Already my vision had dimmed; grayness swam before my eyes. I clasped my hands together, banged them up against Quinn's wrists - but his grip stayed firm. He was faster than I'd thought, and also he was not merely fat and flabby but fat and d.a.m.ned strong. I could feel myself getting weaker.

I slapped my hands against his face, got one thumb in the corner of his mouth, the other in one of his eyes and shoved, twisted, tried to pull his head apart. He yelled and jerked his head back, and his grip on my throat loosened.

On my knees I swayed forward, vision still blurred, but I could see Quinn's white throat swimming in the grayness around me. I threw my right hand forward, not in a fist but with the knuckles jutting out. The blade of knuckles mashed into his throat and he reeled backward, a harsh grating sound coming from his mouth. He was in pain, dazed, and I had time to set myself, slam my open right hand under his chin and hard against his throat. His red eyes nearly closed, he sagged limply. I slammed him again. That did it. He crumpled to the floor.

He was out, but I wanted him out for quite a while. I found the sap I'd dropped, moved back to Quinn, and swatted him in the middle of his forehead. His head wiggled a little; the rest of him didn't. I rolled his bulk aside, got my .38 off the carpet, then leaned over the open safe. It was about a foot and a half square, and I could see money, papers, a couple of portfolios down inside it.

I pawed at it, hauled the entire contents out and threw aside the stuff obviously useless to me, like the jewelry and money. There was too much of the material to carry under my outfit, so I had to check it right here and now for the most important items. In the first ten seconds I found one beauty. It was a letter to Quinn from John Porter, the minor city official - with a spotless reputation - whose name had been mentioned to me by Pinky, the same Porter I'd seen at the meeting with Quinn earlier today. The whole letter was interesting, but particularly one paragraph which said, "After all, we agreed on 500, so in the last six months you've saved 1200 by sticking me. Maybe times are tough, but I got to pay my income tax too - that's a joke."

The tone of the letter seemed more plaintive than angry, but I was quite sure it had made Quinn more angry than anything else. Mrs. Quinn, during our talk in the Lantern, had told me K. C. Flagg had been stuffing into his own pockets chunks of Quinn's payoffs to "The Boys" in town, and that when Quinn found out about it he'd stormed over to the Whitestone and had it out with Flagg; in addition she had told me her hubby learned of Flagg's thieving ways when one of the short-changed boys wrote Quinn a complaining and not-too-prudent letter. Jay, too, had told me much the same story.

I had no doubt that the letter in my hand was the same one to which Mrs. Quinn had referred, the one which gave Quinn his first knowledge that he was being cheated by his bagman, K. C. Flagg. Cheated in this one case - probably only one of many - out of $200 a month.

So that made the date on the letter especially interesting. It was dated the 23rd of November. Which meant it would have been delivered to Quinn on the 24th. And K. C. Flagg had been shot to death on the 24th of November.

The letter put some unsightly spots on Porter's spotless reputation - but it could ruin Quinn. Means and opportunity were easy; here was motive, in black and white.

I looked quickly through some of the other papers. There were a couple of the small tapes used for dictating machines, and I put them in my pile of stuff-to-take, just on general principles, along with a spool of regular recording tape. Several of the letters and papers looked extremely intriguing, and damaging to various and sundry characters, but I wasn't interested in those items at the moment.

Maybe I didn't have enough yet, but I had plenty to satisfy others besides myself of Quinn's guilt. I grabbed a handful of miscellaneous papers, added my Porter letter to the stack and stuffed the crumpled wad into one of my coat pockets, under the clown suit. The one large and two small tapes I wrapped in more of Quinn's doc.u.ments, and jammed that into the other pocket.

Then, as I started to toss a letter - or what looked like a letter - aside, my eye fell on the name "Semmelwein." I blinked, grabbed it again, started reading. It was four sheets clipped together, handwritten in a small script. The name of Ira Semmelwein was there, but only incidentally. It told a story, named names - a lot of names. I wanted to get the h.e.l.l out of here, but I took time to skim the four pages until I knew what I'd found. And next to the letter from Porter, this was the prize of the package. It was a suicide note. And it was signed, "Raleigh Prentice."

Raleigh Prentice, the wealthy and respected businessman who, on that night four years or so ago, had put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger. It had been an open-and-shut case of suicide, but no note had been found. I remembered, too, however, that Prentice had arranged to meet a man at his home that night, but had killed himself just before the man arrived. The man - Frank Quinn.

So there had been a suicide note. And it had been found, not by the police, but by Frank Quinn - when he'd been in the Prentice home that night immediately after Prentice's death, "comforting" hysterical Mrs. Prentice, phoning the police.

There wasn't time to digest all the note said, but in it Prentice confessed to being a sham, a fraud, a thief. He, in collaboration with several other men, some of them city officials, had paid - and received - graft and bribes, milked corporations, profited illegally from munic.i.p.al construction; they had skimmed the cream from contracts to build bridges, schools, roads, using inferior materials and pocketing the money thus saved. There was a long list of specific crimes, and the names of Raleigh Prentice's partners in corruption were named.

Among them were John Porter, Ira Semmelwein, James H. Trout, Phillip Brenmount - every one of the men I'd seen meeting with Quinn today, while watching on my television screen. All of them, and four or five others, a couple of whom I knew were dead now. Plus the name K. C. Flagg. So here in my hand, and then quickly added to the other material in my pockets, was the answer to what it was that had given Quinn his sudden boost up the crime ladder four years ago. This letter, written by a man who was going to kill himself because of what he revealed in it, was in the hands of a man like Quinn, a blackmail weapon of immense power. Obviously Quinn had used it well, and undoubtedly added other weapons of his own as time went on.

I had enough now. With this to support what I knew but hadn't been able to prove, it was more than enough.

I put my .38 back in its holster and got to my feet, and my eye fell on the phone on top of Quinn's black desk. I grabbed it, reached for the dial so I could put in a fast call to the police and get a dozen radio cars on their way out here. Right now was the time when I wanted lots of policemen around me - and there was sufficient, and legitimate, reason for calling them. The papers I had in my pockets - and a dead man in a clown suit. But there wasn't any dial on the phone.

I had the receiver at my ear and heard Nevada's tw.a.n.gy voice saying, "Yeah? Yeah? Frank?"

I almost slammed the phone back on the hook but I stopped in time. That might be just enough to cause Nevada to send some of the hired hands up here checking. Instead, I said in a thick slurred voice, "Hiya, pal. Gimme Oakridge 2-2348. Somebody heisted my dial."

"You better get the h.e.l.l out of there," Nevada said. "You ain't supposed to be in there. Frank around?"

"He's out. Gimme Oakridge 2-2348. Wanna talk to Mabel."

Nevada told me to go get another drink instead, and I let him talk me out of phoning Mabel. I hung up, sweating, then got Quinn's key, went to the door and unlocked it. For a moment I paused there, then with a last look at the havoc I was leaving behind me, I went out into the hall.

As I closed the door, I thought I heard something thump, either inside the room or nearby there in the hall. But a costumed man and woman were just coming up the stairs and looking toward me, so I stretched my painted grin even wider and walked toward them. Music floated up from the band below. The costumed couple grinned back at me and waved and pointed and did everything except dance a jig. They were drunk enough for eight people. I did a little dance step myself as I pa.s.sed them, and the guy roared with happiness and fell flat on the floor.

I started down the stairs. Everything looked about the same as it had when I'd come up. There was a lot of color down there, people dancing, spinning about, guests in bright outfits standing in groups and talking. For that moment I thought I'd make it. I had lost most of the buoyant, practically invincible feeling I'd had a few minutes earlier, but there was still some of it left, and I actually felt that I was going to be able to simply stroll out of the house and away.

I got almost to the bottom of the staircase.

There were only a few steps to go, and I was eyeing a group of four men nearby, just off the edge of the dance floor. Two of them I knew well, too well. They were Hal the Cad, whom I'd sent to Q on that one-to-ten burglary rap, and Tight-Pants McGoon, the ape whose skull I had opened with a garbage can. The third man was the bullet-headed killer, Jim Lester, and the fourth guy looked like a hired gunman, too. The thought had just entered my mind that it was going to be a nice feeling to get about ten miles away from such as these, when there was an unintelligible shout from the head of the stairs behind me.

The four men jerked their heads around to look past me, at the floor above. I could see almost every head in the place swing toward whoever had yelled. I knew who it was before I looked, but I looked anyway. He was leaning weakly against the banister at the head of the stairway. He didn't have a gun, but one hand was raised so he could point a finger at me. It was Barracuda. His mouth was red and puffed, and some of the blood had dropped down onto the long, black gownlike outfit that covered his clothing completely.

One of the four men near me said, "It's Hacker. Look at his mouth. What the - "

"Stop him!' Barracuda - or Hacker - shouted, his voice hoa.r.s.e, twisted as it pushed through his puffed lips. "Stop him, kill him!" He pointed that accusing finger straight at me and yelled, "Kill that clown!"

When I looked at the gathering again, almost all of the heads were turned toward me. Nearly two hundred pairs of eyes stared at me. The band stopped playing suddenly. I knew it was a forlorn, a dismal hope, but I tried to stretch my painted grin wider and hop clownlike down the last few steps, but the cause was long lost. And I knew it. I knew I wasn't going to make it.

In the silence Barracuda yelled again, harshly, "Kill that clown! It's Sh.e.l.l Scott!"

Eighteen.

My name hit that gang of thieves and cutthroats like a bomb.

That name had been the center of attention for hours, for days, to most of these hoods. Many of them had been ordered to hunt for me, find me, kill me; they knew a price of ten thousand bucks was on my head; I had clanged up against a lot of them in the past, and in just the last three days I had built in several of them a hatred amounting to mania. The friends of Turkey Grant, whom I'd shot on the Freeway - and the pals of Papa Ryan. Fargo, with his own peculiar reasons, not to mention his split eye; Blister, breathing through his mouth; Shadow on crutches . . . Hal and McGoon and Speedy and more, many more, too many more.

The silence held for half a second, then was broken by a great hiss, like wind rising, the sucking of air into many throats, a collective gasp. And then the growl, the harsh, growing, ugly sound of a crowd, a mob, a murderous mob. It was an animal sound, half growl and half whine, the volume rising suddenly to a blood-curdling roar.

It happened in seconds after Barracuda's cry. And I didn't hesitate. Even as his words stopped bouncing off the walls and the crowd started to roar I spun around and sprinted up the stairs toward Barracuda.

Somebody behind me was almost as fast. A shot cracked out and a bullet plucked at my clothing like Death's fingers. But then I was almost up to Barracuda, and any more shots might have hit him instead of me. With that thought in mind I ducked under Barracuda's reaching hands, wrapped my left arm around his waist and yanked him toward me as I drove my right hand into his gut. I kept my hand open, fingers jabbing stiffly, and in the right place the blow would have killed him. But it bent him forward, air exploding from his lungs, and I grabbed him, wrestled him up onto my shoulder.

In the exertion, I felt my ta.s.seled clown cap pulled off. It fell, a bright spot of color, to the steps. I knew that my blasted white hair, now that it was uncovered, was probably just as bright as the cap. Behind me, I heard a couple of yells from men who thought they recognized me. One of them shouted, "It's Scott, all right! I'd know that - "

But I missed the rest of it. At least there weren't any more shots; Barracuda over my shoulder was a temporary shield. If we had been standing still, my colorful clown costume against his somber black would have made an easy target - but I was moving.

I ran with him, hardly noticing his weight, toward the room where Quinn and the dead man lay. Heavy feet pounded up the stairway behind me. The door to Quinn's office stood slightly ajar. I bent forward and hit the door, let Barracuda fly off my shoulder and crash heavily against the floor inside the red-and-black room while I grabbed under my coat for the .38.

With the familiar b.u.t.t of the Colt in my fist I swung around, raising the gun. Two men were at the head of the stairs. Bullet-headed Jim Lester was a step in the lead, a big revolver in his hand, and even as I spotted him he blasted one shot at me.

But just one.

I knew I'd be dead in ten seconds if I didn't stop those b.u.ms who were running up here at me, and because it was Jim Lester, and because he was shooting at me besides, I didn't even have to think about what I was going to do. I was already aiming at his chest when his gun blasted at me, and I squeezed the trigger gently, thumbing back the hammer and getting off a second shot moments after the first one.

Both of them hit Lester, the first one stopping him, and the second spinning him a little to one side. He staggered and the man alongside him - it was Hal the Cad - let out a yell, turned and jumped about six steps down the stairs. That wasn't enough for me. I knew the others would be coming up again too soon if I didn't scare h.e.l.l out of them and slow them down. I had a clear shot at Hal's legs, but he was moving fast and it was plain luck that I hit him. If I hit him. His right leg crumpled, though, just as my gun cracked, and he rolled end over end to the foot of the stairs.

Jim Lester was still turning around, easily, almost gracefully. The gun dangled from his fingers, then dropped. He stepped forward, got his foot on the first step as if he were going to walk down them. But that was the best he could do. It was queer the way he fell. His arms dropped first, hands dangling at his sides. Then he toppled forward like a tree falling. He landed heavily, and stuck there, feet on the second or third step, his face pressed against a step lower down. He didn't roll any farther, just lay there. He didn't move.

That would hold them awhile. But it didn't much matter. It wasn't going to be any help to me. I'd had it. I'd really had it, and I felt cold all over. Mentally I cursed myself for an idiot, a brainless slob, for coming here in the first place. There wasn't a chance I could get out. Nearly a hundred bloodthirsty gunmen all dying to kill me, and an electrified fence around the place. I swore. It was that blasted woman that got me into this. That Doris Miller. It's always a woman, I thought miserably.

But then for a moment I could see that gorgeous face before me, that sensational body, and it actually soothed my jangled nerves a bit. At least the vision changed the direction of my thoughts a little, and for a second or two I stopped thinking of getting killed and began thinking of how to stay alive. That was enough. All of a sudden it hit me. Maybe there was a way out of here. Maybe I could stay alive after all. Ah, women are good for me. No doubt about it.

I jumped inside Quinn's office and started yanking off my clown costume, ripped it in my hurry. Then I looked out the door again. Down below, at the foot of the stairs, Hal the Cad, the man I'd shot in the leg was pulling himself over the floor like a crippled crab. Only a couple other men were in sight, the rest of them were where I couldn't see them, or shoot them. That was fine with me.

I aimed close to one of the two men visible, and fired. All of a sudden n.o.body except the injured man was in sight, and then he too was among the missing. I left the doorway, jumped back into the room. Barracuda was just starting to stir, and I didn't have time to do the thing nicely. I kicked him in the head. His gun was still on the floor, against the wall. There were only two bullets left in my revolver, so I stuck the .38 back in its holster and shoved Barracuda's .32 into my belt, then grabbed the unconscious man.

I wrestled with him, pulled off the black robe that covered him, jumped back to the door. Already, in the few seconds it had taken me, a couple men had started cautiously up the stairway. Not cautiously enough, however. I emptied Barracuda's .32 into them and at them. One of them fell backwards, the other ran.

It took me about five seconds to pull the black robe over me. Then I grabbed off the floor the hood which had been part of Barracuda's Executioner costume. With it over my head I could see through the eyeholes - not well, but at least the thing covered my painted-clown face, and the white hair. Some might soon wonder why the mask was being worn, but with luck there would be too much going on in a minute for clear thinking to take place. And it gave me a chance - a pretty good chance, I was beginning to believe.

I was even feeling halfway good again. Clammy and sweaty, and unhappy at the same time, but so keyed up that I felt almost as if I might dissolve into popping atoms. A glance out the office door showed me that another brave, or foolhardy, hood had started up the stairs. Behind him were a couple others, less daring. Fine. Now they could come up and shoot me.

I was grinning involuntarily under my black hood and grease paint as I turned and jumped back into the office, and then went on into the next room where the dead man still lay. The dead clown - Sh.e.l.l Scott.

Somebody had already mistaken the guy for me; why not again? I'd thought for a moment earlier, when I'd first seen him, that he was a reflection of me; except for the switch in the color of his nose, and the b.u.t.tons on his outfit, we had been clothed in almost identical fashion. And I was now dressed exactly as Barracuda had been, in the black robe and hood. It would have looked good, I thought, even to me.

There was so much adrenalin and thyroxin and pituitin and maybe vegetable soup in my veins by now that I lifted the dead clown clear up on my shoulder with no more effort than if I'd been lifting a sack of potatoes. Then I trotted heavily toward the door of this second room, the bedroom which opened at the head of those stairs. I got the door opened and staggered forward through it, my arms wrapped tightly around the dead clown's waist.

Past him I could see the three men, now at the head of the stairway. They all had pistols in their hands and two of them pointed the guns at me and the clown, but the other yelled something and they didn't fire. I couldn't see what they did then, because as soon as I toppled through the door clutching my clown, I fell forward to the floor at the head of the stairs, rolling, holding the dead man's arms tight to his sides.

As I reached the stairs I got my feet under me somehow and half raised up, pulling the clown along with me, muscles stretching painfully in my back and side, but I got him up far enough. His head fell backward limply, but I moved so fast that maybe n.o.body noticed. As his head dropped back I slammed a fist against his chin. He fell back loosely, like a rag man, toppling over the body of Jim Lester, hitting the steps and starting to roll very slowly down to the next one.

This whole operation had taken only four or five seconds, and before he rolled more than an inch my .38 was in my hand. There was a h.e.l.l of a lot of noise, a real pandemonium with voices and shouts and screams, with the three men now behind me and a dozen more below coming up making a lot of racket, but at least those nearest me must have heard me shout hoa.r.s.ely, with my voice as near to rasping huskiness of Barracuda's as I could make it: "Kill that clown! I told you he's Sh.e.l.l Scott!"

And I fired my last two .38 slugs into the dead man's body.

Before I even poured the second one into him, though, at least six other shots sounded. A lot of the hoodlums helped me kill that slob, Sh.e.l.l Scott. So many guns fired almost at once there that for a few moments it sounded as if somebody were letting fly with a machine gun. There was even one woman popping at me with a chromed .22 pistol and I thought, "What did I ever do to her?" But all of a sudden there was nearly complete quiet.

After the staccato bark and boom of guns, the silence was almost oppressive, heavy and thick. The dead man's body was still moving, turning slightly as it settled onto the lower step of the stairs, but then it stopped, was still. It looked as if he had just been shot, and suddenly stopped living. Right now everybody here thought Barracuda had fought valiantly and fiercely, and just eliminated, with the help of a few other guns, that foul and much unloved private eye, Sh.e.l.l Scott.

In fact, one little hoodlum was looking down at the clown's body, with his mouth hanging open, and then he said, "You know, they was times when I thought that fink, Scott, wouldn't never get killed."

Nineteen.

I was starting to feel weak. A flush went over my skin, and then it got a little chilled. Man, my glands were about to give up in disgust. I'd no more let them get a little calmed down than something would happen to light their fuses again. And right now I was thinking about how far I still had to go to get out of this joint.

With my voice harsh and rasping in my throat I said, "Haul the jerk out back. I'll tell Nevada what happened."

And with that I walked on down the stairs. n.o.body stopped me. I was still Barracuda, or Hacker, to them, walking out to tell the gateman what the score was. n.o.body had yet asked why it was necessary for the black-robed Hacker to tell anybody at the gate anything. Or why I was wearing the hood over my head still - when it hadn't been on at the start of my battle, when "I" had appeared at the head of the stairs shouting "Kill that clown!" Or why the corpse of white-haired Sh.e.l.l Scott was now wearing a ta.s.seled clown cap, when his cap had fallen off earlier and was even now lying on the stairs. Everybody was still pretty well shaken up - and emotional rather than logical - for the moment.

I had told the men to carry the corpse out back, because I sure didn't want them going upstairs and finding the real Barracuda - and their host, Frank Quinn - sprawled out in Quinn's office. That was bound to happen sooner or later, but the later it happened, the sooner I'd like it. I walked through the softly muttering crowd, and my black-robed and black-hooded figure got a good many stares. Even among killers and burglars and thieves of all descriptions, a gun battle and killing is not usually the height of the festivities at a party. And all in black, I must have looked pretty creepy, anyway, like Death striding among the revelers.

But I made it to the hall and down it to the front door, and outside. The air was cool; it felt like rain. I was wet with perspiration and the chill in the air transferred itself to my skin, and then my bones. I walked toward the rented Lincoln, feeling for the keys. I couldn't find them. In all the running around and fighting I might have lost them.

Several men had come out the door behind me. Some of the guests were undoubtedly preparing to leave, without even saying goodbye to the host - and that was just dandy with me; I didn't want them saying goodbye to their host. It might have looked odd for the real Barracuda to hop in a Lincoln to drive the short distance to the gate. Especially if he drove a Mercury, say. But that was a chance I was willing to take. Walking out of here on foot, however, was simply asking for it. But I kept fumbling in pockets, and at last my fingers closed around the metal key; it had been buried in a ma.s.s of papers I'd stolen - at least I still had them.

In the Lincoln, I gunned to the gate and slid to a stop in front of it. A light on top of the gatehouse illumined the darkness around us for twenty or thirty yards. Nevada was just stepping out of the little house, the familiar shotgun in his hands. Only it wasn't in the crook of his arm this time; he held it at the ready, finger curled around the trigger, both barrels pointed at my head.

I looked out the car window toward him and the gun, and he just dissolved away out of my sight. All I could see was the round ends of those two barrels, and for half a horrible second I thought he was going to shoot me. I thought he was going to blast my head off. Those two round holes of the shotgun muzzles seemed to swell in my sight until they looked like cannons aimed at me, and I kept waiting for two eight-inch sh.e.l.ls to fly out and pop me in the kisser.

Well, I thought, what a h.e.l.l of a way to go. There won't be anything left of me. Just little shreds, and unidentifiable bits. Sh.e.l.l Scott will just disappear. But then I snapped out of my dizziness. There is something unnerving about a shotgun aimed at you. It can't kill you any more than a .22 pistol can, say, but it sure gives the impression that it can kill you deader.

Dust was still swirling from my sudden stop before the closed gate. Nevada said, "What in tarnation's goin' on? Somebody jest called up from the house and said n.o.body ain't to go in nor out."

So that meant I wouldn't be getting out through the gate for a while - not, at least, with Nevada's help. Looking beyond him into the gatehouse I could see two phones sitting on a wooden counter in there. Probably at this very moment, some of the party guests were ogling the unconscious Quinn, and Barracuda. That was probably what had caused the call to the gate.

So I swung open the car door and stepped out, saying, "That's what I came out to tell you. Keep the gate closed, Nevada, and - "

He was squinting at me, and the shotgun was staring wide-eyed at me, and he said, "You ain't Hacker. What's your name, boy?"

"No," I said. "Hacker and me wound up with the same outfit. I'm, uh, Whitey McGafford." Then I pulled off the hood and threw it back into the car. The clown paint was still smeared on my face. It must have puzzled Nevada, but that was O.K. with me; I wanted him puzzled for the next minute or so. And I was going to try to keep him off balance long enough for me to get a phone call out of here.

"McGafford," he said slowly. "I don't remember no - "

"Oh, shut up," I said. "Where's the phone? The boss is shot up and d.i.n.ky's dead, so cut the gab. I got to call somebody for the boss."

"Hey, wait a minute. Who's d.i.n.ky?"

"What difference does it make? He's dead," I said. And I didn't wait. Possibly I was still dizzy from looking into those eight-inch cannons, but the shotgun was back to normal size now and I walked past it into the gatehouse. Only one of the two phones had a dial. I grabbed it, turned it so that Nevada couldn't see the numbers, and dialed the complaint board at the Police Building.

Nevada stepped into the doorway, about two yards from me, and moved the shotgun so that it pointed at my stomach. "Who you callin'?" he asked. And he didn't sound so puzzled now as just plain mean. "And what'd you say about the boss being shot?"

"I don't know all of what happened," I said roughly, "but there was a drunk in Quinn's office, and there was some kind of beef." Nevada's face smoothed out a little when I mentioned the drunk. He knew I was telling the truth about that - he'd talked to the drunk himself. "Frank's not hurt bad," I said, "but he wants n.o.body but Hotshot Dutton sticking a probe into him. Bullet's still in his side."

"You callin' who?" Nevada said.

"Hotshot."

The timing was perfect.

The officer at the complaint board had just answered, and I said it again, "Hotshot!" Looking at Nevada, I added, "Doctor Dutton, to you, the guy who's going to dig the bullets out of Frank Quinn and about a hundred other guys at Quinn's ranch. How many times do I have to tell you?"

In the Police Building, the term Hotshot is applied to urgent calls which come in to the complaint board and are simultaneously transmitted to Homicide or Robbery and the Detective Headquarters Unit - and to the rolling radio cars - all at once, even while the call is coming in on the phone. They would all hear the next words I said - if I had made the officer understand what I wanted.

But Nevada was squinting at me again and he said, "Why didn't you use a phone in there?"

"I told you, there was a beef in Frank Quinn's office. They shot some clown that's supposed to be Sh.e.l.l Scott - "

"Hold it, boy." Nevada was looking mean again. "Just you back up from that phone. Lay it down."