Tony Bragg could dig up plenty of trouble, but he didn't expect


MURDER WITH MUD
by Lawrence Treat


	There was a feud on the night shift, and the men were beginning to bet on who'd win out. Tony
Bragg, who ran the big power tractor with the loading bucket, or Sam, who drove a truck.

	They were big, both of them, but in different ways. Sam spread like a tree; he was all girth and
slow solid muscle. But Tony was built like the Matterhorn, tall and rugged, with long sloping
shoulders and a grayness to him. The gray of grimness and an inner resolve. You knew at once that
there was something more to him than hard granite muscles.

	Nobody knew how the feud had started. Each of the pair, it seemed, just naturally went out of
his way to annoy the other. Sam, for instance, had stepped on Tony's dinner box and had splashed him
with mud a couple of times. And when Sam had asked Tony to crank up the truck, he'd advanced the
spark and almost snapped Tony's arm.

	But Tony was nobody's fool. He didn't seem to get sore or excited, even though he was burning up
inside. He slapped Sam on his broad, oak-like back and said: "Anytime you get your feet on my dinner
again, I'll just twist the neck off you. If I can find it."

	The "if I can find it" crack brought a laugh. Sam's head was set low and grew out of his
shoulders. Sam reddened and doubled up his fist, but his fingers straightened out as he faced Tony.
Something in Tony Bragg's gray eyes, eager and grim and aching for an excuse to get his hands on
Sam, made the big truck driver turn away.

	Round one, to Bragg.

	Sam evened the count with the truck-cranking stunt, and then Tony went way ahead. In the lurid
glare of the floodlights, he dumped a bucket of mud--the bucket on the power shovel that scooped up
three quarters of a cubic yard of wet sticky mud. He dumped it neatly on Sam, the way you drop
chocolate sirup on a mound of ice cream. Nobody was able to say it wasn't an accident.

	Sam stood there like a great armored beast, or like a tar-and-feathers victim, and pulled gobs
of mud out of his eyes and ears and his clothing. They had to turn the hose on him, while Tony
leaned out of his cab and rocked with laughter. And yelled: "See if you can wash the smell off him,
too. Something has been creeping up my nostrils the last couple of weeks, and I've got suspicions!"

	After that, the showdown was bound to come!

	But Bill Rentner, contractor in charge of the job, tapped Tony on the shoulder, and said: "I
want to talk to you. Make it tomorrow night at Haggerty's Bar."

	That was how they happened to be sitting on opposite sides of a table with a couple of beers
between them, Tony, big and grave, and Bill Rentner, tall, too, but slender and almost fragile
compared to Tony. His brown eyes were blinking under the intensity of Tony's stare.

	"Tony," said Rentner, "this has to stop!"

	"What has?"

	"Don't try to kid me. This business with Sam. One of these days, something serious is going to
happen and it'll jam up the whole works.

	"That all you're worried about, Rentner?"

	"Maybe yes, and maybe no. But what I want to know is, what have you got against Sam, anyhow?"

	The lights in Tony's gray eyes flickered and deep fires seemed to flare up. "Nothing personal,"
he said. "But he's Cawthorn's man."

	Rentner scowled. "What in hell do you mean by that?"

	Tony laughed and blew the collar off his beer. "Maybe you don't know it, Rentner, but you're a
marked man. Cawthorn's held this town in the palm of his hand for twenty years, and he knows his
stuff. He knows you'll turn on him the first time you figure you can get away with it. He's got
peculiar ways of doing things, and right now he's giving you enough rope to hang yourself. Sam gives
him a report on you every morning."

	Rentner slapped his hand on the table. "Who the hell are you, and what are you telling me this
for?"

	"I'm working out of the D. A.'s office," said Tony casually, and his gray eyes were steady and
warm and friendly, as if he were saying the beer was pretty good instead of telling a stranger
things that could mean a fusillade of bullets any one of these evenings. "I'm out to bust Cawthorn
and his whole lousy, crooked organization. I want a case so tight he can't wiggle a big toe and so
hot it'll burn the eyebrows off the people that read about it, and I hear you're the man that can do
it."

	Bill Rentner took a long time answering. His eyes were brown and somber--not scared, but dark
with the consequence of Tony's words.

	"I don't know how you found out," he said finally. "I've been keeping figures on construction
jobs for years. What the city bought and what it got. The difference is straight graft, and I've got
all the names and a couple of canceled checks. You seem to know, Tony, but why should I hand any of
it over to you?"

	Tony's laugh was gay. "Not a reason in the world, except that you didn't collect all that just
for the fun."

	"You got me there," answered Rentner softly. "You see, it's on account of a girl. The girl I
want to marry. She'll have me if I'm a hero and bust Cawthorn's machine, but sometimes I think of
all the money I could get out of Cawthorn if I went to him instead."

	"Money or lead," remarked Tony. "But you're not that kind of a rat, so let's have your
evidence."

	Rentner shook his head. "I got to think it over."

	"Go ahead and think. I'm waiting!"

	"It's too sudden, Tony. Here I figured you for just a good guy, and you turn out to be
dynamite."

	"TNT," corrected Tony. "And you can't leave it around loose while you make up your mind." Then
he got up and walked out of the place.

	He figured that that was the way to handle Rentner. Put the screws on him and he'd object; give
him his head and he'd come through. And there was the girl, too--Mary Jocelyn. Tony had to see her.

	The street outside was light, but as soon as he turned the corner he was in darkness. He walked
with his head low and his hands in his pockets. He walked that way all the time, because otherwise
somebody might recognize him and wonder why he wasn't back East, where he was supposed to have gone
on leave of absence from the detective force.

	But even with his head low, he saw things out of the corners of his eyes. He glimpsed the
movement of a shadow in the doorway, and he whirled and met the great hulking body that charged out.

	He grabbed at the arm and slapped a short bone-crushing blow at the assailant's wrist. The steel
weapon hurtled down, but the aim was deflected and it just grazed Tony's shoulder. He lowered his
head, charged forward and butted. Air shot out of those great lungs as from the released valve of an
auto tire.

	Tony pulled up and watched Sam stagger backward and crash into the brick wall of the nearest
building. Tony's eyes, lidded streaks of quicksilver, flashed coldly and caught the movement of
hands. He ducked and dived for the darkness of the building. A shot blazed out and lead whistled
past him!

	He sprinted like a greyhound, body long and low, legs flying. He hugged the wall to make himself
difficult to find or to hit. He didn't have a gun, and if he'd had one he wouldn't have used it. He
was a fugitive from men publicity would ruin his purpose.

	Once more a bullet ripped past him. He had the ricochet to fear, and he feared it with a steady
beat of his heart. It would get him or it wouldn't, but there was nothing he could do.

	Then he reached the board fence. His long arm swooped up, his body clambered with a heavy
desperateness and his feet pounded awkwardly, slipping on the boards and whacking them like a
hammer. Then he was up and flinging himself to the other side.

	A window banged open, a woman yelled. Behind him, feet scurried. Tony darted across the yard and
took the next fence on the vault. The street beyond was quiet, empty. He strode down it confidently,
with his head low and his hands in his pockets. You don't get shot at twice in a night unless the
same man catches up with you, and Tony twisted down too many alleys to be followed.

	It was about midnight when he reached his rooming house, kicked off his shoes and lay down in
the bed. It was a hell of a way to spent your night off.

	Tony breathed slow and deep. Throughout the State, Cawthorn had made East City a symbol for
corruption. In ten years, the only break decent citizens had had was when Logan managed to be
elected district attorney. And Logan had picked Tony Bragg, patrolman assigned to plain-clothes
duty, because he was honest and clean, and because he knew how to run a power tractor.

	Logan had it all figured out. Tony's leave of absence, his secret return, his job. Construction
work stank with graft and all Tony had to do was keep his eyes and his ears open. And gamble his
life!

	"You know the risks better than I do," Logan had said. "Think it over for twenty-four hours, and
then come back with your answer."

	"Why waste twenty-four hours?" Tony had asked. "I feel about things pretty much the way you do."

	So Tony had left East City; then he had returned and gotten an engineer's job on the sewer
project. He'd started nosing around, and then accidentally he'd heard about Rentner's evidence. It
was like drinks on the house the first time you came in. But it was true.

	Sam's attack, however, worried Tony. Sam was part of Cawthorn's beef squad, but he was no
gunman. Why the shots, then ? Cawthorn's orders, or an attempt to even up for that bucketload of
mud? It made a lot of difference which.


	Tony reported as usual on the night shift the following evening. He kept his eye on big Sam
every time his truck headed the line and loaded up, but Sam acted normally enough. Whatever else, he
didn't suspect Tony had recognized him last night. Sam wasn't subtle enough to hide his feelings.

	Tony was thoughtful. He had a hunch that something was about to happen, and the scene impressed
it self on his memory. The floodlights trained on the line of trucks and on the ditch itself. The
ditchdigger, like a great metal grasshopper, plowing into the bowels of the earth, churning away and
lifting dirt on the endless string of buckets to dump it in piles alongside. The ditch, four feet by
seven, that it scooped out of the ground. The gang who lined it with boards and shored it up. The
trucks stopping alongside the pile of earth deposited by the ditchdigger, and the big bucket on the
end of a steel boom, dipping and grabbing, swinging and dumping and jerking, as Tony pulled on the
levers and stepped on the pedals.

	Bill Rentner strode through the circle of light and yelled at Tony. Tony couldn't hear, but he
waved his arms, swung out the bucket and emptied it. He filled the last truck and cut his motor. He
could rest a couple of minutes and have a smoke. Back on the road that the trucks took, he heard a
car start with the singing sound of a motor racing in low. He cupped his match and dragged on the
cigarette. Then he looked for Bill Rentner, but Bill wasn't around.

	The putt-putt of the digger throbbed steadily. Lights winked on the road from the dump heap.
Tony sighed, drew deep on his cigarette and watched the first truck turn and back and buck into
position. Sam was driving it. Tony climbed back into the cab and reached for a lever. The trucks
rumbled in and took their places. Sam, hunched like a gorilla over his wheel, didn't look at Tony.


	Hours later, dawn was streaking the horizon and the floodlights were growing feeble. Everything
was running like clockwork. Bill Rentner, who never stayed through the night shift, had gone home
long ago to get some sleep. The day shift was almost due.

	Tony let the tag line uncoil from the drum as the bucket dropped into the pile of earth and
grabbed. He reached with his left hand to operate the closing line. He felt something stick on the
bucket, he lifted it a couple of feet to get a new grip. It was still sticking. He raised it anyhow,
glancing casually to see what the trouble was.

	Instinctively, Tony shoved the swing-lever into neutral and held the bucket steady. He stared,
while his heart humped and the pit of his stomach went cold. An investigation was the last thing in
the world he could stand.

	Tony looked at it again, steadily, to make no mistake. But it was there all right, dangling from
the two halves of the bucket. A pair of legs!

	Somebody yelled. Tony swung the load to a clear space and lowered it gently. He set the legs
down carefully, kept them for a second or two just scraping the ground. He laughed somberly, as if
this were the last laugh he was going to have for a long time. The thing reminded him of a picture
of a mechanical man he'd seen years ago, in one of his kid books. A bucket with legs.

	Then he opened the halves of the bucket and let the thing drop.

	Everybody seemed to see it and came running at the same instant. Tony leaped out of his cab and
sprinted. He yelled and knocked a couple of men aside. "Don't touch it!" he bellowed. "The police--"

	He broke off with the word sticking gruffly in his throat. Police! That was a hot one. Some hobo
died and got buried and Tony picked him up in a bucket, so the police would be around to say:
"Hello, Tony. Thought you were East."

	He'd have to explain that one. He was supposed to be hundreds of miles away, on vacation, and
here he was working on a construction job that Cawthorn had farmed out. The big politician would be
plenty dumb if he didn't see through this one. And, whatever else, Cawthorn wasn't dumb!

	Nevertheless, there was nothing Tony could do. A corpse is a corpse, and you can't get rid of it
by a wish.

	Tony lowered his head and looked. The face was caked with mud so that the features were no
longer recognizable. The pressure of the bucket had almost cut the body in half and it lay
grotesquely, a torso and a pair of legs, twisted at an impossible angle, like a rag doll.

	Tony bent down and wiped the dead features with a handkerchief. A couple of clots of mud dropped
off and the features emerged slowly. Then Tony stood up.

	"It's Bill Rentner!" he said in a hollow voice. "Better call the cops."

	He glanced at the tense, shocked circle of faces. Eyes fidgeted and dropped away as they met his
cold, fixed stare. Only big Sam glared back.

	Tony said: "I saw him around ten. He walked across the circle of light and waved at me. Then I
turned off my engine, lit a cigarette and waited for the next trucks. Anybody see him after that?"

	Sam growled: "The trucks was away, so we're clean. But if you got out of your cab, you got a
hell of a lot of explaining."

	"I sat on the steps and smoked a cigarette. Anybody could see me."

	"Sure," said Sam. "But who did?"

	Nobody answered. Tony realized his alibi was a little too perfect. It was so damned good that
nobody could back it up. He snapped out: "What makes you think he was killed, then? You, Sam--any of
you drivers--you park and get off your trucks and who knows where you go then?''

	"I wasn't off my truck," rumbled Sam. "Not once all night."

	Tony's brain went taut and began buzzing like a power saw. Sam hadn't been off his truck and
maybe he could prove it. Sam and all the other drivers always got off their trucks as soon as they
parked them in line, but Sam had stayed on this evening. Tony tucked the fact in the back of his
mind, where he held the memory of a car that had raced off in low gear.

	Then he got busy with other matters. If he hung around till the cops came, they'd recognize him
right off. They knew him, and though there wasn't a man in the department who'd assume he was a
killer, they'd drag out the story of why he was here. That meant letting Logan down and giving up
all hope of ever getting Cawthorn. Tony'd get his discharge from the force within twenty-four hours,
and after that his life wouldn't be worth a nickel.

	Against that, he could beat it, which would amount to a public admission of guilt. Guilt of a
crime he'd never committed and would have given his life to prevent. Rentner, the guy who could sit
in a witness chair and talk Cawthorn into prison. If Tony beat it, he'd be a hunted man and the
world would go out to shoot him on sight. That would be Cawthorn's method. A nice legal murder,
committed by an innocent man in uniform, obeying orders,

	It took Tony a second to think over the alternatives and another second to decide. "Sam!" he
commanded. "You stay here and see that nobody touches the body. Joe"--he turned to his
assistant--"go down to the corner and phone the police. I'm going to look for Rentner's car. If you
want me, you'll find me there."

	He strode off without glancing behind. He walked slowly, with his head low and his eyes studying
the ground. He almost went past Rentner's car without noticing it. He glanced up and saw the keys
still in the lock. He climbed in, turned on the ignition and shot down the street. He glared at the
grimy windshield and kept drumming his fingers on the steering wheel.

	He parked a few blocks away and tried to think things out. But his mind was still whirling, and
he was worried about whether he was pulling a prize boner in slipping off like this. He sat there,
his long, sloping shoulders heaving with his deepness of breath, his gray eyes glinting like wet
rocks, his lips tightened and became white with compression. Then he heard the long wail of a police
siren and knew that whether he wanted it or not, his choice was made. He was on the lam!

	He drove fast in the direction of Bill Rentner's house. The door key was on the ring with the
car keys, and there would be no trouble entering. Rentner occupied a large room at the back of a
boardinghouse. Tony tiptoed in, rushed upstairs in a feverish silence and unlocked the door.

	There was only the bureau, the closet and a battered suitcase to search. The records Rentner had
been collecting, the evidence against Cawthorn, ought to be easy to find.

	But Tony drew a blank! He didn't understand it. He'd counted on finding the stuff. Time was
ticking away and the Police would pounce any minute. Tony gave himself fifteen safe minutes;
thereafter he could expect a patrol car.

	He used up the full fifteen going over again what he'd already searched. The evidence might be
just a few thin papers, folded and hidden away. Tony lifted up the rugs and rimed through books and
tried the chairs and the picture-backs and the inside of the bureau, behind the drawers. He found
nothing!

	His watch told him he'd been here twenty minutes and his brain told him it was suicide to stay
longer. He left the place topsy-turvey, locked the door behind him and slipped down the stairs. The
car was on the side street where he'd left it. He drove crosstown and abandoned it. By dawn, every
cop in town would be looking for those license numbers.


	Tony took a street car to Logan's house and rang the bell for five minutes before a window
opened and Logan poked out his head.

	"Who the devil," he began, and then saw Tony. A minute later the district attorney, still in
pajamas and dressing gown, let Tony in.

	"Something happen?" demanded Logan

	Tony nodded. "Plenty!" And he told briefly the events of the night.

	"My guess is that Cawthorn knew about that proof, and it's up to me to get it before he does.
But I need money and a suit of clothes. I won't risk getting in direct touch with you again.
Anything I uncover, I'll send through the mail."

	Logan measured Tony's big frame against his own. "Try a suit of mine and see if it fits," he
remarked. "You can wash up and dress here. A hundred dollars enough for you?"

	Tony nodded. Suddenly he felt good. With someone like Logan to back him, the fight didn't seem
so hopeless any more.

	He spent most of the day trying to arrange a meeting with Mary Jocelyn, and though he tried all
the fake reasons he could think of, in the end he had to tell her the truth.

	He was nervous waiting for her. She had agreed to see him in the back room of a small bar where
he knew he was safe, but he kept looking at the partitioned booths to make sure no one was within
hearing distance. Every time the door opened, his muscles went tight and springy. Maybe she'd come
with a police escort. Maybe the police would come without her. Maybe some of Cawthorn's gunmen would
arrive instead of her. There was no way of telling.

	But when she finally arrived, he was reassured, She was a small solemn girl, pale and pure and
strangely quiet. She was dressed plainly and she looked haggard in her dark clothes, but when she
gave him her wan little smile, he knew that she was just dead tired and drained of all emotion.

	"I was afraid you'd back out at the last minute," he said, "or that you'd bring the police."

	"If you're not afraid of me," she answered simply, "then why should I be afraid of you? And
besides, Bill told me about you. You're on the police force yourself."

	Tony didn't know how to take that one. He put his big hand on the table and said: "Listen,
there's one thing I want to get straight. Bill's life was the most important thing in the world to
me, and not because he was a pal, either. I'm not trying to kid you. But it so happens that he was
the one man in town who could get Cawthorn."

	"Why are you so anxious to get him?"

	"Because he's dirt!" snapped Tony. "It's kind of hard to say, but I want to see decent, honest
people running this town. That's important. And the way things stand, my job is to clean up. And
once you start a thing like that, it's tougher to give up than keep going."

	"I wish Bill had felt that way," she remarked.

	"So, the way I see it, Cawthorn heard I was trying to get this dope and so he cracked down on
Bill. First Bill, and now I'm due."

	Her eyes grew worried, then dreamy. Tony clenched his fists and thought of how lucky Rentner
almost was.

	"I wanted Bill to be fine and strong and brave," she said. "I kept urging him to go to this new
district attorney. But Bill could never make up his mind. He'd been gathering evidence for years, as
a kind of hobby, with no definite purpose. Even yesterday he wasn't sure whether he'd have the nerve
to come out against Cawthorn. If only I knew he'd decided on the strong and honest way, I wouldn't
mind." Her expression was tense, bitter.

	Tony gulped. "This evidence, if it has all the names and proof, like you say--well, it's what
I've been looking for. Did you bring it along, like I asked? Because if you did, I want you to give
it to me,"

	"People think you killed him for it," she said levelly, "and you ask me to hand it over, just
like that."

	"Not to me. Take it to the post office and mail it--to Logan."

	She started to answer, but her lips froze; her hand shot up to her mouth and her eyes widened in
terror. Tony uncrossed his legs and pressed his knees against the table. He didn't turn around.

	Sam's deep, guttural voice rumbled out. "Give it here!"

	She still didn't answer. Tony shifted his head and saw Sam's face and shoulders reflected in the
glass of a Jim Corbett photograph. Sam had a gun and it was trained on Tony.

	Tony leaned back. The partitions of the booths were movable, and when he pressed against the
table he could feel the planks give behind him.

	He said, "What's the matter?" and moved his shoulders as if he were merely turning. But he
wasn't. He put the full force of his legs in a sudden thrust. The bench and partition went ripping
backward. Tony twisted his body low and whirled, grabbing for the gun with two frantic hands.

	He caught the wrist and the barrel and forced it away from him. Sam's free fist coiled and drove
out. The smack of flesh and bone was dull with the heaviness of two masses. Tony stopped the blow
just below his ear and momentarily cold sparkling light lit up the room. He leaned forward, sank his
teeth in the gun wrist and drove forward with his body. His legs pounded as if he were a halfback
fighting for a last desperate yard.

	Sam rocked back, smashed up against a partition and splintered it like matchwood. He clutched
out to steady himself, roaring in pain as the teeth dug in and held, doglike.

	The girl's black figure circled and darted like a rapier. She was holding a weighted metal vase.
Suddenly she saw her chance and struck a sharp, whipping blow that broke the skin on Sam's forehead.
He grunted. For a fraction of a second his grip weakened and Tony tore the gun loose.

	Sam hit the wall, steadied himself and banged forward. Tony brought up the gun in a short,
vicious blow. It crashed on Sam's jaw. He backed away and spread his hands. His eyes were glazed and
his breath came short and rapidly, like a winded animal's.

	The girl said, in a tense, excited voice, "They followed me. I didn't know, but I can recognize
him now. They followed me all day."

	"They?" asked Tony.

	She nodded. "In a car. He and a tall thin man."

	Tony hesitated. There were two doors to the bar. One, at the side, through which Sam had come,
and the main entrance to the bar, around the corner. If they could get to Sam's car and beat it
before the other gunman realized anything had gone wrong, they'd win out. If not they--

	Tony looked at the girl. "Listen," he said. "I think I see a way. It may work, if you just do
your part."

	"I'll try," she said faintly.

	Tony raised the gun and leveled it at Sam. "All right, get out to your car!"

	Sam swayed. He was dazed, but he was used to taking orders, and he took them now.

	Tony watched the door from the bar bang open. The bartender and a couple of customers yelled,
and Tony waved the gun at them. They threw up their hands and froze.

	Tony barked at Sam, "Snap it up--fast!" Then he walked through the door and glanced down the
street. Sam's partner, the second gunman, was rounding the corner at a fast walk. At sight of the
trio he whipped out an automatic and began running.

	Shots rang out and the hood kept coming at Tony. Tony recognized him vaguely, knowing he'd seen
the photograph somewhere--probably in the criminal files.

	Tony's brain kept flashing and an idea was forming in the back of his mind, but his movements
were deliberate. He leveled the gun, aimed it, squeezed the trigger. He might have been on the
pistol range instead of standing there unprotected, with an automatic blazing away at him and lead
singing past his ears.

	The gunman's legs buckled suddenly and his body pitched forward and skidded on the concrete. He
lay quietly, face down, with his weapon a few inches beyond his reach. The shoulder of Tony's coat
had a slight rip, and he felt moisture oozing at the tear. But it wasn't important. A skin rip and a
dribble of blood. And a man Iying on the sidewalk with a bullet in him to even the count. Two
seconds in time and an eternity in its effects.

	Sam's eyes were clearing and he was sidling toward the rear of the car. Tony stopped him with a
sharp, explosive order. He fingered the gun.

	"Get in there and drive!" he barked. "To your own place."

	Sam crawled behind the wheel and started the car. The girl got in the rear and Tony in front. To
Mary Jocelyn he said, "You know what to do." She nodded her head doubtfully. She hadn't caught onto
his plan yet, but he felt sure she wouldn't give it away.

	Sam grunted. Tony couldn't see his eyes, but he thought he'd taken the fight out of Sam.

	Sam stopped across the street from his own house. Tony pushed open the door. "O. K.," he said to
the girl. "You know where to take it." She got out and crossed the street. Tony raised his gun and
let it tickle Sam's ribs. "Next stop, railroad yards."

	On the way he told Sam what he figured Sam ought to know. "So far," he said, "the story is that
a tractor engineer named Tony Bragg beat it right after they found Rentner's body. Tomorrow they'll
forget all about Tony Bragg, because the man the police'll be after will be you. It'll turn out that
Rentner was killed back on the street and his body dragged over to the dirt pile. I saw the marks of
that. It'll turn out that your truck was the first to leave the dump heap and that you had plenty of
time to stop on the way and commit the murder near Rentner's parked car. The motive is the evidence
of graft that Cawthorn wanted and stood ready to pay for, and that evidence will be found in your
room. The girl just went there to plant it.

	"I'm putting you on the first outbound freight. After bumping Rentner, you better clear out."

	Sam burst out laughing. "Hell, that all you got? Then take me down to headquarters and book me.
I ain't scared! An innocent conscience, see? That's plenty protection." His big shoulders were
shaking with merriment.

	Tony didn't get the joke. Here he'd played his trump card and it was no good. Sam figured he
could top it without even trying. Well, what did that mean?

	That Sam hadn't killed Rentner, after all. And that Sam felt sure of Cawthorn's protection
because--

	A siren screamed down the avenue, and the dark streak of a speeding sedan bore down on them. Not
a police car, either. It was Cawthorn's special siren. Cawthorn, on his way to the scene of the
shooting at the bar.

	Tony thought fast. The way things stood, he had nothing that he was sure would stick. Some
documentary evidence without corroboration, and some suspicions without proof, If Sam had broken
down, everything would have been different. But Sam hadn't, and Tony was sunk. Sunk, unless--

	He grabbed at the parking brake and wrenched hard. The car swerved and skidded sideways.
Cawthorn's chauffeur jammed on his brakes. Rubber screamed as three tons of metal slid wildly toward
their terrific impact.

	Tony punched at the door handle and tried to throw himself clear. He wasn't fast enough. He saw
Cawthorn's long, heavy sedan leap at him, Metal ripped like paper, and the heavy engine plowed with
a grating, rending shriek. He gripped his gun. The half-open door slammed him like a falling rock,
and he went out for the count. A cold white light exploded in his head, and from a great distance he
heard voices yelling.

	His feet moved automatically. His stomach was turning slowly inside him. Outside there was a
great silence. He put out his hand to balance himself. The metal was cool to his touch. He shook his
head and narrowed his eyes. Slowly the scene focused, the wrecked front of Sam's car, the telescoped
nose of Cawthorn's. Sam stood next to him, swaying on his feet, punch drunk. Cawthorn snapped: "The
hell with your hand--get the cops!" Cawthorn's chauffeur held his bloody wrist and said: "Yes, sir.
Soon as I can." The chauffeur walked like a drunk and headed for a phone.

	Cawthorn's shape steadied. A big man with a sallow face, his yellowish skin drawn tight as a
drum and his mouth a hard, lipless slit, and a pair of polished flints for eyes. And in his hand,
steady and trained on Tony, was a gun! Tony's own.

	The political boss spoke coldly, barely moving his lips. "You been giving me plenty trouble, but
you're through now. You poor dumb punk! You could have drove right past me if you hadn't scared and
tried to stop!"

	Tony shook his head. His eyes were clear, but his brain wasn't working yet. He had to stall
along until he thought of something. Had to stall--

	"Not so easy," he said. "Were you going to a fire? Or going to see whether Sam messed things up
again ?"

	"Cut it," snapped Cawthorn. "You're Tony Bragg, fugitive from justice. Tried to beat it and got
in an accident. Tried to escape, and I had to shoot." The thin lips stretched. You couldn't call it
a smile because there was no humor and no warmth. But they stretched.

	Tony's mind flashed, groped at an idea and tried to hold onto it. When he spoke he was partly
acting and partly repeating what he hoped was the truth and wanted to get into words.

	"Sam just confessed his part in the murder of William Rentner," said Tony thickly. "Signed a
confession ten minutes ago. Just an accessory. But the guy who killed Rentner was you, Cawthorn!
You're under arrest!"

	He nudged Sam. Sam didn't know what it was all about, but he'd learned it was best to agree with
Tony. So Sam nodded his head and said, "Sure, that's right. All he says--sure!"

	For a fraction of a second Tony's stomach went soft and he seemed to feel the hole the bullet
was going to make. The gun was four feet away and dead center on his stomach.

	"Signed confession," he repeated doggedly, "and ready to back it up. Bump me and you still face
a murder rap!"

	Cawthorn had decided Tony was on the spot anyhow, and that Sam was the danger point. That was
Tony's hope, the flash he'd had a few seconds ago.

	"You dirty squealer!" snarled Cawthorn. "Messed everything up and then went ahead and squealed!"

	Sam didn't budge. He saw the gun swing and level at him, but he didn't believe. Cawthorn, the
boss, plug him? What for?

	A gray, rocklike figure whipped forward and slashed. Tony's hand smacked at the gun as the
detonation boomed forth. Cawthorn careened backward and jarred his hip against the wreck. His back
bent and he couldn't aim the gun, but he still had his fingers on the trigger and he kept pulling
it. Bullets circled outward and pinwheeled in a wide, aimless arc.

	Then Sam charged. His one arm was limp from that first slug, and his shoulder pained him, but
there in front of him was Cawthorn, the man who'd double-crossed him.

	Sam dived and cut him down, and then he pounded his feet at the leering, tight-skinned face.

	"Cawthorn!" he yelled. "Cawthorn done it himself--killed Rentner! Wouldn't trust me, so he done
it himself! All I done was drag the body to the dirt pile afterward, and now the dirty
double-crosser wants to kill me so I won't talk! Geez!"

	His foot raised up again and Tony clipped him on the jaw. Tony was so tired he wasn't even sure
that his fist carried a wallop, but it was the only way to prevent mayhem. Sam didn't fall; he
staggered backward, weaved, and sat down heavily on the running board.

	Tony was sitting next to him, gun in hand, when a patrol car arrived.

	"Detective Bragg reporting," he said. He got up groggily. "I got the Rentner murder case here,
complete. Prisoner, Cawthorn. Accomplice and State's witness, Sam. Corroborating testimony, me."

	He burst into a broad grin and his mind began working again. Convalescent leave--leisure.
Leisure--Mary Jocelyn. And Mary Jocelyn--

	But at that point he stopped thinking, and his mind had nothing to do with it.



THE END.


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