from that button than I get from you,” he said.

“I told ya I’m a respectable woman,” she hissed, kicking at him.

The Turtle had picked up his bathrobe and was just opening the door to go out.

“Leave some dough on the table. Millie’s going to earn it.” Catell leaned over to reach her mouth and she bit him. He jerked back and laughed. “Millie’s gonna make whoopee with a fruitcake, ha, Millie?”

The door shut behind the Turtle and Catell reached for the woman’s straps. She stepped back fast, knocking his hands out of the way and lashing at his face. Her nails cut a fine line of blood down his cheek and her other hand caught him flat on the nose. Catell stumbled back, cursing, and fell over the chair. When he looked up she was standing near the rim of the red reflection. Her skirt was a heap on the floor, and the light made dim patterns on her bare legs and belly. Then the blouse fell off, and the brassiere. When the woman was naked she came at him again, but she didn’t try to scratch this time.

Chapter Nine

Catell left for Burbank at nine in the morning. For the next five hours he shuffled back and forth in one bus after another, missing stops, rooting around for a connection, letting a bus go by to catch a bite at a street stand. By the middle of the day the hot sun had brewed up a smog that burned in Catell’s eyes and made the inside of his nose feel like shoe leather. When he got out on Victory and found the Quentin Machine Company, he was grimy with sweat and sore.

Inside the shop it felt hotter than outside. A couple of big fans swished the oily air around so that the draft made you feel prickly with dirt.

“Yes, sir, you lookin’ for somethin’?”

A thin man in clean, starched suntans came up to Catell and stopped in front of him.

“I’m looking for Smith,” Catell said.

The thin guy took his rimless glasses off, put them back on again, and patted himself on his bald head. Catell noticed how the man looked dry all over. Why didn’t that bastard sweat like everybody else?

“We got two Smiths here. Kind of a common name, I guess. Which Smith you innerested in?”

“S. Smith.”

“Sherman!” the man yelled. “Come here once.”

A man who had been working on a drill press came down the aisle between the machines and looked at Catell.

“Yeah?”

“You S. Smith?” Catell asked.

“Yeah. Who are you? Do I know you?”

“I just came in from Detroit. Friend of Paar’s.”

“Paar? You got the wrong guy, feller. I don’t know no Paar.”

“Sorry, my mistake,” Catell said. “Perhaps the other Smith is the one I want.” He turned back to the man in suntans.

“Might be, except that he ain’t here today. Hurt his hand on the shaper. Hot chips, ya know, burned a hole right in his arm. You go back, Sherman. Guess you’re the wrong guy.”

Catell watched the machinist walk back to his drill press. That wasn’t the Smith he wanted, and his Smith hadn’t got hurt working on a shaper, either.

“There’s another Smith here,” Catell said. “He doesn’t work on a machine. He’s got an office here and I want to see him.”

“Well, now, I’m the foreman here and there’s no other Smith works here. Who’re you, anyway?”

“Where’s the office?”

“I guess you didn’t hear me, mister. What’s your name and business?”

Catell gave the foreman a bland look. “I guess you didn’t hear me, either. Where’s the office?”

“Mister, I don’t need to tell you anything, but just to get rid of you, I got my desk right over yonder.” He pointed to a windowless corner with a desk and files separated from the rest of the shop by some badly tacked beaverboard.

“There’s another office. Where is it?” Catell took a step.

The thin guy in suntans stuck his arm out and held Catell by the lapels. “No further, mister.” He pulled Catell close.

The two men stared at each other, almost nose to nose.

“Tell me, foreman, how come you don’t sweat?”

The man didn’t answer.

“I said, how come you don’t sweat?” Catell jabbed two fingers into the man’s stomach.

The foreman let go of Catell’s lapels. “You lookin’ for trouble, mister, you got it.” Wheezing in his throat, he swung at Catell with a flabby roundhouse. Catell just stepped back, right into the arms of two machinists. They twisted Catell’s arms in opposite directions and, with his feet hardly touching the ground,