Jonie Jensen stares at the flashing door buzzer of her apartment. She has already turned off her room light, and looks down at the block main entrance. She can make out the Fedoras of two men. The buzzer whines again. She has her instructions from the Fraud Squad: slip into connecting apartment number 8 and wait there until our boys pick you up. You know the routine - do not open the door unless the caller gives you the correct code number.

     Again the buzzer flashes, this time continuously as though the visitor is leaning on the bell push. Jonie takes no chances and checks the workings of her .32 pistol. The connecting door between apartments 7 and 8 is hidden by heavy wallpaper and cannot be seen by the untrained eye. She opens the door, carries through two small suitcases that she has brought from California, and closes and locks the door.

     Because apartment 7 does not answer, the taller man of the two visitors - a Negro, plays the field and rings all the apartment numbers. An elderly woman at ground apartment 5, believing mistakenly that her sister is visiting, gives them access. There is a lift at the ground floor. "In here," says the tall man. The lift door slides shut when he presses the lift for apartments 6 to 10. The lift stops, the door glides open and Pock-face steps out first. The corridor is clear. Apartment 7 is to their right. The Negro presses the door buzzer. There is no answer.

     Pock-face glares at his partner, whispers, "is there a back way out of here?"

     "Christ knows," his partner says, trying the bell push again. There is no answer. He produces a plastic card and slips it between the frame and the door, easing the lock aside. He presses on the door. It opens. Pock-face enters. His partner brings up a Mauser pistol to shoot the blonde-haired woman he has come to kill. The record player is at low volume. The window curtains are closed. They check each room. The tall man stares at Pock-face. "Where the hell is she?"

     Pock-face shrugs. "You tell me." He checks the telephone, calls a number, and explains what is going on. A voice says, "some thing's gone wrong - get the hell out."



Five minutes later, two Fraud Squad men arrive by car at Larch Street and a cream-colored 1957 Mercury Monterey drives past them, heading for the city. The Fraud Squad driver comments to his partner that Mercury supplied similar cars to the Highway Patrol. They pull in at the apartment block and ring the buzzer of apartment 8. The outer door opens. They use the lift to the first floor and give a signal knock on apartment 8's door. Jonie asks them a code number. They get it right and Jonie lets them in. They carry her bags to the car and drive her to Fraud Squad headquarters and after settling her down with coffee and biscuits, they question her on what has happened.

     Later, a Fraud Squad captain asks for, and receives orders - take Miss Jensen off Abrizzi's tail and give her this telephone number so we can place her on a new assignment. However, before she leaves Metro City, she must meet Harry Beluga and pass to him what information she has of Abrizzi's recent activities.

     Jonie sits back in a comfortable leather armchair and sips coffee, wondering how Abrizzi knows she is a law officer. Maybe he has recognized her, but there again; in California she had been brown-haired. Maybe - just maybe - she has made an error- has become just plain careless. Being careless with the Mob is asking for a bullet in the head. She looks forward to meeting Harry Beluga and wonders how he is coping with heavy-handed Sandy Miller...



Detective Miller brings down the .38 butt across Mike Rand's jacket shoulder pad. "You got one more chance, Mike - say who took shots at us or we take you in." She swings round to Elroy. "And you - you send us to the stairway knowing somebody is waiting for us."

     "I didn't know the guy was carrying a piece," Elroy protests. "I never saw him before. I don't know him. I thought he just wanted to talk."

     "But you could identify him from a mug shot?"

     "No." Elroy is sweating heavily again. "I didn't take much notice of the guy. I saw him on the stairway. He asked to see you outside on the street. There's not much light on those stairs so I didn't recognize him."

     "So how come you knew he was there in the first place?"

     The doorman rang his buzzer. I went out to him and the visitor called down to me."

     Rand cuts in and stares pleadingly at Beluga. "Come on, Harry - we can't tell you what we don't know. You can slug, you can take us in, but we can't tell you a thing - because we know nothing."

     "You know nothing?" says Miller. "Then why does the ticket man at the entrance disappear just as we go to meet the gunman? I tell you why - because he knows somebody is ready to take us out. And he can only know that because either you or Elroy tell him." She taps Rand's forehead with the barrel of her .38. "If I knew for sure you set us up, I'd squeeze this trigger. So remember, any more trouble from you - and we fry your ass. Understand?"

     Rand uses a handkerchief to wipe his face and nods...

     On their way out, Beluga uses a penknife blade, eases a slug from the ticket table, and drops the slug into a plastic bag. He looks round for the ticket man, but realises he has long gone...


     Beluga, feeling the heat of the day and the loss of hair where the third bullet has streaked through it, drives the Cavalier toward Headquarters. Miller studies his profile. "You told Rand that I'm Judo black belt when I'm not. Why did you do that, Harry?"

     "I did it just to make the rat feel uncomfortable. Sometimes it pays to play a big hand, even when you don't have one. It's called bluffing."

     "I know what it's called, but somebody wasn't bluffing when he put a bullet through your hat, Christ, a little lower and you would need headache powder!"

     "I could do with a powder now, one that will tell me how the shooter knew when we would be at the Base Hit. How did he know that? There are two answers - either the caller I had is the shooter, or the gunman was given the message by someone who knew we were coming."

     Within half an hour of reaching Headquarters, Miller has gone home and Beluga is telephoning wife Jean to say he will be late. She says she will wait up for him. There will be a ham and chicken salad for him in the fridge.

     He leaves the Base Hit slug with Ballistics, asking for a check against the rounds found in Leo's body...if there is a match, Beluga wants to know - quickly...



It is a cool 48 degrees at one hour before midnight when Roscoe Johnson leaves Ed's Eatery and hires a taxi to Duke Street. This shadowy cul-de-sac is a grimy, lonely mix of broken pavings and discarded refuse where many Metro City dropouts and no-hopers live. But on the plus side, it carries more accurate street talk than any other part of the city.

     Roscoe pays off the cabbie and lingers on the corner of Duke, waiting for Tiny, a seven feet tall, and one hundred and forty pounds skinhead of no name - hence the moniker, Tiny.

     Tiny hangs around Duke, saying little and hearing a lot. Most of the talk is drivel, but Tiny's big ears sift truth from lies better than a sieve passes flour. Also, Tiny is tough to locate. He is around - somewhere - but is not available unless he wants to be. Roscoe turns up his jacket collar. The tired streetlights are dull. A cat, with tail held high, brushes against Roscoe's legs. He smiles, strokes the cat's head, knowing that Tiny is near.

     A man comes out of shadow on the other side of the street.

     "Off your regular beat, eh Roscoe?" Tiny's voice is high - almost effeminate.

     Above them, a train heading out the city lumbers over points.

     "Yeah, Tiny, I've come see you, man."

     Tiny crosses the street, kicks away a busted house brick. He shakes Roscoe's hand, bends, picks up the cat and settles it between his shirt and jumper, says, "What do you want to know?"

     "There's a coupla things - you got news on Abrizzi or Beluga?"

     Half breed Tiny checks to the right and to the left, looks above, and says, "Abrizzi and Beluga, huh? That takes bread. You got any?"

     "Yeah, but how much depends on what you give me."

     Tiny strokes the cat's head. "The Mob has pulled Abrizzi from the west coast and brought him back here. As for Beluga, he has a woman cop called Miller replacing his partner, Jack Meredith. This woman cop has a reputation for busting heads. She is from San Diego to help Beluga nail Abrizzi. They are looking to catch him on Tax evasion - the same thing used to get Capone."

     Roscoe shakes his own head. "How come you know this stuff?"

     Tiny waits until a taxi rumbles by, its damaged fan belt slapping to the rhythm of the engine. "I keep my eyes and ears open and my mouth shut. I've given you enough. Now where's the money?"

     "Enough my ass! What do you know about the Maxine shooting?"

     "It was a Mob hit."

     "Who did it?"

     "Dunno, but I can tell you it was the same guy who tried gunning Miller and Beluga at the Base Hit. Now come on, Roscoe, where's my dough?"

     Roscoe passes over twenty dollars and three tickets for Ed's Eatery.

     Tiny frowns at the tickets. "Hey, what are these?"

     "Tickets for Ed's place. They get you fifteen percent discount, man."

     Tiny smiles faintly. "Still hanging around Ed's place, huh? You've been working too long for him. You should get yourself a proper job."

     "Me get a proper job? What about you? You never had a job in your life."

     Tiny smiles again and strokes the cat's head. "Yeah, well, doing nothing just shows you how successful I am."

     They talk for another minute. It is an important minute. Roscoe heads home by taxi cab. After what Tiny has told him, he needs to phone Beluga and uses a kiosk close to his parent's apartment. He allows the phone to ring for a minute, gets no answer, and hangs up...


Telephoning Beluga at six-thirty the next morning, Roscoe says, "I got something for you, Harry. It's about that louse who took potshots at you and Miller at the Base Hit. My contact says that guy is the same feller who shot down Leo. The news cost me twenty bucks, Harry. I want to help, but I can't keep shelling out dough like this."

     Beluga says he will attend to that when he calls at Ed's later in the day.

     "There's one more thing you should know, Harry, but I can't discuss it on the phone. I'll tell you when I see you."

     Beluga showers, prepares breakfast for Jean and him and wonders what Roscoe has to tell...



At a luxury Metro City central hotel, two failed hit-men jobs have enraged Bernard Lepton, for he knows the Mafia Board of Directors will send for him and demand explanations. He seeks relief along with his Mob companion, Henry, in a steam bath, cursing savagely and sweating out anger at the bungled jobs of removing Jonie Jensen and Harry Beluga.

     He glares through the swirling mist. "What the hell is going on, Henry? We can't bump off anybody these days. And do you know why - because our hit men have bad eyesight. I mean just look at what happened yesterday. We foul up on Beluga - and on that dipstick Jensen dame. It wasn't like this in the old days."

     After scowling at the rolls of fat round his waist, Lepton turns down the regulator tap and heads for the cold dip tub in the next room. "Yeah," he says, "in those days, Henry, we had gunman who could take out a flea at twenty yards, and you could bribe a cop just by giving him a candy bar. And what have we got today - we have awkward cops like Beluga, who wears a fucking halo over his head and says we are the bad guys. I'll give that cop a halo - one he can wear six feet under."