and a five o'clock shadow obscured part of his sallow complexion.

"The broad could of come herself," he said.

"She didn't want to."

"But she could of. She didn't need a private cop. Unless she's figuring on holding out the dough."

I didn't answer him. I'd have liked to play it that way, but Rhona Blake wouldn't go for it. You can pay a blackmailer or you can push him around, and if you pay him once you pay him forever. And the little man looked easy to push around. But I was just a hired hand.

"You almost done, London?"

I finished my drink and got up. I walked to the door and the little man followed me like a faithful dog.

"Your car here, London?"

"I took the subway."

"So we use mine. C'mon."

His car was parked at the curb, a dark blue Mercury two or three years old. We got in, and he drove up Remsen Avenue through the Canarsie flatlands. A few years back the area had been all swamps and marshes until the developers got busy. They put up row on row of semi-detached brick-front houses.

There was still plenty of marshland left. Canarsie by any other name was still Canarsie. And it didn't smell like a rose.

"This is private enough," I said. "Let's make the trade."

"The stuff ain't with me. It's stashed."

"Is that where we're going?"

"That's the general idea."

He took a corner, drove a few blocks, made another turn. I looked over my shoulder. There was a Plymouth behind us...It had been there before.

"Your friends are here," I said. "In case you hadn't noticed."

"Huh?"

"Your protection. Your insurance."

He was looking in the rear-view mirror now and he didn't like what he saw. He swore under his breath and his hands tightened on the steering wheel. He leaned on the accelerator and the big car growled.

He said: "How long?"

"Since we left Remsen."

He grunted something obscene and took a corner on less wheels than came with the car. The Plym picked up speed and cornered like a wolverine. A good driver might have beaten them-the Merc had enough under the hood to leave the Plymouth at the post. But the little man was a lousy driver.

We took two more corners for no reason at all and they stayed right with us. We ran a red light at Flatlands Avenue and so did they. The little man was sweating now. His forehead was damp and his hands were slippery on the wheel. They chased us for two more blocks and I dug the .38 out and let my finger curl around the trigger. I wasn't sure what kind of party we were going to, but I wanted the right costume.

The Plymouth came alongside and I pointed the gun at it. There were three of them, two in front and one in back. I had a clear shot but I held it back-for all I knew they were police. They've got a strict law for private detectives in New York State: shoot a cop and you lose your license.

But he wasn't a cop. Cops don't tote submachine guns, and that's what the boy by the window was holding. The Plym cut us off and the little man hit the brakes, and then the submachine gun cut loose and started spraying lead at us.

The first burst took care of the little man. A row of bullets plowed into his chest and he slumped over the wheel like the corpse he was.

And that saved my life.

Because when he died his foot slid off the brakes and came down on the accelerator, and we went into the Plymouth like Grant into Vicksburg. The tommy-gun stopped chattering and I hit the door hard and landed on my feet. I didn't make like a hero. I ran like a rabbit.

The field had tall swamp-gra.s.s and broken beer bottles. I zigged and zagged, and I was maybe twenty yards in before the tommy-gun took up where it had left off. I heard slugs whine over my shoulder and took a dive any tank fighter would have been proud of, landing on my face in a clump of tall gra.s.s. I turned around so that I could see what was happening and crawled backwards so that it wouldn't be happening to me.

The tommy-gun threw another spasmodic burst at me, way off this time. I got the .38 steadied and poked a shot at one of the three silhouettes by the roadside. It went wide. They answered with another brace of shots that didn't come any closer.

Some more of the same. Then the tommy-gun was silent, and I raised my head enough to see what was happening. The hoods were off the road and in their car, and their car was leaving.

So was the blackmailer's Mercury. Evidently the collision hadn't damaged it enough to ground it, because it was following the Plymouth down the road and leaving me alone.

I waited until I was sure they were gone. Then I waited until I was sure they wouldn't be back. I got up slowly and dragged myself back toward the road. The .38 stayed in my hand. It gave me a feeling of security.

A car came down the road toward me and I hit the dirt again, gun in hand. But it wasn't the Mercury or the Plymouth, just a black beetle of a Volkswagen that didn't even slow down. I got up feeling foolish.

There were skid marks on the pavement, a little broken gla.s.s as an added attraction. There was no dead little man, not on the street and not in the field. There was no blood. Nothing but gla.s.s and skid marks, and Brooklyn is full of both. Nothing but a very tired private cop with a very useless gun in his hand, standing in the road and wishing he had something to do. Wishing he was home on East 83rd Street in Manhattan with a gla.s.s of Courvoisier in one hand and something by Mozart on the record player.

I stuck the gun back where it belonged. I found a pipe in one pocket and a pouch of tobacco in the other. I filled the pipe, got it going, headed over toward Flatlands Avenue.

The third cab I stopped felt like making a run to Manhattan. I got into the backseat and pulled the door shut. The cabby threw the flag down and the meter began ticking up expenses to be charged to the account of a girl named Rhona Blake.

I sat back and thought about her.

TWO.

I saw her for the first time that afternoon. It was too hot to do much but sit in an air-conditioned apartment. I'd spent the morning waking up and writing checks to creditors, and in another hour it would be four o'clock and I could add brandy to my coffee without feeling guilty about it. For the time being I was feeling guilty.

The door must have been open downstairs because she rang my bell without hitting the downstairs buzzer first. I opened the door and she came inside.

"You're Edward London," she said. "Aren't you?"

I admitted it. I would have admitted to being Judge Crater or Ambrose Bierce or Martin Bormann. She had that kind of effect.

"May I sit down, Mr. London?"

I pointed at the couch. She went over and sat on it, crossing one leg very neatly over the other. I sat down across from her in my leather chair and finished my coffee.

She was beautiful. Her hair was ash blond, wrapped up tight in a French roll, and if there were any dark roots they were well hidden. She was tall, close to my own height, and built along Hollywood lines. Her mouth was a dark ruby wound and her eyes were a jealous green. She was wearing a charcoal business suit but the thrust of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s made you wonder what business it was.

Thirty, maybe. Or twenty-five. The really beautiful ones are ageless. I watched her open a black calf purse, find a cigarette, light it with a silver lighter. She smiled at me through smoke.

"I hate to barge in on you like this," she said. "But this was the only listing I could find for you. I thought it was your office."

"I work here," I said. "It's a good-sized apartment. And I live alone, so there are no distractions."

"You're not married?"

"No."

She nodded thoughtfully, filing the information away somewhere in that beautiful head. "I don't know where to start," she said suddenly. "My name is Rhona Blake. And I want to hire you."

"Why?"

"Because I'm being blackmailed."

"When did it start?"

"Yesterday. With a letter and a telephone call. The letter came in the morning mail and told me I would have to pay five thousand dollars for...certain things."

"Do you have the letter?"

"I threw it away."

I frowned. "You shouldn't have."

"I thought it was a joke. Or maybe I was just mad, and I tore up the note. A few hours later I got a phone call. It was the same thing again. A man told me to meet him in a bar in Brooklyn with the money."

I asked her what she wanted me to do.

"Meet him and pay him. Then bring the goods to me. That's all."

I told her she was crazy. "Blackmailers operate on the installment plan," I said. "If you pay him once you'll have to pay him again. He'll bleed you white."

"I can't help it."

"You can't go to the cops?"

"No," she said quietly. "I can't."

"Why not?"

"Because I can't. Let's leave it at that, Mr. London."

So we left it at that. "Then call his bluff," I said. "Tell him to go to h.e.l.l for himself. Chances are he'll throw the stuff away if he can't get anything out of it."

"No. He'll...sell it elsewhere."

"What's it all about, Miss Blake?"

"I can't tell you."

"Look-"

Her eyes were hard now. "You look," she said. "You don't have to know. To be perfectly frank, it's none of your business. I want you to do an errand for me. That's all. I want you to meet this man and pay him five thousand dollars and bring the goods to me. That's simple enough isn't it?"

"It's too simple."

"He won't go on blackmailing me. He'll give the material to you. I'm sure of it."

"Then maybe I'll do the blackmailing. Ever think of that?"

"I've heard about you." She laughed. "I don't think I have to worry."

I knocked the dottle out of my pipe and set it down in the ashtray. I started to tell her I was a private cop, not a messenger service. But the words didn't come out. She was getting on my nerves, being cool and competent and stepping all over my masculine pride, and that was a pretty silly reason to turn down a fee.

And a pretty silly reason to send Rhona Blake out of my life.

I said, "All right."

"You'll take the case?"

"Uh-huh. But I have to know more."

"Like what?"

"You could start with the ident.i.ty of the blackmailer. From there you could tell me what he's got on you, and what he's going to do with it if you can't pay, and why you're over a barrel. Then you can tell me a few things about yourself. Like who you are, for a starter."

"I'm sorry. I want to keep this matter a secret, Mr. London."

"Even from me?"