pulling off a rag, a phony stock con. Anybody but a damn fool would have caught that.

And her “husband” was just as stupid. He should have knocked first, then used the key. He was supposed to be expecting to find her in, so why in the hell didn’t he knock? And he should have had a gun. Not loaded, of course. Not even a real gun, if he wanted to play extra safe. But as soon as he came in swinging he was making things hard for himself. Hell, even a mark might have gotten lucky and clipped him one.

Well, that was all over. In a day or two he’d get a wire from Lou and head either for Denver or the coast. And he would have happy memories of Tulsa.

There was a knock on the door.

Baron swung himself off the bed, wondering who was at the door. Maybe the telegram, he thought. Or maybe Sally, back for another round.

He walked to the door and opened it.

The “husband” was at the door. There was a gun in his hand.

“Inside,” the man said. “Get inside.”

Baron backed up, puzzled. The man followed him and closed the door behind him.

“Look,” Baron said, “go home. You made me for a mark and you missed. Quit while you’re ahead.”

The man said, “I’m going to kill you.”

“You tried to cop a score and you blew it.”

The man’s eyes were blazing. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. “All I know is you were with my wife. I just finished beating the crap out of her. She won’t be able to walk for a month. Now I’m going to kill you.”

Baron just looked at him.

“She told me she was going to the movies,” he went on dully. “I come back and she’s with you. I always knew she was a tramp. I had to knock her silly before she’d tell me your name. And I had to give the clerk five bucks before he’d give me your room number.

“Now I’m going to kill you.”

Baron started to laugh. No wonder their approach was so amateurish!

The man pointed the gun at him. Baron laughed again, thinking that it was really no time to laugh. But what the hell else could he do?

The man pulled the trigger.

Baron sat down heavily on the bed and began laughing once more. He couldn’t help it. In a few seconds he stopped laughing because he was dead.

BARGAIN IN BLOOD

“YOU’VE GOT TO PROVE IT TO ME,” she said.

He puffed nervously on his cigarette before answering her. She was a very beautiful girl, very well put together and very desirable, and it wasn’t often that a girl like this even bothered to talk to him. He had to be very careful; he didn’t want to say the wrong thing and maybe spoil everything before it even got off the ground.

“How do you mean?”

She took the cigarette from his fingers and dragged deeply on it. “You know,” she said, talking through the smoke. “You say you want me, right?”

“Right.”

“That’s important, Benny. A guy’s got to want me or he doesn’t get me. Dig?”

He nodded. He wanted her, all right. He wanted her from the first time he saw her, before he even knew her name. He wanted her so much sometimes that he couldn’t sleep and just lay in bed thinking about her, thinking about the way her blond hair curled around her face and the way her body could twist a sweater out of shape.

All the time he thought about her, but he never expected to get her. Not him. Not Benny Dix, the little kid with the pimples. The little kid with no dough and no car to drive around in, the little kid nobody paid much attention to at all.

She had class and he didn’t; it was that simple. She was the type of chick who went with an important cat, a cat maybe like Moe. But she wasn’t going with Moe now. She and Moe split, and now she was there for Benny. Maybe it didn’t make sense, but it was nice. Real nice. She was so close to him now that he could reach out and touch her, and there was nobody else around the park, nobody to bother them.

“If you want me,” she went on, “you got to show it. I need proof, Benny. You know why I broke with Moe?”

“Why?”

“No proof. Moe wanted me, but not enough to let me know it. You probably thought Moe was making