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“Who’s Wendy?” Crawford asked.

“That hooker in the hall. The blonde with the chest. She’s been trying to see him. She doesn’t know anything.”

“Why don’t you let her in?” Graham said from the bedside. His back was to them.

“No visitors.”

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“The man’s dying.”

“Think I don’t know it? I’ve been here since a quarter to fucking six o’clock—excuse me, Nurse.”

“Take a few minutes,” Crawford said. “Get some coffee, put some water on your face. He can’t say anything. If he does, I’ll be here with the recorder.”

“Okay, I could use it.”

When the detective was gone, Graham left Crawford at the bedside and approached the woman in the hall.

“Wendy?”

“Yeah.”

“If you’re sure you want to go in there, I’ll take you.”

“I want to. Maybe I ought to go comb my hair.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Graham said.

When the policeman returned, he didn’t try to put her out.

Wendy of Wendy City held Lounds’s blackened claw and looked straight at him. He stirred once, a little before noon.

“It’s gonna be just fine, Roscoe,” she said. “We’ll have us some high old times.”

Lounds stirred again and died.

23

Captain Osborne of Chicago Homicide had the gray, pointed face of a stone fox. Copies of the Tattler were all over the police station. One was on his desk.

He didn’t ask Crawford and Graham to sit down.

“You had nothing at all working with Lounds in the city of Chicago?”

“No, he was coming to Washington,” Crawford said. “He had a plane reservation. I’m sure you’ve checked it.”

“Yeah, I got it. He left his office about one-thirty yesterday. Got jumped in the garage of his building, must have been about ten of two.”

“Anything in the garage?”

“His keys got kicked under his car. There’s no garage attendant—they had a radio-operated door but it came down on a couple of cars and they took it out. Nobody saw it happen. That’s getting to be the refrain today. We’re working on his car.”

“Can we help you there?”

“You can have the results when I get ’em. You haven’t said much, Graham. You had plenty to say in the paper.”

“I haven’t heard much either, listening to you.”