I said, "Let's not make cracks about that. You can't help having the thought, but just keep it in your head, will you? I mean, you can talk things to death, you know."

Her eyes widened slightly. "I know," she murmured after a little pause. "I know. I'm sorry. You're really a pretty nice guy, aren't you?"

"Don't count on it."

"Hell," she said, "you've got to count on something. What kind of a life would it be if you didn't? There's a man here who worries me, Matt. He's working for Dad, and he scares me. He looks like… well, he looks a little like you. I mean, he's about five inches shorter, and his hair is dark, and I'd never want to be alone in a room with him, but he's got the same-"

"The same what?"

She frowned. "I don't know. There's really no resemblance, now I think of it, but… It's just a feeling, but somehow he reminds me of you. And Duke Logan. I bet he's got bullet-scars on him, somewhere. Watch out for him."

She reached out to touch my hand. "You see, I did stool-pigeon for you, just a little."

Chapter Ten

AFTER DINNER, we made the rounds of the gambling places. She was a roulette addict, which was nice for my simple mind. I never have understood the more complicated ways of losing money, like craps. As a matter of fact, I can't get much of a kick out of playing games where I know the odds are mathematically and inexorably against me-money games, that is. I played a few times, enough to make certain this wasn't the night I was meant to get rich; and then I just followed her around and watched her throw the stuff away.

What she did with her money didn't bother me, but she'd started drinking quite heavily, too, and you can never be sure, when they're young, just how much they know about their own capacities. I was tempted to warn her to slow down; but I had a hunch she was just waiting for me to make like a stern parent so she could inform me again that she was no teen-age kid, particularly not my teen-age kid, and that her alcoholic intake was none of my business. They're always so damn sensitive about their new-found adult independence, at that age. I kept my mouth shut and made each of my drinks last out two of hers, so that at least one of us would be able to find the way home when the time came. It was a long time in coming.

"Matt," she said abruptly, well on towards morning.

"Yes, kid?"

"Over by the pillar there. The man in the dark suit. I thought we might run across him, if we stuck it out long enough."

I didn't move at once. Then I picked up her white purse, took a cigarette from it, and a silver lighter with the initials M.F., for Moira Fredericks. I lighted a cigarette, took it from between my lips, and placed it between hers.

"Thanks, baby," she said. "Do you see him?"

I had him spotted, in the mirror inside the flap of the purse. "I see him," I said.

"That's the one."

She didn't have to tell me. I was looking at Martell. As usual, the picture and description I'd seen hadn't added up to anything much like the actual man. He had thick, black, glossy hair brushed straight back from his broad forehead, and a long mouth with thick, meaty, sexy lips- I remembered his weakness for women, that had cost him two official reprimands.

As Moira had said, he was wearing a dark suit, one of the few dark suits in the room. He had dark glasses on. It didn't make a damn bit of difference. He could have been wearing a mask and I would have known him. You learn to have a feeling for the people in your own line of business.

if you were working for a criminal organization, Mac had said, you'd be called enforcers… removers is a very good word. Martell was playing both roles now, proving, I guess, that there isn't much difference in actual practice.

He was packing a shoulder gun, I noted, to go with his cover as Fredericks' bodyguard. Judging by his dossier, he'd be fast with it, as fast as you can be with a rig like that. Not that it mattered. We don't go in much for face-to-face showdowns. When the time came that he needed a gun on my account, he'd either have all the time in the world to get it out, or no time at all.

"A real attractive specimen," I said, closing the purse. It took a little effort to do that, and to leave my back to him. I found myself wishing I hadn't left the.38 back at the motel. There's only one answer to a good pistolman, and that's another pistol. It's something they don't do so well across the water, where they tend to think of a handgun as just a portable rifle-sometimes they even equip them with folding stocks, for God's sake! They haven't got the fine old pistol traditions that we have. But Martell had been playing gangster long enough to be thoroughly acclimatized, I was sure. "How long's he been working for your dad?" I asked.

"I don't know," she said. "Not very long, I think, but he was here when I got back from… Don't pump me, Matt. I only pointed him out to you because… well, because there's something about him that frightens hell out of me."

"I know," I said. "He reminds you of me. That would frighten hell out of anybody."

She looked up from the table and made a face at me. "Get me a drink, will you, baby?"

I hesitated. Her voice was steady enough, but she'd had a lot and her eyes showed it. Her hairdo, as always when it was subjected to stress, had come slightly unraveled-but only enough to look kind of cute and windblown, and in other respects she was still quite presentable. But I didn't know what another would do to her, and I didn't really want to find out. You never feel quite the same about someone you've had to mop up after.

Well, she wasn't my child, she wasn't my wife, and it was hard to say if I could even call her my girl. I went and got her the drink, noting that Martell had disappeared. I wondered if he'd recognized me. It seemed unlikely, unless he had special information. They wouldn't have much of a dossier on me yet. After all, I'd only been back in the organization a year. He'd been away from his master files a long time. He'd looked at me, to be sure, but, as Fenn, it would be part of his job to keep track of guys hanging around the boss's daughter..

When I returned, Moira had left the wheel and was waiting by a potted palm nearby.

"Thanks," she said, and lifted the glass to her lips', and tasted the contents. Then she grinned at me over the rim, turned, and deliberately poured the liquor into the gravel at the base of the palm. "Okay, baby," she said. "That does it. You can stop worrying now."

"What have we been proving?" I asked.

"The books say it isn't hereditary," she answered, "but every now and then I kind of have to check up on the books-like after learning for sure my dear old daddy's a dope peddler."

"I never said-"

She paid me no attention. "Or am I insulting him by calling him that? I suppose his position is strictly administrative, and he never touches the nasty stuff with his own white manicured hands. That makes it much better, of course. That makes it just swell!" She swayed slightly, and steadied herself, and spoke in a totally different tone: "Jeeps, I'm starting to feel them, now I'm standing up. How do I look, ghastly?"

"No, but a comb wouldn't hurt."

She reached up. "The damn stuff's always falling down on me. I'll be right back. Stand by to carry out the body and revive it with black coffee." She took my hand and turned it so she could see my wristwatch. "My God, it's almost time for breakfast! Food? Ugh, what a horrible thought!"

We'd taken my truck, although it was less aristocratic than her open Mercedes, because Sheik 'would be more comfortable in it. The fact that I might not like a large hairy animal being comfortable among my bedding and camping gear obviously hadn't occurred to her. When she returned from making repairs-her hairdo neatly reconstructed for the second time that evening-we rode the elevator down, crossed the hotel parking lot in silence, and got into the pickup's cab.