“It’s like in a bank,” Brock Sentosa said, smiling at me. “You count this stuff long enough and maybe you could be counting beans, or old movie stubs.”

Maybe Brock had given himself time enough to get casual about the greasy wads of currency that covered the two card tables in what had been a “Play room” in the cellar of the rented house at 1012 Cramer. But I couldn’t be casual about it; I was too new at it.

Anna Garron sat at another card table off to one side, checking the winning ticket returns against the amounts turned in by the retailers. She was blonde and lovely, and if you didn’t think about it, she looked like any pretty and competent secretary working in any office. But then you’d notice that her clothes weren’t quite the sort that would be acceptable in an office; and her makeup was just a shade theatrical, and tiny lines that edged the corners of her mouth gave her a hard look.

Brock had finished counting the twenties, tens and fives, and was putting the ones in stacks of a hundred. The silver was already in a canvas sack. I leaned against the door and watched him and thought of how little I knew about him. Brock Sentosa is a man with a smiling face. Meeting him on the street or in a bar you’d take him for a goodnatured clown. His dark hair is thin and receding and his cheeks are plump, like a squirrel with a hazelnut in each cheek. It’s the eyes that give him away. They are a pale and yellowish brown, and have a dull tarnished look, as though they had been buffed with fine sandpaper. It is although a corpse wore the mask of a living man.

But I had no kick coming. He had picked me up when I was the lowest, and started me in at more money than I had ever seen before.

He could afford it, because the syndicate he works for has the formula for success. It is an old story but none the less effective because it is old. Take a place like Murrisberg, my home town: one hundred and forty thousand people; freight yards; slag heaps; slums and the oily smoke of a dozen factories. A Saturday night town, a brawling, hard-fisted town, where the mills hands and the freight-yard boys look on everything in the world with deep suspicion — with the exception of green money, hard liquor, fast cars and careless women.

Five days a week, the paper carries the figures which show the treasury balance. You get a local, down-at-the-heels, printer to make up a hundred thousand tickets each week; you sell them at two bits apiece. A ticket is good for a whole week, and there are five winning numbers each week. Your odds of hitting a winning number are twenty thousand to one. The payoff is two thousand to one, except the Friday number; that pays four thousand to one. The dream payoff. A thousand dollars for a quarter.

And so I knew that the money on the cardtables was money that should have gone for groceries, or medicines, or interest on the mortgage, or payments on the car. Greasy bills slipped to the vendor with a wise look. “Give me four tickets, George. This week I’m going to hit.”

And George, having learned the patter, says, “You hear about that guy named Baker offer to the tool works? The son-of-a-gun hits a five hundred buck winner two weeks ago, and last week he gets the big one. One thousand bucks.”

“Better make it eight tickets, George. Here’s the two bucks.”

When you have a complicated plan to doublecross a whole organization, the plan seems to divide itself into two phases. The first phase is when you do the planning, fit all the little cogs into the proper wheels, and rub your hands and tell yourself how good it looks and how well it is going to work. The second part is after the plan begins to roll and then you find that instead of you being the boss, the plan has somehow become the boss and you are carried right along with it with no chance to step aside or step out, even if you wanted to.

And part of it was that neither Anna Garron nor I trusted each other. The physical aspects of our relationship were like play-acting, like a smoke screen thrown up to make the other party feel that there was no chance of anything going wrong.

My angle was that I was tired of being a hired boy. For years I had been a good kid, full of confidence in the future, and it hadn’t paid off. I knew that the kids I had gone to high school with, all the people I knew, were laughing at Brian Gage who couldn’t finish college, who spent four years working up to be a pfc, who couldn’t even stay on the cops, and who ended up as a hired boy for one of the rackets.

I wanted to stop that laughter, but quick. I was in touch with a little deal that was bringing in six hundred thousand a year — a million, when you count everybody’s cut — and I was making ten thousand. With the extra dough I could make, I was going to buy respectability. I was going to invest in local businesses. I was going to marry Kit and buy a big house on the hill over town and they were going to point to me and say, “Brian Gage had a little trouble getting started... but when he did!”

That was the way I wanted it.

And the only trouble with the plan that Anna and I made was that she wouldn’t let me in on all of it; she kept some of it to herself.

When she clicked the light on up in the living room, I glanced at my watch. It was quarter after eight. She brought the bottle in from the kitchen and poured a shot for each of us. I cut mine with water, but Anna liked hers straight. She smiled at me, tosed it of, and made a face. “Now to go out and get rumpled by that big clown,” she said.

The big clown was Homer Windo, Jr. He was the son part of Windo and Son, Printers. They ran a dusty little print shop at the foot of Baker Street near the tracks. The biggest standing order in their shop was the weekly hundred thousand tickets for Brock.

I had seen Homer the son several times when it had been my job to pick up the weekly batch, to take them back to be stitched. He was a big, brown-haired guy with a white face, a huge firm jaw, and a surprisingly weak and petulant little mouth that was always moist and red. His daddy ordered him around the shop as though he were some sort of half-witted puppy. His big white hands were always stained with ink, and he usually had a smear of ink somewhere on his big wide face.

“Are you sure you’ve got him hooked?” I asked.

“Don’t low-rate my charms, darling,” she said. “To him, I am a poor but honest girl who is getting slave wages working in a dishonest business trying to get my weak, embezzling brother off the big hook. He got tears in his eyes when I told him about it.”

“But will he come through?”

“Tonight I get the blank tickets. He’ll have to wait for a chance to swipe the type and ink.”

The tickets are printed on a press which is so arranged that each time it banks down, it prints a new five digit number. Homer Windo, Jr., was fixing it so that instead of printing on the face of the ticket, it would print on a hunk of cardboard, and then he was swiping the blank tickets, so that when the numbers came out, the wining number could be printed on freehand.

“That’s a nice story you gave him, Anna.” I looked into her eyes. “And what’s the real story?”

“The witness refused to incriminate herself.”

I got up and poured us fresh drinks. She knocked hers off before I could even pour mine. “As long as you think he’s hooked...” I said.

“That big clown has been trampled on for years. This is his chance to put one over on the powers that be. Besides, he thinks that as soon as I collect on the tickets, I send some of the money to my brother and he and I run away on what’s left. He wept on my shoulder and said that he’d even dig ditches for me.”

It is an odd and lonely thing to drive down a quiet, faded street where the houses need paint, and the children, playing in the night shadows, make small hoarse sounds — and see, behind the familiar elms, the house where you grew up.

That room on the second floor on the side: Quinn and I had shared that room. Banners on the wall, and mechano set under the table by the window. And the quiet grey woman is dead; her big husband is dead; there are strangers in the house, and nothing is ever the same.

Except that Kit Robinson still lived diagonally across the street, and her house was still green with white blinds.

When I had still been on the force, I had been a welcome visitor. “Why, hello, Brian! Come right in. Kit’ll be down in a minute. Oh, Kit! Brian’s here, honey.”

But then the papers had a little spread about a cop who got tight on duty; there was a picture of the mess I had made of the prowl car, and they had found me drunk, it seemed only fitting that I should spend a good portion of my time getting to that state again. I went back and worked in the yards for a time, but everything was sour.

Kit’s father had ordered me out of the house, with Kit standing, white-faced, at the foot of the stairs, her heart in her eyes and tears on her pale face. And when I started to get next to the wise money, Mr. Robinson’s mind didn’t change. He had a pretty shrewd idea where the money came from.

I drove slowly down the street, turned in a driveway and parked in the spot we had decided on several months before. I knew that she was up in her room with the door shut, looking out her window toward that spot. Her window was the only one in the house which faced it.

I put my foot on the floor button and clicked the headlight beams up and down three times. I waited a moment, and did it again. Then I turned out the lights, slouched in the seat and lit a cigarette.

I could visualize what was going on in the green house. Kit would grab her jacket, saunter with great nonchalance down the stairs and say, “I’m going down to the corner for a magazine.” Or cigarettes, or a coke, or some fresh air.

Maybe there’s be a shade of suspicion in the air. Maybe not.

In the stillness I heard a door open, and close. High heels on wooden steps. Then her free stride, the heels clicking on the sidewalk. The tree shadows were dense where I parked. I saw her tall figure, and I leaned over and quietly opened the door on her side.

Seconds later she slid in beside me and the door chunked shut, not too loudly. Her warm arms circled my neck and her hair, the color of honey in the sun, and as fragrant, tickled my cheek while she said my name over and over.

“How long can you be out?” I asked.

“Maybe a half hour. Let’s stay right here instead of driving around, Brian.”

“What about the neighbors?”

“I’m getting sick of worrying about the neighbors; I’m getting sick of this whole thing.”

“They making it rough on you, darling?”

“Every chance they get they slip in some sly remark about you, Brian.”

“You know the answer to that one.”

She sighed. “I know your answer. It isn’t that simple. Come marry me, he says; leap right into the wild blue yonder, he says. What kind of a life would it be, Brian? Wondering from one minute to the next how long it will be before we get a call from the police.”

I flushed with annoyance. It was the same old song. “Maybe you’d like it trying to scrimp along on what I would be making as a cop. Look at Quinn.”

“Molly is a happy woman, Brian. She works hard; there aren’t many luxuries, but she’s happy and secure.”

I knew well the stubborn honesty of her, and I knew exactly what I was going to do. I had planned it enough times. What if I was lying to her? As soon as the doublecross had been accomplished, I would be making enough money to buy that respectability she prized so highly.

I made my voice stern and said, “Kit, we can’t go on this way. We’ve got to come to a decision, and soon. Will you marry me?”

“If you get an honest job, yes,” she said with a chill in her voice.

Maybe I hammed up the heavy sigh of resignation. “You win, Kit,” I said.

Her face was a pale oval, her breath warm on my lips, “You mean...”

Saturday there was nothing to do. I went over and checked with Brock. He seemed carefree and contented. I didn’t get a chance for a word with Anna. I tried a double-feature, but couldn’t get interested; I tried a few drinks, but they bounced off.

After dark, I went and blinked the lights outside Kit’s house. No response. I guessed that she had had to go someplace with her people. I was bored, restless and jittery.

Sunday was almost as bad, except that for a few minutes, while I drove Anna downtown at Brock’s request, I had a chance to talk to her. She told me that she had gotten eight blank tickets from Homer and that he would steal the type face for the numerals on Monday and get them to her.

I tried to question her again on who was in the picture beside the two of us but she wouldn’t talk. When I came back, Brock had had a call from Johnny Naga, and he complimented me on the way I’d taken care of the situation. Skippy had come around to Naga begging to be permitted to handle the tickets again, but Johnny had turned him down.

I told her about Gulbie, and where he was located. She said that it sounded fine. Then she crossed her fingers and added, “Brother, if this thing goes sour, I might as well move right in with your friend Gulbie.”

I laughed, thinking of how she’d look in Gulbie’s shack.

On Sunday night, the drinks didn’t bounce. I had a few, and then took a bottle up to my room. By the time the level was low, I was ready for sleep. It hit me like a sap behind the ear.

The tension was growing. It was getting more and more difficult to act natural about Brock. I got so bored that I made a gentle play for Joyce, and she fell all over herself trying to back up my play. Billy and Oley got on my nerves.

Monday afternoon, in the kitchen of 1012 Cramer, Brock said suddenly, “Anything chewing on you, Boy?” I gave him my best grin. “Not a thing. There just isn’t much to do the first part of the week, I guess.”

He smiled and his dead brown eyes looked at me carefully. “Maybe it’s something else?”

A small shiver ran down my spine. “What else?”

“Maybe you ought to be nicer to Oley, Brian. He got sore at you last Friday when you wouldn’t give him a lift downtown. So he comes back when you go in the house again and Anna is there. What was that for?” My grin felt wide and vacant. “We... we were just talking.”

“You talk good with all the lights out, hah?”

“Oley’s lying, Brock. You know me better than that!”

There was no humor in his laugh. “I don’t know you so good, Brian, but I know Anna pretty good. Sure, I know Anna very good.”

He turned and walked out of the room. That would be the payoff — to have the whole thing blow up in our faces, just because Oley had come sneaking back like a weasel. We had been careless. Suppose Oley had sneaked into the house, had heard what we had said. When I tried to find Oley, he wasn’t around, and nobody seemed to know or care where he had gone.

To have Brock suspicious made things more difficult. Much more difficult. But not impossible. Once, walking back toward a beach through the surf, I had felt the undertow suck the sand out from under my feet. This was the same sort of feeling. The habitual smile on Brock’s face had been familiar, but also familiar was the dead, dull look of his tan-brown eyes.

I began to wonder if forging winning tickets was as necessary to our plan as we had imagined. We could figure on a profit of around two thousand dollars, which was unimportant compared with the advantage of having the syndicate take care of Brock, their own man, on suspicion of crookedness.

In the late afternoon the paper boy threw the evening paper up on the porch. I went out and picked it up, realizing that all over Murrisberg, eager hands were unfolding the paper, eyes were searching the columns near the back page, looking for the Treasury Report, the five digits immediately preceeding the decimal point in the treasury balance as of that day.

I smiled as I remembered having seen, in Molly’s kitchen, while I was still on the force, a tiny pile of the green tickets. Even Molly was a sucker.

I drove aimlessly through the night streets of Murrisberg. On a hunch, I called my room at the hotel. Where would Anna Garron go?

Maybe she’d hide under the wing of the law. Legal talent. From a diner I phoned Wallace Rome’s apartment. After a long pause, he answered the phone. Charmingly.

“This is Brian Gage.”

“Oh.”

“Has Anna Garron contacted you?”

“Should she have?”

“Don’t fence with me, friend. The whole deal has blown up.”

“Indeed?” he said politely.

“Brock is dead, and the out-of-towners know about the raid, and if they can get Anna, they’ll cut her heart out to find out who’s backing a big doublecross.”

I heard his gasp distinctly.

“Now will you tell me if she’s contacted you?”

“Not yet, Gage. Keep in touch. Let me know if you find her.” He hung up.

A cool article, Wallace Rome. Very cool. He might turn out to be a friend in court. And then again... Well, they hadn’t taken my money. Over a thousand dollars on me; that might buy his services.

Trusting the speed of my car, I went back to the vicinity of Cramer Street, and began to hunt around that area. I parked in the shadows by a neighborhood theater and, on a hunch, paid my way in and made a careful search. No dice.

In a telephone book I found the home address of Homer Windo. I went there. I parked down the street, walked across the soft grass and peering in their windows. The two of them were in the living room. The old man had his eyes shut and Homer, Jr., was reading to him, out of a confession magazine. Anna wasn’t there.

I began to wonder about Billy. Maybe he had an idea. I drove out to the store where Billy had queered the Gulbie payoff, parked and went in. An old guy with a white stubble on his cheeks and chin was nearsightedly checking the cash register tape.

He looked up as I strolled over. I dug out a ten, folded it the long way and perched it, like a little tent, on top of his meat case.

“What you want?” he asked.

“Nothing. That’s a present.”

He reached over and took it, snapped it between his fingers and put it in the cash register. “Been getting free money all day. Got a ten from another fella real early tonight.”

A ten. And Billy had said fifty. “You remember him?”

“Sure. Face like a pantry rat and a little yella bow tie.”

“That’s him. He been back in?”

“Nope. Haven’t seen him since.”

“I thought he might have come in to call a cab or something.”

“Nope. Say, old Gulbie's pretty popular tonight. First that ratty looking one come out to see him and then a woman.”

“What!”

“Sure. Damn fine looking woman too. Got off the bus right across the street there and come in here and asked me how to find him. Told her it was about a mile up the road and she’d have to watch sharp or she’d miss the path.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Hour and a half, maybe two hours. Yes, she made a phone call first and talked so low I couldn’t hear a thing and then she asked me about Gulbie and away she went. Told me not to tell anybody she’d been here. Then she gave me five dollars. You gave me ten.” He chuckled. “Been a good day, all right. I figured you wanted to know about her.”

“What made you think that?”

“Well now, don’t get sore. But you and that ratty fella and that girl. You all got the same look. Kind of shifty look.”

I glanced at my watch. Ten fifteen. I slammed the door as I left. Behind me he pulled down the door shade and clicked out some of the overhead lights.