“Did you see it happen?” Ed asked.

“Half of it.”

“What? Which half?”

“The half where sunshine here got a bullet between the eyes.”

“C’mon, Charley. Help me out. I’ll make it worth your while.”

I looked at the man standing next to me. The skin of his face had a disturbing yellowness to it, dyed by the smoke of countless cigarettes. Even as I watched he took a heroic drag on his current victim, producing half an inch of ash, at the same time fishing a pack of Lucky Strikes out of his pocket for a replacement. His movements were awkward and jerky, as if each part of him acted on every idea long before he was even aware of the thought, and without regard for what the other parts were doing. His walk was little more than a controlled fall, and at any moment one foot might get the idea to go a different direction. His eyes were always moving, darting from point to point, afraid that something might happen while he was looking away. His mind worked the same way, skipping uncontrolled from thought to thought. Yet he never fell, and he rarely missed anything. He was an easy man to underestimate.

“I’d help you if I could, Ed, but I don’t know anything. I was just heading back to the office.”

“Uh, huh.” He didn’t believe me, but another thought had distracted him. “Which way’d it come from?” He was already staring down the street in the correct direction. More police were arriving, fanning out to go from building to building, looking for witnesses. I recognized Detective Hunt as he pulled up, and I knew I was going to be the center of attention soon.

“Over there.”

“Talk to you later, Charley,” he said. “Gotta talk to some people before the cops scare them too bad.” He was on his way. If I didn’t know better I would have thought he was avoiding the detective.

I barely had time to inhale before Hunt found me. “Mr. Lowell,” he said. “I understand you are a witness.” I didn’t like his formal tone. We’d played poker before. “Mind if we pat you down?” he asked.

I did mind. It would set a bad precedent. “It’s nice to see you, too,” I said.

He let me have my way, at least for the moment. “What happened, Charley?”

I told him everything, starting from the moment I left Jake’s. It didn’t take long.

“Anyone gunning for you, Charley? Made anyone mad lately?”

“Nobody in particular. Things have been pretty slow.”

“You think that bullet was meant for you?”

I shrugged. “It would be a hell of a shot to hit a guy in the forehead like that while he was walking, but it sure looks like that was the plan.”

“Why would a high-calibre marksman be wasting time on a chump like this?”

“Beats me.” Why would he be wasting time on a chump like me?

“I recognize this mug. He was one of Fat Angelo’s boys. Fresh off the boat.” Hunt lowered his voice a notch. “You know anyone mad at Fat Angelo? I mean, madder than usual?”

“Everyone.” Hunt well knew Fat Angelo had managed to stay alive by being astonishingly brutal with his rivals while kissing the asses of his superiors with grace and skill. More than one of those men had felt the kiss become a bite. The list of people who wanted Fat Angelo dead would have been a long one but most of them were already dead themselves. Now, it seemed, Fat Angelo was interested in me. I didn’t mention that whoever had killed this goon could easily have knocked off Fat Angelo himself. I was coming to an inescapable conclusion. The bullet that had killed this man had been to protect me. Having such a capable guardian angel gave me the chills. Angels are notoriously fickle in this town.

We exchanged pleasantries for a while longer, but neither of us had anything much to say to the other. Finally he had to let me go. “Don’t leave town,” he said. “I’ll have more questions for you later.”

Don’t leave town. I’d been trying to leave town for years and hadn’t managed yet. The city had wrapped me in its smothering embrace and it held me tight, a jealous lover clinging long past the time the magic was lost. I had tried to leave before, but had always been pulled back to the concrete and glass hive, the center of the Human Universe. “I’m not going anywhere,” I said.

“And Charley?”

“Yeah?”

“Be careful.”

I nodded. “I better get back to the salt mine.”

He hesitated. Last chance to come clean. Last chance for me to protect you. Last chance for the devil you know. “See you, then.”

I beat it back to the Phelps Building. I had a lot of thinking to do, so I stopped off for a bottle on the way back. It was going to be tough going back to rye after the smooth, smoky scotch I’d had at Jake’s, but I’d manage somehow.

Tune in next time for: When It Rains…!

I finished my drink and braced myself for the heat outside. I stepped out onto the pavement, blinking the sun and sweat out of my eyes. As I turned up the street a figure approached me, little more than a silhouette against the blazing day. The figure stopped abruptly, standing up straighter, as I heard a sharp snap by my right ear. I was already diving for cover when the report of the gun reached me.

I rolled to my left, hoping to dive back into the bar before the next shot found me. The other man stood improbably still, then slowly twisted and crumpled to the sidewalk. A single, clean bullet hole adorned his forehead. His face hadn’t even had time to register surprise as the high-velocity slug bounced around inside his head. As he hit the sidewalk the revolver he had been carrying under his coat clattered to the ground.

A woman emerged from a storefront and almost stumbled over the dead man. She looked at him with distaste until she saw the expanding pool of blood by his head. With a scream she ducked back into the store. The police were going to be here soon. I did not want to be anywhere in the vicinity when they arrived, but I didn’t think I had much choice. Someone must have seen me. It would be easier to talk to them now than explain why I left.

That left me with little to do except keep the corpse company. He had been a big guy, blonde, with that Northern European blockhead look. His hair was short and neatly combed, undisturbed by the violence just beneath its roots. The gun was a .38 Smith and Wesson, clean and deadly. I wondered what he’d been planning to do with it. I didn’t bother looking for ID. The cops would check, but I was willing to guess he wasn’t carrying any. “Who you working for?” I asked him, but he wasn’t telling. I tried another line. “Was that for me?” I asked, gesturing to the gun. I pointed to the hole in his head. “Was that for me?”

His blue eyes were staring straight into the sun. It was starting to bother me, the way he never blinked. I was considering going back into Jake’s when I heard the siren. The patrol car roared to a stop and two uniforms stepped out. I heard more sirens approaching. Anything else the stiff wanted to tell me would have to wait.

The cops were no different than the dead man. There’s two ways for a kid with some muscle but not much brains to get ahead in this city; he can join one of the local gangs, or he can become a cop. It comes down to the same thing either way. They have a boss who tells them whose skull to crack and they go do it. It’s a simple life, and a good living for those untroubled by scruples or the sanctity of human life. They looked me over and told me where to stand until someone with an IQ greater than 12 could come and talk to me. After that there wasn’t much for them to do but stand around looking important and threatening passers-by while the dead guy slowly cooked in the sun.

More squad cars rolled up, with a black sedan hot on their tail, Ed Hennessey hunched over the wheel, grinding his teeth and his gears, coming to a halt in a cloud of blue smoke. I had mixed feelings about Ed. He was a smart guy and a good drinker, but he was a reporter. I’d done some odd jobs for him in the past; once I had produced photos and an address where a priest was engaging in activities decidedly unholy. That story never hit the presses—most of those things don’t—but Ed gave me a nice bottle as a bonus.

I wasn’t enthusiastic about having my name in the paper connected to a story like this one, however. Things were complicated enough already, and having me connected with what appeared to be a straight gang hit was going to make it difficult with some of my usual contacts. I live in a gray world, a world of shadows, and the black-and-white of police cars and the bright light of flashbulbs would send my peers scuttling back under the refrigerator.

Still, if Ed thought I knew something, I’d be able to squeeze a couple of drinks out of him.

If I was ambivalent about Ed’s arrival, the cops were openly hostile. A sweatly-faced patrolman with more more swagger than sense was waiting as Ed unfolded his long frame from behind the wheel of the Chrysler. “You get right back in that car and blow on out of here!” the officer said.

“Hello, Charley,” the reporter called out to me, ignoring the policeman as he might an annoying little dog. “What’s the story here?”

“This is a crime scene,” the officer persisted.

Ed looked at the corpse and acknowledged the cop for the first time. “No kidding?” he asked.

“Stay back,” the cop said. “Stand over there.” He gestured down the sidewalk.

Ed came over and stood by me. He wasn’t making any new friends on the force by acting that way, but considering some of the things he had printed about the local constabulary I didn’t think he had much to lose. He had more he could print, and the cops knew it, or they might have opted to end his career early by making sure his fingers would never operate a typewriter again. A delicate balance of power. I knew he had the goods on them because I had helped him collect some of it. The cops didn’t know that. I don’t think they knew anyway.

“What happened?” Ed asked me, glancing at the corpse.

“Someone shot him,” I said.

Tune in next time for: The Devil You Know!