The two detectives agreed to keep Baratto at the motel until Monday as neither wanted to waste their weekend checking out his dubious story. No one expressed any sympathy for Billie and Willie, not even Baratto. If the twins had been in the hands of the family for three days, two more wouldn't matter. Sackler ques­tioned Vinnie briefly but got no further than Dean. Vinnie reluc­tantly agreed to stay put until Monday as long as he had enough money for cigarettes and meals at the diner across the street and the TV continued to work. They summarily dismissed his request for a mustache and disguise and refused to give him a gun for pro­tection. Sackler handed him his son's Little League bat.

Dean and Sackler had 26 dollars between them. Baratto start­ed to grumble but took one look at their faces and decided to leave well enough alone. Saturday was more than half over before Dean was able to leave.

Vinnie had given Dean his address: 879 Parsons-two rooms over a laundromat. Dean planned to send a patrol car by later to pick up some clothes but his trip home passed within a block of Parsons Street and on an impulse, he drove by the building. It was not a neighborhood one would be proud to call home.

As Dean looked for a place to park, he noticed a late model Chevrolet with a rental sticker on the rear bumper parked across the street. Dean could see two men in the front seat as he drove by. He circled the block, approached from the other direction, and parked up the block.

Dean walked up to the open driver's side window, startling the man behind the wheel, mid-bite in his hamburger. The other occupant was slouching down in the passenger's seat with his hat pulled over his eyes, apparently napping.

Advertisement..

Dean put on his silliest grin. "Hi, fellows...."

"Get lost, asshole," the man answered, not bothering to pause in his eating.

"Oh, no," Dean said. "You fellows have got it all wrong. I'm not a mugger. I'm one of the good guys. See?" He showed his badge, inches from the man's face. The driver, tall, dark-haired and unshaven with a pencil-thin mustache, set down his hamburger. The passenger, skinny and much younger, had a facial tic that was very noticeable after he pushed back his hat and looked slowly at Dean who, in turn, continued to smile his silly smile.

"So?" the mustache finally said. "You got yourself a little tin badge. Isn't that nice?"

"Whatcha doing here? Anything I can help you with?" Dean did a quick look-see in the car. Discarded wrappers and soft drink cans littered the floor, a magazine and a folded newspaper lay between the men on the seat. It looked as if they had been wait­ing a long time.




Most Popular