He stood in front of the mirror again, checking himself as he stuffed his male clothing into the suitcase. He was satisfied. One of his best jobs yet. That certainly called for a drink as a reward. He took a long slug out of the Vodka flask, then replaced it under his clothing and snapped the suitcase shut. Done. No one would ever know that one of America's greatest male actors hid underneath that woman's clothing and behind that painted woman's face.

He unlocked the bathroom door and peeked out. The bartender was at the end of the bar, washing glasses, his back to Lizzard, who walked quickly out the front door without looking back. He locked his suitcase in the trunk of his car.

Almost directly across the street from the Bay City Improvement Association, he found a tenement building with a for rent sign. Before ringing the super's bell, he slouched over, changing himself from a six-foot-five man to a six-foot-four woman. He rejected the idea of using a limp. It wouldn't be necessary. His disguise was already perfect. To talk to the superintendent, he used his woman's voice, a high squeaky rattle, punctuated by chuckles.

"Got a lot of apartments," the superintendent said.

"The highest one," Lizzard said. "Me and my boys, we like to be up high."

The front windows of the apartment looked down at the Nobile headquarters.

"How much, sonny?" Lizzard said.

"A hundred a month, includes heat and hot water. What's your name, Mrs.?"

"Mrs. Walker," Lizzard said. "I'll take it." He looked at the superintendent and wondered if he should come on to the burly man. He would swear the superintendent was already infatuated with Mrs. Walker from the way he was staring at "her."

"Two months in advance," the super said.

"Good," said Lizzard. He paid with two hundred in bills that had come from Sam Gregory's roll.

"Me and my boys, we'll be moving in slow over the next couple of days. We gotta wait for our furniture to come."

"Oh? Where's it coming from?"

"Chicago," Lizzard said. "But you know how movers are." He batted his false eyelashes at the superintendent who seemed very anxious to give Mrs. Walker the keys and to leave. Probably realizing that his passion was boiling almost out of control, Lizzard thought. The super went back to his first-floor apartment, where his wife asked him who had looked at the apartment.

"Some old transvestite," the super said. "Wearing women's clothes but he forgot to shave. He looks like hell."

"Pay in advance?"

"Two months."

"Good. Maybe we can attract a colony of transvestites."

Upstairs, Lizzard looked around the apartment and was satisfied with it. He decided that such a good start on the day's work entitled him to a drink or two before he went to rent the second apartment. A real drink, not some kind of hurried sip from a flask.

He was in such a hurry to get to a bar that he forgot to keep slouched over. After four Vodkas, he forgot to use his woman's voice.

No one seemed to mind.

Al Baker had been directed by Sam Gregory to use all his mob contacts to find out just who was moving into Bay City, where they were moving and what they were up to.

The only problem with that assignment was that Al Baker had no mob contacts. He had run numbers in Brooklyn for five years back in the mid-Fifties, and then given it up when his brother got arrested. Since then, he had worked in a laundry, as a used car salesman, a liquor-truck driver and a dram and sewer cleaner.

He was carrying five hundred dollars of Sam Gregory's money in his pocket.

"Mafia informants don't come cheap," Baker had said. Gregory had nodded and paid.

When he had been running numbers, Baker had dreamed of working his way up through the ranks until he was the head of America's underworld. Along the way and before taking his first step up, he realized that those who reached the top didn't necessarily have to be smart. But it certainly helped if they were lucky and bullet-proof. Since he had never been lucky and he was afraid of bullets, he had lost his zeal for living the mob life. But he had never lost the fascination that came from thinking about it and talking about it, which was how he had come to Sam Gregory's attention.

Baker parked his car near River Street and wondered what to do next. "Use all your mob contacts," Gregory had said. All Al Baker knew about illegal was how to run numbers, which gave him an idea when he saw a newsstand on the corner.

Baker knew how to make people talk. To make the newsie talk, he first had to convince him that he wasn't an undercover police agent. The simplest way to do that was to badmouth politicians at every level, for cops, even undercover cops, never spoke ill of politicians who might control their destiny. The stories of what they said just might get back and they might wind up walking traffic posts in the meadows in winter.

Five minutes after going to the newsstand, Al Baker had placed a bet on a number — a small bet because he was counting on keeping most of the money Gregory had given him. He found out from the newsie that there had been a shake-up in the numbers business, that City Hall was more deeply involved now and was taking a bigger piece for protection. To stay in business, the numbers bank had had to cut the amount paid on a winning hit from 600-to-1 down to 550-to-1 and the people who bet on numbers were growling.

"Can't be much of a business anyway?" Baker said.

"Nickel and dime stuff. Every newsstand. Every candy store. Every saloon. This town so rotten, what else to do but play numbers," the newsie said. "Hope you hit it big and go to Florida 'cause this town's crap."

Baker rolled up his newspaper and began to walk away. It would do no good to spend too much time at the newsstand. Sooner or later the newsie would start asking him questions and if the cop on the numbers run saw him and didn't recognize him, he might start asking questions too. Baker waved back at the newsie.

"You're not going to Florida, are you?"

"Not that lucky," the newsstand owner said.

"Me neither. I'll be back tomorrow for my winnings."

As he walked away, Baker was framing the report to Gregory in his mind. "A massive infiltration of the illegal gambling industry by Rocco Nobile and his power-mad henchmen."

He walked along River Street for a while and jotted down the addresses of loft buildings which had obviously had work done on them recently or which had gotten new tenants.

In his small notebook, next to the addresses, he put a crime. He had no idea, what crimes, if any, were being perpetrated in those loft buildings so he made them up.

When he was done with his walk, his notebook read:

#358. Loansharking.

#516. Counterfeit operation.

#612. Heroin drug factory.

#764. Hq. of national auto theft ring.

He put his notebook back in his pocket. That was one side of the street. The next day, he would come back and do the other side, but first Sam Gregory would have to give him another five hundred dollars to buy off more Mafia informants.

Driving out of town, he stopped at the Bay City Bank to open a savings account. He was going to start it with $498, but he changed his mind at the last minute and only deposited $493. The other five dollars was for admission, just in case he passed a theater where The Godfather was playing.

Mark Tolan had also spent the day in Bay City but he was not interested in renting apartments or in who was running the numbers operation. His job was to try to clock schedules so that when The Eraser and the Rubout Squad were ready to launch their war against the Mafia, they would know what targets were vulnerable and when.

Gregory had tried to talk Tolan out of taking weapons on the mission.