We ordered Double Queens apiece, with fries, and then grabbed a tile table on the side patio to the left of the building. The Burger Queen didn't serve beer, and the manager couldn't see us fish our beers out of the paper sack around to the side. We could look directly across the highway and see the drive-in exit.

Unless you're going out to dinner somewhere, eating at eight p.m. in Miami is on the late side. We were all used to eating around six, and so we were ravenous as we wolfed down the double burgers. We didn't talk until we finished, and then I gathered up the trash and dumped it into the nearest garbage can. Don ripped the tops off three more beers.

Below Kendall, at this point on the Dixie Highway, there were six lanes, and the traffic was swift and noisy both ways. Eddie began to laugh and shake his head.

"What's so funny?" I said.

"The whole thing - what else? I know there isn't a hellova lot to do on a Thursday night, but if I ever told anyone I sat around at the Burger Queen for two hours waiting for my buddy to pick up a woman at a drive-in movie-"

"You'd better hope it's at least an hour-and-a-half," Don said.

"I know, I know," Eddie said, "but you've got to admit the whole business is pretty stupid."

"Yes, and no, Eddie," I said. "It isn't really money, either. You and Don both know that we'd all like to take Hank down a notch."

Don smiled. "I think you may be right, Larry.

"I'm not jealous of Hank," Eddie said.

"Neither am I," I said. "All I'm saying is that for once I'd like to see old Hank lose one. I like Hank, for Christ's sake, but I hate to see any man so damned overconfident all the time, that's all."

"Yeah," Eddie said. "I know what you mean."

Don snorted, and looked at his watch. "You'll have to wait until another time, I think. It's now eight-twelve, and here comes our wandering overconfident boy."

Don had spotted Hank's Galaxie as it cleared the drive- in exit, and Hank, waiting to make a left turn, was hovering at the edge of the highway when I turned to look. He had to wait for some time, and we couldn't see whether there was a woman in the car with him or not. He finally made it across and parked in the Burger Queen lot. We met him about half-way as he came towards us - by himself.

"How about a beer?" Hank said.

"We drank it," Eddie said.

"Thanks for saving me one. Come on. I'll introduce you to Hildy."

We followed Hank to the Galaxie. When he opened the passenger door and the overhead light went on, we saw the girl clearly. She was about thirteen or fourteen, barefooted, wearing a tie-dyed T-shirt, and tight raggedy-cuffed blue jeans with a dozen or more different patches sewn onto them. On her crotch, right over the pudenda, there was a patch with a comic rooster flexing muscled wings. The embroidered letters, in white, below the chicken read: I'M A MEAN FIGHTING COCK Her brownish hair fell down her back, well past her shoulders, straight but slightly tangled, and her pale face was smudged with dirt. She gave us a tentative smile, and tried to take us all in at once, but she had trouble focusing her eyes. She closed her eyes, and her head bobbled on her skinny neck.

"She's only a kid," Eddie said, glaring at Hank.

Hank shrugged. "I know. She looked older over in the drive-in, without any lights, but you guys didn't set any age limit. A girl's a girl, and I had enough trouble snagging this one."

"It's a cop-out, Hank," I said, "and you know it."

"Suit yourself, Fuzz-O," Hank said. "If you guys don't want to pay off, I'll cancel the debt."

"Nobody said he wouldn't pay," Don said. "But the idea was to pick up somebody old enough to screw. You wouldn't fuck a fourteen-year-old girl-" "That wasn't one of the conditions," Hank said, "but if that's what you guys want, I'll take Hildy home, give her a shower, and slip it to her. I sure as hell wouldn't be getting any cherry-"

The girl – Hildy - whimpered like a puppy, coughed, choked slightly, and fell over sideways in the seat.

"Nobody's going to hurt you, kid," Don said.

"She's stoned on something, Hank," I said. "You'd better get her out of there before she heaves all over the upholstery."

Hank bent down, leaned inside the car, and pushed up the girl's eyelids. He put a forefinger into her throat and then grabbed her thin right wrist to check her pulse. He slammed the passenger door, and leaned against it. His red, sunburned face was watermelon pink-about as pale as Hank was capable of getting.

"She's dead," Hank said. He took out his cigarettes, put one in his mouth but couldn't get his lighter to work. I lighted a cigarette myself, and then held the match for Hank. His fingers trembled.

"Don't play around, Hank," Don said. "Shit like that isn't funny."

"She's dead, Don," Hank said.

"Are you sure?" Eddie said.

"Look, man-" Hank ran his fingers through his fluffy hair, and then took a long drag on his cigarette. "Dead is dead, man! I've seen too many…too fucking many-"

"Take it easy, Hank," I said.

"What do we do now, Larry?" Don said. Hank and Eddie looked at me, too, waiting. At 28, I was the youngest of the four. Hank was 31, and Don and Eddie were 30, but because of my police background they were dumping the problem in my lap.

"We’ll take her to Hank’s apartment," I said. "I’ll drive Hank’s car, and Hank’ll go with me. You guys go on ahead in the Continental and unlock the fire door to the northwest stairway. Meet us at the door, because it’s closest to Hank’s apartment. Then, while you three take her upstairs to the apartment, I’ll park Hank’s car."

"Okay," said Don. "Let’s go, Eddie."

"Don’t run, for Christ’s sake," I said.

They slowed to a walk. Hank gave me his car keys, and I circled the car and got in behind the wheel.

On the way back to Dade Towers I drove cautiously. Hank sat in the passenger bucket seat beside me, and held the girl’s shoulders. He had folded her legs, and she was in a kneeling position on the floor with her face level with the dash glove compartment. He held her steady, with both hands gripping her shoulders.

"How’d you happen to pick her up, Hank?" I said.

"Thursday’s a slow night, apparently," Hank said. "There’re only about twenty-five cars in there. No one, hardly, was at the snack bar. I got a paper cup from the counter, and went outside to pour my beer into it. Sometimes, you know, there’s a cop around, and you’re not supposed to drink beer at the drive-in, you know."

"I know."

The girl had voided, and the smell of ammonia and feces was strong. Moving her about hadn’t helped any either. I pushed the button to lower the windows, and turned off the air-conditioning.

"That was a good idea," Hank said. "Anyway, I got rid of the beer can in a trash basket, and circled around the snack bar to the women's can. I thought some women might come out, and I could start talking to one, but none did. Then I walked on around the back of the building to the other side. Hildy, here, was standing out in the open, not too far from the men's room. She was standing there, that's all, looking at the screen. The nearest car was about fifty feet away - I told you there were only about twenty-five cars, didn't I?"

"Yeah. A lot of people don't come until the second feature, which is usually the best flick."

"Maybe so. The point is, nobody was around us. 'Hi,' I said, 'are you waiting for me?' She just giggled and then she mumbled something.

" 'Who?’ I said, and then she said, 'The man in the yellow jump suit.'

" 'Oh, sure,' I said, 'he sent me to get you. My name's Hank - what's yours?’ 'Hildy,' she said.

‘Right,’ I said. 'You're the one, all right. I hope you don't mind magenta instead of yellow.'

"Then she asked me for some of my Coke. She thought I had a Coke because of the red paper cup, you see. So I gave her a drink from the cup and she made a face. Then she took my hand, just like I was her father or something, and I led her over to my car. It was dark as hell in there, Larry, and I swear she looked older - around seventeen, anyway."

"That doesn't make any difference now," I said.

"I guess not. I wish to hell I had a drink."

"We can get one in your apartment."

The operation at Dade Towers worked as smoothly as if we had rehearsed it. I parked at the corner, ten feet from the door. Hank wrapped a beach towel around Hildy, an old towel he kept in the back seat, and Eddie opened the car door. The fire door to the stairway, which was rarely used, only opened from the inside. Don held the door partly open for Hank and Eddie, and they had carried her inside and up the stairs before I drove across the street and into the parking lot. After parking in Hank's slot and locking the car, I shoved Hildy's handbag under my T-shirt.

I knocked softly at Hank's door when I got upstairs. Don opened it a crack to check me out before he let me in. Hildy was on her back on the couch, with the beach towel beneath her. She was only about four-eight, and the mounted sailfish on the wall above her looked almost twice as long as she did. The sail's name in yellow chalk, "Hank's Folly," somehow seemed appropriate. When I joined the group, Hank handed me a straight Scotch over ice cubes.

The four of us, in a semi-circle, stared down at the girl for a few moments. Her brown eyes were opened partially, and there were yellow "sleepies" in the corners. There was a scattering of pimples on her forehead, and a few freckles on her nose and cheeks. There was a yellow hickey on the left comer of her mouth, and she didn't have any lipstick on her pale lips. Her skin, beneath the smudges of dirt, was so white it was almost transparent, and a dark blue vein beneath her right temple was clearly visible. She wasn't wearing a bra beneath her T-shirt; with her adolescent chest bumps, she didn't need one.

"She looks," Eddie said, "like a first-year Brownie." Don began to cry.

"For God's sake, Don-" Hank said.

"Leave him alone, Hank," I said. "I feel like crying myself."

Don sat in the Danish chair across from the TV, took out his handkerchief, wiped his eyes, and then blew his nose.

I emptied the purse - a blue-and-red patchwork leather bag, with a long braided leather shoulder strap - onto the coffee table. There were two plastic vials containing pills. One of them was filled with the orange heart-shaped pills I recognized as Dexies. The other pins were round and white, but larger than aspirins, and stamped "M.T." There was a Mary Jane, a penny piece of candy wrapped in yellow paper, the kind kids buy at the 7-Eleven; a roll of bills held together by a rubber band; a used and wadded Kleenex; and a blunt, slightly bent aluminum comb.

As I started to count the money, I said to Eddie, "Search her body, Ed."

"No," he said, shaking his head.

"Let me fix you another drink, Ed." Hank took Eddie's glass, and they moved to the kitchenette table. Don, immobilized in the Danish chair, stared at the floor without blinking.

There were thirty-eight dollars in the roll; one was a five, the rest were ones. I emptied the girl's front pockets. This was hard to do because her jeans were so tight. There were two quarters and three pennies in the right pocket, and a slip of folded notebook paper in the left. It was a list of some kind, written with a blue felt pen. "30 ludes, 50 Bs, no gold." There was only one hip pocket, and it was a patch that had been sewn on in an amateurish manner. The patch, in red denim, with white letters, read, KISS MY PATCH. The pocket was empty.

"There's no I.D., Hank," I said.

"So what do we do now," Eddie said, "call the cops?"

"What's your flying schedule?" I said.

"I go to New York Saturday. Why?"

"How'd you like to be grounded, on suspension without pay, for about three months? Pending an investigation into the dope fiend death of a teenaged girl?"

"We didn't do anything," Eddie said.

"That's right," I said. "But that wouldn't keep your name out of the papers, or some pretty nasty interrogations at the station. And Hank's in a more sensitive position than you are with the airline, what with his access to drug samples and all. If - or when -he's investigated, and his company's name gets into the papers, as soon as he's cleared, the best he can hope for is a transfer to Yuma, Arizona."

Hank shuddered and sat down at the coffee table beside me in the straight-backed cane chair. He opened the vial holding the pills that were stamped "M.T."

"Methaqualone," Hank said. "But they're not from my company. We make them all right, but our brand's called 'Meltin.' There're twenty M.T.'s left in the vial, so she could've taken anywhere from one to a dozen - or more maybe. Four or five could suffocate and kill her." Hank shrugged, and looked at the girl's body on the couch. "The trouble is, these heads take mixtures sometimes of any and everything. She's about seventy-five pounds, I'd say, and if she was taking a combination of Dexies and M.T.'s, it's a miracle she was still on her feet when I picked her up." He tugged on his lower lip. "If any one of us guys took even three 'ludes, we'd sleep for at least ten hours straight. But if Hildy, here, was on the stuff for some time, she could've built up a tolerance, and--

"Save it, Hank," I said. "The girl's dead, and we don't know who she is - that's what we need to know. The best thing for us to do, I think, is find the guy in the yellow jump suit and turn her over to him."

"What guy in what yellow jump suit?" Eddie said.

Hank told them what the girl had said, that she was waiting for a man in a yellow jump suit.

"Do you think it was her father, maybe?" Don said.

"Hell, no," I said, "whoever he is, she's his baby, not ours."

"How're we going to find him?" Eddie said.

"Back at the drive-in," I said. "I'm going to get my pistol from my apartment, and then we'll go back and look for him."

"D'you want me to take my pistol too, Larry?" Eddie asked.

"You'd better not," I said, "I've got a license, and you haven't. You and I and Hank'll go back. You'd better stay here with the girl, Don."

"I'd just as soon go along," Don said.

"No," I said. "Somebody'd better stay here with the girl. We'll go in your car, Hank." I handed him his keys. "I'll meet you guys down in the lot."

I went to my apartment, and changed into slacks. I put my pistol, a Colt Cobra .38, with a two-inch barrel, into its clip holster, and shoved the holstered gun inside the waistband of my trousers. To conceal the handle of the weapon, I put on a sand-colored lightweight golf jacket, and zipped up the front. Hank and Eddie were both in the Galaxie, Eddie in the back seat, and Hank in the cTriver's, when I got to the parking lot. I slid in beside Hank.

On our way to the drive-in I told them how we would work the search party. Hank could start with the first row of cars, going from one to the next, and Eddie could start from the back row. I'd start at the snack bar, checking the men's room first, and then look into any of the cars that were parked close to the snack bar. I would also be on the lookout for any new cars coming in, and I would mark the position of new arrivals, if any, so we could check them out when we finished with those already there.

"One other thing," I said. "If you spot the guy, don't do anything. We'll all meet in the men's room, and then we'll take him together. There aren't that many cars, and we should finish the search in about five minutes."

"What if he isn't there?" Eddie said. "Then we wait. I think he'll show up, all right. My worry is, he might not be alone, which'll make it harder to pick him up. But there aren't that many guys wearing jump suits, especially yellow ones, so we should be able to spot him easily enough."

"Not necessarily," Hank said. "He might be a hallucination, a part of the girl's trip. Hell, she came with me without any persuasion to speak of, and she would've gone with anybody. She was really out of it, Larry."

"We don't have to look for the guy, Hank," I said. "If you think it's a waste of time let's go back and get the girl and dump her body in a canal someplace."

"Jesus, Larry," Eddie said, "could you do that?"

"What else do you suggest?"

"Nothing," Eddie said. "But before we do anything drastic, I think we'd better look for her boyfriend in the jump suit."

"That's why we're going to the drive-in," Hank said.

I took a five and a one out of my wallet, and had the money ready to pass across Hank to the girl in the box office the moment Hank stopped the car. Hank had cut his lights, but I regretted, for a moment, not taking my Vega instead of returning in his Galaxie. The Galaxie, because it was leased by Hank's company, had an "E" prefix on the license plate. But because there were three of us in the car instead of only one, it was still unlikely that the girl would make an earlier connection with Hank.

We parked in the last row. The nearest car was three rows ahead of us. As we got out of the car, Eddie laughed abruptly. "What do we say," he said, "if someone asks what we're looking in their car for? Not everybody comes to this fingerbowl to watch the movie, you know."

"Don't make a production out of it," I said. "Just glance in and move on. If somebody does say something, ask for an extra book of matches. That's as good an excuse as any. But look into each car from the side or back, and you won't get into any hassles. Remember, though, if you do spot the guy, keep on going down the line of cars as before. Don't quit right then and head for the men's room. He might suspect something."

A few minutes later we met in the men's room. I lit a cigarette, and Eddie and Hank both shook their heads. I wasn't surprised. I hadn't expected to find any man in a yellow jump suit. In fact, I suspected that Hank had made up the story. And yet, it was wise to get all three of them involved. I had realized, from the beginning, that I would have to be the one who would have to get rid of the girl's body, but it would be better, later on, for these guys to think that they had done everything possible before the inevitable dumping of the kid in a canal.

"Okay," I said. "To make sure, let's start over. Only this time, you start with the first row, Eddie, and you, Hank, start with the back. It won't hurt anything to double-check."

"If you really think it's necessary," Hank said.

"We've got to wait around anyway," I said.

They took off again. It wasn't necessary, but I wanted to keep them busy. They didn't have my patience. These guys had never sat up all night for three nights in a row at a stake-out in a liquor store. But I had. I went around to the back of the snack bar, where it was darkest, and kept my eye on the box-office entrance, some hundred yards away. Two more cars, both with their parking lights on, came in. The first car turned at the second row and squeezed into an empty slot. The second car, a convertible, drove all the way to the back, and parked about three spaces to the right of Hank's car. If you came to see the movie, it was a poor location, so far from the screen, and angled away from it. A man got out of the car, and started toward the snack bar.

I caught up with Hank, and pointed the man out as he came slowly in our direction, picking his way because his eyes weren't used to the darkness. "I think we've got him, Hank," I said. "Go straight up to him and ask for a match, and I'll circle around in back of him."

"What if he's got a gun?" Hank said.

"I've got a gun, too. Hurry up."

When Hank stopped the man, I was behind him about ten yards or so. He gave Hank a light from his cigarette lighter, then he heard me and turned around. I clicked the hammer back on my .38 as he turned.

"Let's go back to your car, friend," I said.

"A stick-up in the drive-in? You guys must be out of your fuckin' minds," he said.

"Stand away from him, Hank," I said. "If he doesn't move in about one second, I'll shoot his balls off."

"I'm moving, I'm moving," the man said. He put his arms above his head and waggled his fingers.

"Put your arms down, you bastard," I said. "Cross your arms across your chest."

When he reached his car, a dark blue Starfire, with the top down, I told him to get into the passenger side of the front seat. Eddie, breathing audibly through his mouth, joined us a moment later.

"Okay, Hank," I said, "the same as with the girl. You drive on ahead, get Don, and have the fire door open for us. Eddie'll drive this car, and I'll watch the sonofabitch from the back seat. Okay, friend, put one hand on top of the dash, and pass over your car keys with the other."

"No dice," he said. "If you guys want my dough, go ahead and take it, but I ain't leavin' the drive-in-"

He sat erect in the seat with his arms crossed, looking straight ahead. He was wearing a yellow jump suit, and from the cool way he was taking things I knew that he was the right man. I slapped the barrel of the pistol across his nose. His nose broke, and blood spurted. He squealed, and grabbed for his nose with his right hand.

"Cross your arms," I said. He quickly recrossed his arms, but he turned his head and eyes to glare at me. "Now," I said, "slowly - with one hand, pass over your car keys to the driver." He kept his right forearm across his chest, and dug the keys out of his left front pocket. Eddie slid into the driver's seat, shut the door, and took the keys.

"Get going," I said to Hank, who was still standing there. "We'll be right behind you."

Hank walked over to his car. I climbed over the side of the Starfire, into the back seat, and Eddie started the engine.

"Wait till Hank clears the exit before you pull out," I said to Eddie.

"Where're you guys takin' me, anyway?" the man said. "I got friends, you know. You're gonna be sorry you broke my fuckin' nose, too. It hurts like a bastard." He touched his swollen nose with his right hand.

"Shut up," I said, "and keep your arms crossed. If you move either one of your arms again, I'm going to put a round through your shoulder."

Eddie moved out, handling the car skillfully. He drove to the extreme right of the row before turning onto the exit road, and without lights. There was a quarter-moon, the sky was cloudless, and we'd been in the drive-in so long by now that we could see easily.

When we reached the fire door at Dade Towers, Don and Hank were waiting for us. I ordered the man in the yellow jump suit to follow Don, and Hank followed me as we went up the stairs. Eddie parked the convertible in a visitor's slot across the street, and came up to Hank's apartment in the elevator.

While we were gone, Don had turned on the television, but not the sound. On the screen, Doris Day and Rock Hudson were standing beside a station wagon in a suburban neighborhood. She was waving her arms around.

The man in the yellow jump suit didn't react at all when he saw the dead girl. Instead of looking at her, he looked at the silent screen. He was afraid, of course, and trembling visibly, but he wasn't terrified. He stood between the couch and the kitchen, with his back to the girl, and stared boldly at each of us, in turn, as though trying to memorize our faces.

He was about twenty-five or -six, with a glossy Prince Valiant helmet of dark auburn hair. His hair was lighter on top, because of the sun, probably, but it had been expensively styled. His thick auburn eyebrows met in the middle, above his swollen nose, as he scowled. His long sideburns came down at a sharp point, narrowing to a quarter-inch width, and they curved across his cheeks to meet his moustache, which had been carved into a narrow, half-inch strip. As a consequence, his moustache, linked in a curve across both cheeks to his sideburns, resembled a fancy, cursive lowercase "m." His dark blue eyes watered slightly. There was blood drying on his moustache, on his chin, and there was a thin Jackson Pollock drip down the front of his lemon-yellow poplin jump suit. His nose had stopped bleeding.

Jump suits, as leisure wear, have been around for several years, but it's only been the last couple of years that men have worn them on the street, or away from home or the beach. There's a reason. They are comfortable, and great to lounge around in - until you get a good profile look at yourself in the mirror. If you have any gut at all – even two inches more than you should have - a jump suit, which is basically a pair of fancied up coveralls, makes you look like you've got a pot-gut. I've got a short-sleeved blue terrycloth jump suit I wear around the pool once in awhile, but I would never wear it away from the apartment house. When I was on the force and weighed about 175, 1 could have worn it around town, but since I've been doing deskwork at National, I've picked up more than twenty pounds. My waistline has gone from a 32 to a 36, and the jump suit makes me look like I've got a paunch. It's the way they are made.

But this guy in the yellow jump suit was slim, maybe 165, and he was close to six feet in height. The poplin jump suit was skin tight, bespoken, probably, and then cut down even more, and he wore it without the usual matching belt at the waist. It had short sleeves, and his sinewy forearms were hairy. Thick reddish chest hair curled out of the top of the suit where he had pulled the zipper down for about eight inches. He wore zippered cordovan boots, and they were highly polished.

"What's the girl's name?" I said.

"How should I know?" he said. "I never seen her before. What's the matter with her, anyway?"

"There's nothing the matter with her," Don said. "She's dead, now, and you killed her!" Don started for him, but Hank grabbed Don by the arms, at the biceps, and gently pushed him back.

"Take it easy, Don," Hank said. "Let Larry handle it." When Don nodded, Hank released him.

"Step forward a pace," I said, "and put your hands on top of your head." The man shuffled forward, and put his hands on his head. "Here, Don," I said, handing Don the pistol. "Cover me while I search him. If he tries anything shoot him in the kneecap."

"Sure, Larry," Don said. His hand was steady as he aimed the .38 at the man's kneecap.

"I'll hold the pistol, Don," Hank said, "if you want me to."

Don shook his head, and Eddie grinned and winked at me as I went around behind the man in the jump suit to frisk him.

"Leave him alone, Hank," I said. "Why don't you fix us a drink?"

I tossed the man's ostrich-skin wallet, handkerchief, and silver ballpoint pen onto the coffee table from behind. He didn't have any weapons, and he had less than two dollars worth of change in his front pockets. He had a package of Iceberg cigarettes, with three cigarettes missing from the pack, and a gold Dunhill lighter.

At his waist, beneath the jump suit, I felt a leather belt. I came around in front of him, and caught the ring of the zipper. He jerked his hands down and grabbed my wrists. Don moved forward and jammed the muzzle of the gun against the man's left knee. The man quickly let go of my wrists.

"For God's sake, don't shoot!" he said. He put his hands on top of his head again. "It's all right, Don," I said. Don moved back. I pulled down the zipper, well below his waist. He wasn't wearing underwear, just the belt. It was a plain brown cowhide suit belt, about an inch-and-a- half in width. I unbuckled it, jerked it loose from his body, and turned it over. It was a zippered money belt, the kind that is advertised in men's magazines every month. If he had been wearing the belt with a pair of trousers, no one would have ever suspected that it was a money belt. I unzipped the compartment. There were eight one-hundred dollar bills and two fifties tightly folded lengthwise inside the narrow space. I unfolded the bills, and counted them onto the coffee table.

"That ain't my money!" the man in the yellow jump suit said.

"That's right," Eddie said, laughing. "Not anymore it isn't."

"I'm telling you, right now," the man said, "that dough don't belong to me. You take it, and you're in trouble. Big trouble!"

I sat down at the coffee table, and went through his wallet. Eddie sat beside me in another straight-backed chair. Hank set Scotches over ice in front of me. He held an empty glass up for Don, and raised his eyebrows. Don shook his head, but didn't take his eyes off the man in the yellow jump suit. Hank, with a fresh drink in his hand, leaned against the kitchenette archway, and stared at the man.

There were three gas credit cards in the billfold: Gulf, Exxon, and Standard Oil. The Gulf card was made out to A. H. Wesley, the Exxon to A. Franciscus, and the Standard card was in the name of L. Cohen. All three cards listed Miami addresses. There was no other identification in the wallet. There was another eighty dollars in bills, plus a newspaper coupon that would entitle the man to a one-dollar discount on a bucket or a barrel of Colonel Sanders' fried chicken. There was a parking stub for the Dupont Plaza Hotel garage, an ivory toothpick in a tiny leather case, and a key to a two-bit locker. Bus station? Airport? Any public place that has rental lockers. And that was all.

"I've never seen a man's wallet this skimpy," I said to Eddie.

"Me either," Eddie said. "I can hardly fold mine, I got so much junk."

"Which one is you?" I said, reading the gas credit cards again. "Cohen, Franciscus, or Wexley?"

"I don't like to use the same gas all the time, man," he said, then he giggled.

I got up and kicked him in the shin with the side of my foot. Because I was wearing tennis shoes, it didn't hurt him half as much as he let on, but because he was surprised, he lost some of his poise.

"Look, you guys," he said, "why don't you just take the money and let me go. I haven't done anything-"

"What's the girl's name?" I said.

"I don't know her name. Honest."

"What's her name? She told us she was waiting for you, so there's no point lying about it."

"Her name's Hildy." He shrugged, yawned, and looked away from me.

"Hildy what?"

"I don't know, man. She worked for me some, but I never knew her last name."

"Doing what?" I said.

"She sold a little stuff for me now and then - at Bethune."

"Mary Bethune Junior High?"

"Yeah."

"Did you drop her off, earlier tonight, at the drive-in?"

"No. I was supposed to collect some dough from her there, that's all."

"Do you know how old she is?"

"She's in the eighth grade, she said, but I never asked how old she was. That's none of my business."

"So you turned her on to drugs without even caring how old she was?" Hank said. "You're the lowest sonofabitch I've ever met."

"I never turned her on to no drugs, man," the man said. "She was takin' shit long before I met her. What I was doing, I was doing her a favor. She lives with her mother, she said. Her mother works at night, over at the beach, she said. And her father split a couple of years back for Hawaii. So Hildy asked me if she could sell some for me. She was trying to save up enough money to go to her father in Hawaii. That's all. And the other kid, a black kid, who used to sell for me at Bethune, he took off for Jacksonville with fifty bucks he owed me. I needed someone at Bethune, and I told Hildy I'd give her a chance. She needed the bread, she said. She wanted to live with her father in Hawaii. So what I was doing, I was doing her a favor."

He ran down. We all stared at him. Beneath his heavy tan, his face was flushed, and he perspired heavily in the air-conditioned room.

"I ain't no worse'n you guys," the man in the yellow jump suit said. "What the hell, you guys picked her up to screw her, didn't you? Well, didn't you?"

"You mean you were screwing her, too?" Don said.

"No - I never touched her. She might've gone down on me a couple of times, but I never touched her."

"What do you mean, 'might have'?" Don said. "Did she or didn't she?"

"Yeah, I guess she did, a couple of times. But I never made her do it. She wanted to, she said."

Don fired the pistol. It was like a small explosion in the crowded room. Hank, standing in the kitchenette archway, dropped his glass on the floor. It didn't break. Eddie, sitting beside me, sucked in his breath. The man in the yellow jump suit clawed at his chest with both hands. He sank to his knees and his back arched as his head fell back. The back of his head hit the couch and his arms dropped loosely to his sides. He remained in that position, without toppling, his face in the air, looking up at nothing, on his knees, with his back arched and his head and neck supported by the couch. Don made a funny noise in his throat. There was a widening red circle on the man's hairy chest, as blood bubbled from a dark round hole. I stood up, took the pistol away from Don, and returned the gun to my belt holster. The man in the yellow jump suit had voided and the stench filled the room. I crossed to the TV and turned up the volume.

"I didn't - " Don said. "I didn't touch the trigger! It went off by itself!"

"Sit down, Don," Hank said. He crossed to Don, and gently pushed him down into the Danish chair. "We know it was an accident, Don."

"Eddie," I said, "open the windows, and turn the air-conditioning to fan."

Eddie nodded, and started toward the bedroom where the thermostat was on the wall. I opened the door to the outside hallway. Keeping my hand on the knob, I looked up and down the corridor. A gunshot sounds exactly like a gunshot and nothing else. But most people don't know that. I was prepared, in case someone stuck his head out, to ask him if he heard a car backfire. The sound from the TV, inside Hank's apartment, was loud enough to hear in the corridor. I waited outside for a moment longer, and when no heads appeared, I ducked back inside and put the night-lock on the door.

"Larry," Hank said, "d'you think I should give Don a sedative?"

"Hell, no," I said. "Let him lie down for awhile on your bed, but we don't want him dopey on us, for Christ's sake."

Don was the color of old expensive parchment, as if his olive tan had been diluted with a powerful bleach. His eyes were glazed slightly, and he leaned on Hank heavily as Hank led him into the bedroom.

Eddie grinned, and shook his head. "What a night," he said. "When I opened the damned window behind the couch, I accidentally stepped on the guy's hand. One of his damned fingers broke." Eddie looked away from me; his mouth was twitching at the corners.

"Don't worry about it, Ed," I said. "You and I are going to have to get rid of him, you know - both of them."

"That figures. Any ideas?"

Hank came back from the bedroom. "I'm treating Don for shock," he said. "I've covered him with a blanket, and now I'm going to make him some hot tea."

"Never mind the fucking tea," I said. "I'm not worried about Don. We've got to get these bodies out of here."

"I know that," Hank said. "What do you suggest?"

"We'll put them into the back seat of the convertible, and then I'll drive his car over to the Japanese Garden on the MacArthur Causeway. I'll just park the car in the lot and leave it." I turned to Eddie. "You can follow me in my Vega, and pick me up."

"Okay," Eddie said. I gave Eddie my car keys.

"I'll go with you, if you want," Hank said.

"There's no point, Hank. You can stay here after we load the bodies, and make some fucking tea for Don."

"Wait a minute," Hank said, "you don't have to-"

"I don't have to what?" I said.

"Cut it out, you guys," Eddie said. "Go ahead, Larry. Get the convertible and park it by the fire exit. I'll bring the girl down first, but it'll take all three of us to carry him down."

"All right," I said. "Except for the money, put the girl's bag and wallet and all their other stuff into a paper sack." I pointed to the stuff on the coffee table. "And we'll need something to cover him up."

"I've got a G.I. blanket in the closet," Hank said.

Taking the car keys to the convertible from Eddie, I left the apartment.

While Eddie and I wedged the girl between the back and front seats on the floor of the convertible, Hank held the fire door open for us. We covered her with the beach towel, and I tucked the end under her head.

"Shouldn't one of us stay down here with the car?" Eddie asked.

"No," I said. "He's too heavy. It'll take all three of us to bring him down. It won't take us long. We'll just take a chance, that's all."

On the way back to Hank's apartment, we ran into Marge Brewer in the corridor. She was in her nurse's uniform, and had just come off duty at Jackson Memorial. She was coming toward us from the elevator.

"I'm beat," she said, looking at Hank. "A twelve-hour split shift. I'm going to whomp up a big batch of martinis. D'you all want to come down in ten minutes? I'll share."

"Give us a rain check, Marge," Hank said. "We're going down to the White Shark and shoot some pool."

"Sure," she said. " 'Night." We paused outside Hank's apartment. Hank fumbled with his keys at the door until she rounded the comer at the end of the corridor.

"Go inside," I said. "I'd better pull the emergency stop on the elevator. You can take it off after we leave, Hank."

They went inside. I hurried down the hall, opened the elevator door, and pulled out the red knob. There was an elevator on the other side of the building, and the residents who didn't want to climb the stairs could use that one.

Hank and I, being so much bigger than Eddie, supported the man in the yellow jump suit between us. We each draped an arm over our shoulders, and carried him, with his feet dragging, down the corridor. If someone saw us, it would look - at least from a distance - as if we were supporting a drunk. Eddie, a few feet in front of us, carried the folded army blanket and the sack of stuff. It was much easier going down the stairs. I went down first, carrying the feet, while Hank and Eddie supported him from behind.

After we put him on top of the girl, in the back of the car, and covered him with the G.I. blanket, I got into the driver's seat. The fire door had closed and locked while we loaded him, so Hank started down the sidewalk toward the apartment entrance.

"Look, Eddie," I said. "Drive as close behind me as you can. If I'm stopped - for any reason - I'm going to leave the car and run like a striped ass ape. And I'll need you behind me to pick me up. Okay?"

"No sweat, Larry," Eddie said. "If you want me to, I'll drive the convertible. I'm a better driver than you."

I shook my head. "That's why I want you behind me, in case we have to run for it in the Vega. Besides, I'm not going to drive over thirty, and when I cross the bridge, before the Goodyear landing pad, I'm going to throw my pistol over the side. It'll be a lot easier to throw it over the rail from the convertible."

"Move out, then. I'm right behind you."

I got rid of the gun, leaving it in the holster, when I passed over the bridge, and a few moments later I was parked in the Japanese Garden parking lot. There were no other cars. The Garden itself was closed at night, and fenced in to keep the hippies from sleeping in the tiny bamboo tearoom. But the parking lot was outside the fence. Sometimes lovers used the parking lot at night, but because most people know that the Garden was closed at night, they didn't realize that the parking lot was still available. Eddie pulled in beside me and cut his lights.

I got some Kleenex out of the glove compartment of my Vega, and smudged the steering wheel and doors of the convertible. I did this for Eddie's benefit mostly; it's almost impossible to get decent prints from a car. Then I got the G.I. blanket and the beach towel and the paper sack of personal belongings. As we drove back toward Dade Towers, I folded the blanket and the towel in my lap.

Eddie said: "What do you think, Fuzz-O?"

"About what?"

"The whole thing. D'you think we'll get away with it?"

"I'm worried about Don."

"You don't have to worry about Don," Eddie said. "Don's all right."

"If I don't have to worry about Don," I said, "I don't have to worry about anything."

"You don't have to worry about Don," Eddie said.

"Good. If you don't scratch a sore, it doesn't suppurate. "

"Hey! That's poetry, Larry."

"That's a fact," I said. "When you hit Twenty-seventh, turn into the Food Fair lot. I'll throw all this stuff into the Dempsey Dumpster."

When we got back to Hank's apartment, Don and Hank were watching television. The color was back in Don's face, and he was drinking red wine with ice cubes. Hank had found an old electric fan in his closet, and some Christmas tree spray left over from Christmas. The windows were still open, but the pungent spray, diffused by the noisy fan, made the room smell like a pine forest. I turned off the TV, fixed myself a light Scotch and water, without ice, and sat in front of the coffee table. I counted the money, and gave two one-hundred-dollar bills each to Eddie, Hank, and Don, and kept two of them for myself. I folded the remaining money, and put it into my jacket pocket.

"I'll need this extra money to buy a new pistol," I said. "I got rid of mine - and the holster."

"What did you do with it, Larry?" Don said.

"If you don't know, Don, you can't tell, can you?" I looked at Don and smiled.

"What makes you think Don would ever say anything?" Hank said.

"I don't," I said. "But it's better for none of you guys to know. Okay? Now. If anybody's got anything to say, now's the time to say it. We'll talk about it now, and then we'll forget about it forever. What I mean, after tonight, none of us should ever mention this thing again. Okay?"

Hank cleared his throat. "While you and Eddie were gone, Don and I were wondering why you had us bring the girl here in the first place."

"I was waiting for that," I said. "What I wanted was a make on the girl. I figured that if I could find out her address, I could call her father, and have him come and get her. Either that, or we could take her to him after I talked to him. That way, he could've put her to bed and called his family doctor. That way, he could've covered up the fact that she died from an O.D., if that's what it was."

"That wouldn't have worked," Hank said.

"Maybe not. But that was the idea in the back of my mind. You asked me why I brought her here, and that's the reason."

"It would've worked with me," Don said. "I wouldn't've wanted it in the papers, if my daughter died from an overdose of drugs."

"Okay, Larry," Hank said. "You never explained it to us before, is all. I just wonder, now, who those people were."

"The papers will tell you." Eddie laughed. "Look in the Miami News tomorrow night. Section C - Lifestyle."

"Don?" I said.

"One thing," Don said, looking into his glass. "I didn't mean to pull the trigger. I'm sorry about getting you guys into this mess."

"You didn't get us into anything, Don," Eddie said. "We were all in it together anyway."

"Just the same," Don said, "I made it worse, and I'm sorry."

"We're all sorry," I said. "But what's done is done. Tomorrow, I'm going to report it at the office that my pistol was stolen out of the glove compartment of my car. They may raise a little hell with me, but these things happen in Miami. So I'm telling you guys about it now. Some dirty sonofabitch stole my thirty-eight out of my glove compartment."

No one said anything for a few moments. Don stared at the diluted wine in his glass. Eddie lit a cigarette. I finished my drink. Hank, frowning, and looking at the floor, rubbed his knees with the palms of his hands.

"Eddie," I said, "do you want to add anything?"

Eddie shrugged, and then he laughed. "Yeah. Who wants to go down to the White Shark for a little pool?"

Hank and Don both smiled. "If we needed an alibi, it wouldn't be a bad idea," I said. "But we don't need an alibi. If there's nothing else, I think we should all hit our respective sacks."

Eddie and I stood up. "You going to be okay, Don?" Eddie asked.

"Sure." Don stood up, and we started toward the door.

"Just a minute," Hank stopped us. "I picked up the girl in the drive-in, and bets were made! You guys owe me money!"

We all laughed then, and the tension dissolved. We paid Hank off, of course, and then we went to bed. But as far as I was concerned, we were still well ahead of the game: four lucky young guys in Miami, sitting on top of a big pile of vanilla ice cream.