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To date, their reading had provided them with little knowl­edge. The police, and hence the newspapers, apparently knew nothing beyond the bare facts concerning the commission of the crime. Knowing this gave the two a sense of security and eased the tension.

This morning, however, when Sammy returned, he was chewing his gum hard, they way he did when he was shaken. “That dame up front,” he said, referring to the landlady. “She stopped me, and I know she’d been waiting for me to come along. I could tell ‘cause the door opened real quick-like. Not like when somebody’s going out.”

“Get to the point,” Dan snapped.

“Cripes, give me a chance. Well, she stopped me with a good morning, and I tried to hurry by but she asked me be­fore I could, how was your wife. Getting better, I told her. She said she’d cooked a chicken and had some broth and would bring it in. I said she was on a diet. What kind of a diet, she asks me. Never heard tell, she says, of a bronchitis patient being on a diet. I said she’d gone into something worse, and she asked me what, and I said the prethers, and we had to be careful what we gave her.”

“What else?” Dan demanded impatiently.

“That was it. We got to move fast. We’ve got to get rid of the broad before that dame comes around.”

“I can’t understand it,” Dan said. “Something must’ve hap­pened. She’s never shown any interest in us before.”

They had canvassed this entire area to find a landlady who looked as if she would mind her own business, and an apart­ment on an alley, so they could come and go without passing through a foyer. The day they rented the place she had been extremely impersonal, almost curt. She had let them know she would not disturb them if they left her alone. “The rent’s eighty-five a month furnished as is. If you wear out a broom, you buy another. I don’t want no tenants pestering me.”

They told her they were brothers, and then when they seized the bank teller they had a problem. Dan solved it by telling the landlady, “My wife and me, we’ve been having trouble. I figured when I moved in here we’d broken up for good but she shows up today and we got everything settled. I know you’ll want more money, now there’s three of us.”

“Ninety-five for three.”

“That sounds reasonable.” He added, “I want you to meet her soon as she feels like it. She’s got a bad spell of bronchitis and taken to bed but she’ll be up and about soon.”

The landlady had offered no comment. Her attitude was that if she never met his wife, that would be all right with her.

Now Sammy said, “I got a brain storm in the night.”

Dan showed no interest. He was pacing about, thinking. Sammy continued, “If we forced forty or fifty sleeping pills down her, it’d look like she conked off on her own.”

Dan’s look stopped him. “What’re we going to do, hang around while they pick up her body and find out who she is?”

“No, we’ll powder out.”

“And leave a trail a mile wide? The landlady’s seen us, and she’ll pick us out when the cops bring their little album around, and then they’ll plaster our pictures in the papers, and we won’t be able to stick our heads out the rest of our lives.”

Sammy squirmed. They both had records, and hence mug photographs on file. They had been caught within hours after their first job together, the heist of a Yuma , Arizona , bank. A clever attorney, though, had upset the witnesses to such an extent that the bank manager, who had been positive in his identification of them, had become confused. To their amaze­ment, the jury acquitted them.

Dan continued, “What’re you trying to do, Sammy, make the ten-most-wanted list?”

They quieted at the sound of water running in the bath­room, and fell into their usual places in a couple of easy chairs with the newspaper divided between them.

A quarter hour later she emerged with heavy gray circles under lifeless eyes.

” ‘Bout time you were getting out here,” said Sammy, checking his watch. “What you trying to do? Starve us to death?”

She started for the kitchen. He was on his feet like a spring­ing tiger, and grabbed her. “When I say something, you lis­ten, you hear me?”

“I heard you. I didn’t think an answer was needed.”

Dan said, “Make it ham for me. I’m hungry enough to eat a bear.”

Sammy let her go. “Go on, you heard him. Get in there.” He cuffed her on the rear.

Controlling her anger, she asked calmly, “What do you want me to do? Blow up, so you can slap me around? Is that what you want? I’ve played ball, haven’t I?”

“Cut it, Sammy,” Dan said.

She continued, addressing herself to Dan, “My dad’s got a birthday today. He’s sixty-seven, and very sick. He hasn’t got much longer to live, and if he doesn’t hear from me, if he thinks I’m dead

what I’m getting at is, could you tele­phone him and say I’m all right’”

Dan put down the paper while Sammy watched for a cue. “Sweetheart, you know they’ve got a tap on your old dad’s phone, and the minute I call him, the cops pick me up. You wouldn’t want that to happen, would you, because you’d be all alone with Sammy.”