on the seat, and Catell laughed again.

During the next week nobody moved the car seat. It stood in the middle of the room, and ranchers dropped around and sat in the seat, and the sheriff sat there. The sheriff used the seat every day, sitting around brooding or looking out the door.

Catell was left alone. He busied himself with the nail he had taken from the toilet, bending it and flattening one end as best he could. Nobody paid much attention to the prisoner, least of all the sheriff, who acted dull and sickish. The day he threw up the first time, Catell finished with his nail. That same evening the sheriff had a sharp headache and bad cramps in his stomach. Catell laughed.

The next morning when the sheriff came to the jailhouse feeling weak and nervous he found Catell’s cell empty and a crooked nail on the floor by the door. He saw that the car seat had been moved. Some stuffing was strewn around the floor and there was a big, empty hole in the seat.

Chapter Eight

By the time Catell hit Los Angeles he was broke. He got out of the Greyhound at the Sixth Street station, wearing a wrinkled suit, a dirty shirt, and a two-day growth of beard. He had lost his tan and a lot of weight. Catell didn’t look so good.

The station was full of bums and drifters trying to keep out of the cold night air. Catell got lost in the crowd easily. Once he was sure that nobody was looking for him, he went outside and turned toward Main. With his hands in his pocket he jingled some coins, counting them for the thousandth time. Ninety-eight cents. About eighty miles out of Los Angeles he had buried his gold where nobody would look for it. Catell thought about his gold, $20,160 worth. He jingled his coins again. He was broke.

Main Street was twice as windy as Sixth and Catell turned up the collar of his suit. When he came to a bar he went in. The narrow room was full of smoke, sour and thick. But it was warm. At the far end of the counter where they sold hamburgers and coffee, Catell sat down. The grill made a greasy warmth. Catell ordered coffee.

On one side of him a shrill-looking whore was eating a doughnut that left sugar grains sticking to her lipstick. On the other side two bums were making a coffee royal with gin. Behind him people were pushing by to go to the john or to get out of the draft from the door. Catell felt a slight pressure at his pocket. His hand reached back fast; his fingers closed around a wrist. An embarrassed face peered at him when Catell turned.

“Pardon me, mister. A natural mistake.”

“Your last, dippy.” Catell grabbed for the small man’s shirt front.

“Tony!”

“For chrissakes, if it isn’t the Turtle!”

“Well, Tony!”

“Not so loud, not so loud.”

They looked at each other, grinning, not knowing exactly what to do next.

“How about my wrist, Anthony feller? How about letting me recuperate my wrist?”

Catell let go and grinned. “You’re losing your touch, Turtle. You’re not doing so good.”

“You may have a message there, Anthony. Indeed, indeed.” And then in a serious tone: “Just rusty, Anthony. I’m in semi-retirement, you know.”

Catell grinned at the Turtle and looked him up and down. The small man had a tight suit on, pepper and salt, but it was a good one. His pointed shoes looked scuffed, but they were expensive. As always, the Turtle’s shirt was too large at the neck. Catell didn’t remember the time when the Turtle’s skinny neck had had a collar to fit it. But that wasn’t the only reason for his name. He had a face like a turtle’s: a nose and forehead shaped in a humpy curve, a thin long mouth with a chin that made a flat angle, and round eyes without lashes. The Turtle had a way of looking dreamy or astonished or dumb, and any one of these expressions was an asset in his trade.

“Semi-retirement, huh? That why you’re picking on a bum like me?”

“Now, Anthony. I was just practicing. Just practicing, you understand. Coming out of winter retirement, so to speak.”

“How about retiring your hand out of my pocket?”

The Turtle gave him his dumb expression, then the astonished one. He pulled his hand out of Catell’s pocket and looked at it. There was ninety-eight cents in it.

“You ain’t retiring, I notice.”

“Just a little short