He pitched to the pavement, full in the cone of the headlights.

I sprinted across the fifty feet that separated us. The hole in his cheekbone was rimmed by droplets of crimson froth. His expressionless eyes blinked twice and stayed open, focused on my knees.

There didn’t seem to be anyone about. I turned a circle on my heels to make sure. As I completed the turn, my eyes fell on Cutter’s heavy .357 revolver. Of all the people I’d known, Cutter had been most likely to die by the sword. Sometimes I had thought he was just batting around seeking a place to die. He had found it.

I picked him up and put him in the squad car, put the Magnum in his hand and drove the squad car through the alley; I parked it behind the Cadillac and left Cutter dead behind the wheel. Then I walked over to the pink Cadillac and pressed the Walther pistol into Brawley’s dead hand. Paraffin tests would prove Brawley hadn’t shot him, but a superficial investigation would suggest he had. And I had no doubt the Walther was the same gun that had killed Aiello. It had been in Brawley’s safe and I presumed it was registered to Brawley. Let the cops figure it out. There was nothing to tie me in, except DeAngelo, and he wasn’t likely to finger me for the cops.

I had things in mind for DeAngelo. I walked back out to the Jeep and drove away; in the bed behind me, wind rattled the bedsheet bundles of money.

Chapter Eleven

I eased Joanne’s beige convertible to the curb by a roadside phone booth and switched off the ignition. The morning sun whacked the boulevard, traffic swishing by. Joanne said, “Are you sure we have to do it this way?”

“Yes. Scared?”

“Yes.”

I patted her hand, got out, and went into the phone booth. It was Freddie’s dull voice that answered my ring and I asked him to call Madonna to the phone. Madonna came on the wire growling. “Where are you?”

“Is that the only question you know how to ask?”

“Listen, Crane, I—”

“Let me do the talking. You want to know where that missing property is, don’t you?”

“You son of a bitch.”

“Sure. Look, the reason I’m calling first, I don’t want to get mown down by artillery on your doorstep. I’m coming up to your house and I’m bringing Mrs. Farrell with me.”

“Come ahead,” he said. “I’ll be waiting.”

“Not like that,” I snapped. “I know where that property is, but you’ll never find it if you don’t give me a chance to talk to you.”

“You’ll have plenty chance to talk to me, Crane. I promise you that.”

“Not under a gun,” I said. “You may recall there were certain items in that shipment of property which could make things a little uncomfortable for you if they got released to the wrong parties. Some of those items are in the care of a person who’ll release those items at midnight tonight unless I intercept that person and give instructions not to release it. And don’t think I can be pressured into giving you that person’s name, because even if the muscle boys went to work on me they wouldn’t be able to get to this person in time to keep the stuff from being released. You understand?”

The cold bass voice said, “Crane, you’re talking into a dead phone. Get the hell up here. I’ll listen to what you’ve got to say but let’s quit making threats. I don’t like threats.”

“Sure—just so we understand each other. One more thing. Don’t believe everything Pete DeAngelo tells you.”

“I don’t believe everything anybody tells me. You’ve still got till noon to close our deal. It’s ten o’clock now. When will I see you?”

“We’ll be there in twenty minutes,” I said, and hung up.

I slipped into the driver’s seat. Joanne said, “All set?”

“All set.”

“Put your arms around me, darling.”

I did. Nose to nose, we drowned in each other’s eyes. I grinned at her. I felt jumpy but alert; I had taken a speed tablet, one of Nancy Lansford’s diet pills. We had been up all night, busy.

We kissed at length, right out in what Mike would have called bare-ass daylight, and when Joanne straightened out and arranged herself on the seat she said, “I’ll probably never stop thanking you for what you did with that film.”

I turned the key and pulled out into the traffic, heading for the foothills. I had burned the movie film at my house at midnight and flushed the ashes down the toilet. It had made a terrible stink, the burning film. I hadn’t looked at it before destroying it.

It was the only part of the loot I hadn’t examined, in detail; that was what had taken all night. That, and arranging for the safekeeping and possible release of the material—my weapon against Madonna and DeAngelo.

We turned onto the Strip. Joanne said, “I’m still scared to death. I will be until it’s over.”

“It’ll work,” I said. I grinned at her. “If you can’t join ’em, lick ’em.”

“I know, but something could go wrong.”

I didn’t answer. We were underdogs against the organization, of course. But the weapon of an underdog’s survival is cunning. With a little luck we might come out all right. But she was right, there were risks. I was sure DeAngelo had spent the night trying to find a wall to nail us to. It would be a bad mistake to underestimate him.

By the time we crunched to a stop behind the beautiful old Continental in Madonna’s driveway, Freddie the Neanderthal had the door open and was standing there, leaning forward like Buster Keaton, wearing a rumpled sports jacket over his gun and glowering at us. I saw DeAngelo’s Mercedes and the blue Ford that Senna and Baker had visited us in. That was all right; the more muscle in the house, the better—if my scheme worked.

I got out carrying the briefcase, walked around and opened Joanne’s door. She turned sideways on the seat and came out legs first, moving prettily, a girl of supple grace. With my back to Freddie, I tried to reassure her with a smile. She reached for my hand and clutched it hard. We went up to the door and Freddie said in a monotone, “I got to frisk you.”

“Frisk me if you want. But the briefcase stays locked and you’ll keep your paws off the lady.”

“Now you know I can’t—”

I cut him off harshly: “You’ve got enough torpedoes inside the house to cut us to pieces before we make the first half of a false move. Hold your gun on us if you want.”

He looked us up and down. Pointing to the briefcase he said, “What’s in there?”

“Papers. For the Don’s eyes only.”

The husky rasp of Pete DeAngelo’s ruined voice shot forward from the room behind Freddie: “Okay, Freddie, never mind. Let them in and keep both eyes on them.”

Freddie stepped aside. We walked into the house. I felt the cold clutch of Joanne’s tensing hand in mind.

There were deep vertical lines between DeAngelo’s eyebrows. He wore a short-sleeved shirt and his arm was thickened by a bandage where I’d shot him last night. Cold, ruthless, hard and direct, DeAngelo gritted his neat white teeth in a satanic grin. He pointed to the antique Seth Thomas clock above the marble mantel and said, “The race is just about over, Crane, and you’re about to finish out of the money.”

So he had decided to bluff it through. That was all right by me.

Two men walked in from one of the house wings and posted themselves, without comment, on either side of the door through which they had just come. Ed Baker and Tony Senna. They both wore guns in unconcealed shoulder holsters. Senna looked into the doorway and nodded his head, and only then did Vincent Madonna make his entrance.

Madonna looked tired. His wrinkled suit jacket was undone and, as before, he wore no tie; his open collar revealed a tangled mat of dark hair. Big-rumped, he moved to the fireplace, ten feet in front of us, and set himself in a hipshot pose with one arm on the mantel. There was no preamble; he only said, “Okay, you’ve got the floor.”