Heller knocked on the living-room door. It did not open. He turned the knob and went in.

No Babe.

Some sounds were coming from beyond another door across the room. Heller went over and opened it.

It was a sort of den. It had a fireplace but there was no fire in it. A crucifix hung on the wall. The rug was black.

And there sat Babe. She was crumpled up on her knees. She had a sackcloth over her head. She had taken ashes from the fireplace and was smearing them on her face.

"Mia culpa," she moaned. "Mia magna culpa. It is my fault, it is my great fault."

She was crying.

She sensed someone had entered.

She looked up, tears coursing through the ashes on her face, making two clean streaks.

She saw him.

"Oh, Jerome," she groaned. "My own son a traditore!" She bent over, weeping. "My own son, my own son!"

Heller tried to walk forward to her. "Mrs. Corleone, please believe me...."

Rejection was instant. Palms flat toward him, she blocked his further approach with a gesture. "No, no, do not come near me! Somehow, somewhere you have tainted blood! You have stained the honor of the family! Do not come near me!"

Heller dropped to his own knees, distant from her. "Please, Mrs. Corleone, I did not have..."

"Traditore!" she spat, scuttling back to get away from him. "You have broken your poor mother's heart!" She made a grab at the fireplace. She took out a newspaper that was only partly burned. The face of Faustino could be seen. The movement fanned the sparks that clung to it. They fanned into sudden flame as she shook it in the air.

"You have brought dishonor to the name of Corleone!" she cried. "My own son has turned against his family!"

She cast it out from her into the fireplace. "I have tried and tried to be a good mother to you. I have tried and tried to bring you up right! And what thanks do I get? What thanks, I ask you! The mayor's wife was on the phone!" Her voice rose to a wail. "She said I was such a stupid fool I did not even know I had a traitor in my own camp! And she laughed! She laughed at me!"

She was trying to find something suddenly. The fire tongs! She threw them at Heller. "Get out!" They landed against the wall with a clang.

She got the poker and threw it. "Get out of my sight!" It bashed into a chair with a splintering thud.

She grabbed the shovel and pitched it. It almost struck Heller in the face. As it clattered against the floor, she was shrieking, "Go away!"

She got hold of the stand they had been in. She threw it with all her might. It smashed against the door! "Go! Go! Go! Get out, out, out!"

Heller backed up. He went out of the room.

The sound of her renewed weeping was like a dirge. Heller walked slowly to the hall.

Neither Geovani nor Georgio were in sight.

He picked up his coat and cap from the hall floor. He got into the elevator.

At the cab he slowly got in and drove away.

Oh, my Gods! Madison had done it! With just a simple trick of paper and ink and newspaper influence, out of whole cloth and without even an ounce of truth, he had turned Heller's most powerful ally against him!

What genius!

What a beautiful tool!

And Heller did not even suspect who was shooting at him! Or that anybody really was!

But this might still take a turn for the worse. Heller was tricky, too!

Heller drove to the Gracious Palms. He parked the old cab in its usual stall.

He took the elevator up. It was still early in the day and there was no interference on my viewer. I could see what he did. There were two whores in his suite. They were practicing ways to undo a wristlock. One of them asked, "Pretty boy, is it the thumb you use in this grip or the first finger? Margie says... Why, what's the matter?" She saw something must be very wrong when she looked closely at Heller's face.

He was opening cabinets and getting out suitcases. He was beginning to pack.

In alarm the two whores ran out. I could hear one pounding on doors down the hall, one door after another. The other whore was on the hall phone talking quickly.

Heller just kept on packing.

When he turned around, there were numerous women standing in the door in different states of undress. They looked alarmed. A high-yellow came forward, "Pretty boy, are you leaving?"

Heller didn't answer. He just went on packing.

There were more girls at the door. They were beginning to cry.

Heller was getting out the racks and racks of clothes and binding them with cords.

There was a commotion at the door. Heller looked up. Vantagio had shouldered his way through the mob of weeping girls.

"What the hell is this, kid?" said Vantagio.

Heller said, "Has Babe called?"

Vantagio said, "No," in a puzzled voice.

"She will," said Heller. "She will."

Vantagio said, "Oh, kid. Babe sometimes gets upset. I should know. She gets over it."

Heller reached into his inside pocket. "Have you seen the morning papers?"

"I just got up," said Vantagio. "What have the morning...?"

Heller had handed him a ripped-off front page of the New York Grimes.

Vantagio stared at it. He took it in. He went white. "Good God!"

Heller was indicating the piles of clothes. "These are no good to anybody else. What would you say the bills were?"

"Oh, kid..." said Vantagio, sadly.

"How much were the tailor bills on these clothes?" demanded Heller.

"Kid, you don't have to..."

"Fifteen thousand?" said Heller.

"Five," said Vantagio. "No more than five. But kid..."

"Here's five thousand," said Heller and began to count out the bills. "My safe downstairs is empty. Now there's the matter of the old cab. Bang-Bang will need it so he can still say he has a job. He's on parole, you know. And he has to go on with my military classes at Empire University. So how much is the cab worth?"

"Oh, kid..." said Vantagio. He himself was beginning to look teary-eyed.

"Five thousand," said Heller. "We'll call it five thousand. It was expensive to rebuild. Now, was there anything else I owe here? ..."

Vantagio didn't answer. He had his face buried in a silk handkerchief.

Heller took his hand and put the ten thousand in it. He finished up stuffing things into his bags.

There were girls all around him, pleading with him. "Don't go, pretty boy, don't go!"

They were tugging at him.

He asked them to help carry his clothes. They would not touch them. He had to go get a cart himself. He loaded it.

"Kid," said Vantagio, pleading. "I think you are making an awful mistake. If she had intended you to go she would have called."

Heller said, "She intended."

He pushed the loaded cart to an elevator.

He went down to the basement. The girls, bare of feet and crying, came down in the other elevator.

Heller loaded the cab.

He looked back at Vantagio and the crowd. Two security men were standing there, looking sad, shaking their heads.

My viewer was misted.

Heller had tears in his eyes!

He drove away from the silent crowd. He could still see them in the rearview mirror. Then they were out of sight.

At the Empire State Building, he parked in a cab rank and got a hand truck. A cabby friend offered to take the old taxi to its nearby lot.

Heller wheeled the handcart to his office.

There was a side resting room there and he put some of his luggage in it. He put his toilet kit in the bathroom. He didn't have room for his clothes and he piled them on the sofas.

Izzy came in, saw the clothes. He didn't speak. He just looked aghast.

"I'll be living here," said Heller.

Izzy finally spoke. "I knew it would come to this. Fate has a way with it, Mr. Jet. And it always has more tricks waiting up the path."