A shaft of sunlight tickled one of my ankles. I opened my eyes and saw the crown of a tree moving gently against a hazed blue sky. I rolled over and leather touched mycheek. An axe split my head. I sat up. There was a rug over me. I threw that off and got my feet on the floor. I scowled at a clock. The clock said a minute short of six-thirty. I got up on my feet and it took character. It took will power. It took a lot out of me, and there wasn't as much to spare as there once had been. The hard heavy years had worked me over. I plowed across to the half bath and stripped off my tie and shirt and sloshed cold water in my face with both hands and sloshed it on my head. When I was dripping wet I toweled myself off savagely. I put my shirt and tie back on and reached for my jacket and the gun in the pocket banged against the wall. I took it out and swung the cylinder away from the frame and tipped the cartridges into my hand, five full, one just a blackened shell. Then I thought, what's the use, there are always more of them. So I put them back where they had been before and carried the gun into the study and put it away in one of the drawers of the desk. When I looked up Candy was standing in the doorway, spick and span in his white coat, his hair brushed back and shining black, his eyes bitter. "You want some coffee?" "Thanks." "I put the lamps out. The boss is okay. Asleep. I shut his door. Why you get drunk?" "I had to." He sneered at me. "Didn't make her, huh? Got tossed out on your can, shamus." "Have it your own way." "You ain't tough this morning, shamus. You ain't tough at all." "Get the goddain coffee," I yelled at him. "Hijo de puta!" In one jump I had him by the arm. He didn't move. He just looked at me contemptuously. I laughed and let go of his arm. "You're right, Candy. I'm not tough at all." He turned and went out. In no time at all he was back with a silver tray and a imall silver pot of coffee on it and sugar and cream and a neat triangular napkin. He set it down on the cocktail table and removed the empty bottle and the rest of the drinking materials. He picked another bottle off the floor. "Fresh. Just made," he said, and went out. I drank two cups black. Then I tried a cigarette. It was all right. I still belonged to the human race. Then Candy was back in the room again. "You want breakfast?" he asked morosely. "No, thanks." "Okay, scram out of here. We don't want you around." "Who's we?" He lifted the lid of a box and helped himself to a cigarette. He lit it and blew smoke at me insolently. "I take care of the boss," he said. "You making it pay?" He frowned, then nodded. "Oh yes. Good money." "How much on the side—for not spilling what you know?" He went back to Spanish. "No entendido." "You understand all right. How much you shake him for? I bet it's not more than a couple of yards." "What's that? Couple of yards." "Two hundred bucks." He grinned. "You give me couple of yards, shamus. So I don't tell the boss you come out of her room last night." "That would buy a whole busload of wetbacks like you." He shrugged that off. "The boss gets pretty rough when he blows his top. Better pay up, shamus." "Pachuco stuff," I said contemptuously. "All you're touching is the small money. Lots of men play around when they're lit. Anyhow she knows all about it. You don't have anything to sell." There was a gleam in his eye. "Just don't come round any more, tough boy." "I'm leaving." I stood up and walked around the table. He moved enough to keep facing towards me. I watched his hand but he evidently wasn't wearing a knife this morning. When I was close enough I slapped a hand across his face. "I don't get called a son of a whore by the help, greaseball. I've got business here and I come around whenever I feel like it. Watch your lip from now on. You might get pistol-whipped. That pretty face of yours would never look the same again." He didn't react at all, not even to the slap. That and being called a greaseball must have been deadly insults to him. But this time he just stood there wooden-faced, motionless. Then without a word he picked up the coffee tray and carried it out. "Thanks for the coffee," I said to his back. He kept going. When he was gone I felt the bristles on my chin, shook myself, and decided to be on my way. I had had a skinful of the Wade family. As I crossed the living room Eileen was coming down the stairs in white slacks and open-toed sandals and a pale blue shirt. She looked at me with complete surprise. "I didn't know you were here, Mr. Marlowe," she said, as though she hadn't seen me for a week and at that time I had just dropped in for tea. "I put his gun in the desk," I said. "Gun?" Then it seemed to dawn on her. "Oh, last night was a little hectic, wasn't it? But I thought you had gone home." I walked over closer to her. She had a thin gold chain arou............