“Sure.”

“Okay, we could make it a kind of a deal.”

Their eyes held together, in the bargaining. Judd felt himself almost unbearably quickening.

And then, in that same instant, a blur crossed the corner of his vision, something on the road in front of them; they were going through a small town, a figure was crossing the street. Judd cried out, and jerked the wheel from Artie. The car slid around the bundled figure – some goddam drunk; the car skidded, wavered. Artie gave Judd a terrible shove with his elbow, and somehow managed to put the car under control. “You goddam stupid sonofabitch, what did you do that for?”

“You didn’t see him! You’d have run him down!”

“I saw him.”

Artie was dead serious, sober, cool.

“You could have killed him.”

“So what? Who’d have known?”

Judd was silent. His mind worked around Artie’s words. Artie could do things, say things, flashing in an instantaneous reaction understanding, that he, Judd, had to attain in several steps of thinking. It was true again – by everything his intellect accepted, Artie was right. And yet he felt as though he had made some great, shivery effort, dragging himself up to a peak, an icy peak, alongside his friend.

“How about it, Mac? You want to make the deal?” Artie said, and the teasing note was there, just an edge of it.

“If we’re agreed on the terms,” Judd managed, quietly.

“Yah. But Charley’s the boss. What he says, you do. Life or death.”

Judd nodded. Yes. In any action, one had to be the master. And the slave, a slave.

Artie accelerated. The car swayed but held on the slippery road.

But not a slave to grovel. A slave of sure reward, the golden slave, his sword protecting his master, his beloved master, of long ivory limbs.

“Only, not for kid stuff,” Judd stipulated. “I don’t have to obey if it’s crap.”

Artie laughed at his apprehensiveness. “No, this is for real stuff.”

“Any crap, Mac has a right to refuse.”

“Wait a minute, Mac. If you start refusing every time I get a hot idea, what the hell.”

They defined it. Only things that might make Judd look ridiculous could be challenged. But if once he refused to go through with a serious thing, then they’d be finished. Artie would get someone else.

“But Mac has a right to question an order,” Judd insisted.

“Okay. But Charley has the last word. If Charley says so, it’s so.”

It hung between them for a moment. “Hey, Jocko, let’s make that the signal,” Artie said. “When I say ‘Charley says so’, that means no more questioning. ‘Charley says so’, you’ve got to do it, no comeback.”

It was like handing over his life. A fluttering elation went through Judd. “Okay, Dorian,” he said. They squeezed some last drops from the flask. Judd heard something like a giggle coming out of himself, the high girlish giggle he used to have when a kid. And just then the car skidded. It whirled completely around and landed in a ditch.

Judd sat rigid for a moment, but Artie lay back, laughing. Then Judd got out and walked around the car. They had been lucky; the ditch was quite shallow. He could pull out, he felt sure.

He came around to Artie’s side. The laughter had stopped. Artie’s head was against the back of the seat; his eyes were closed.

“Move over. I’ll drive.”

Artie swayed over, limp and warm-feeling in his racoon coat. Judd slipped in and closed the door.

It was one of those times when you couldn’t tell if Artie had really passed out or was only letting things happen. The deal.

In Michigan City, a diner was open. Artie, in high spirits, gabbed of the stunts they could pull off, now and then letting a word like “hi-jack” escape loud enough for the waitress to hear. There was Ned White’s house in Riverside. His folks had a cellar full of the best stuff straight from Canada. A couple of cases would be worth a couple of centuries. Maybe they could let Ned in on the job. No, Judd objected, Ned was a pet hate of his – a bore. Okay, Artie had a better idea: let Ned in on the job and then plug him. He was a snot anyway.

Then they started on pet hates, who shouldn’t be allowed to exist. They took turns naming candidates, beginning with Morty Kornhauser. And the blackballing president of the chapter, Al Goetz – Artie said they ought to shoot his balls off. And they named a prof or two, and William Jennings Bryan. And how about including females, Judd said, the old bitch who had spoiled his all-A average with her B in Medieval History. Sure, Artie said, and his own bitch of a governess, Miss Nuisance, he had always wanted to kidnap and torture her, “Cut her tits off!” Judd said. And it was like splashing, splashing, and he was tittering, and Artie said in a solemn voice, “Kidnapping, that’s the thing to do – pull off a snatch. That would be the real trick, a snatch for a big wad.”

“How about Myra?” Judd suggested, seeing the German soldiers, the French girl dragged by the hair. “And rape her for the hell of it.”

“Rape?” Artie laughed suggestively. “She’d beat you to it.” Then serious again: “A boy is better. A kid.”

And suddenly now in his room, as Judd sat waiting, his blood pounding with the exciting remembered images, the lights snapped on and a rough voice demanded, “Okay, Steiner, where’s that typewriter?”

He didn’t show, he knew he hadn’t shown, the leap in him. Yet it had been a dreadful leap of fear, before he told himself it was Artie.

Judd said, “What took you so long, you sonofabitch?”

Artie said that Myra had called just as he was leaving – she was alone, so he had to stop by and give her one. A man had to keep his girl serviced. He was in high humour. “Boy, you should have been at the house for dinner!” He told of his mother discussing the big murder. “The murderer ought to be tarred and feathered and then strung up, she said! I nearly stood up and announced, ‘Mater, I cannot tell a lie, it was me!’”

“Why didn’t you?” Judd said, his voice soft, Artie’s nearness almost uncontainable to him. “They wouldn’t believe you anyway.”

“Hey, how about if I try it? Confess to the cops!” Artie bet that was what Steger was doing right now! His words tumbled on. He’d met that punk reporter, Sid Silver. “Boy, did I fill him with crap about Steger.” And Sid had told him about the third degree, the tricks the cops used so as to leave no marks.

As Artie talked, he picked up the typewriter. “Let’s get rid of this goddam evidence.” He began to twist at the keys. “Hey, got a pliers or something?” Judd had a pair in his desk, but the keys were springy, his fingers got nipped, and he squealed. He never could stand physical pain. Artie laughed. “My God, you’re bawling!”

It was more than Judd could endure. After the way he had worked himself up with all that waiting, and now Artie was throwing the typewriter on the floor, jumping on it. “Cut it out! You want the goddam maid in here?”

It was odd how the machine seemed indestructible. “We better throw it in the lake,” Artie said. “This won’t come up and float.”

“Okay.” Judd put the cover on the machine. And in that instant he remembered the robe, the bloody robe, hastily thrown into the bushes last night, after burning the kid’s clothing in the furnace. How could they have been so stupid! And in that moment the first ghastly doubt of their cleverness spread through Judd. The spectacles could have been an accident. But the bloody robe lying in the open all day, with the neighbourhood filled with police! Then, if they weren’t really so clever, if they weren’t really superior – if they were just anybodies, where was their right to do what they had done?

It was a misty night, the sky almost milky, the air awesomely silent. They drove rapidly to Artie’s. Judd told himself that if the robe were still there it would be a sign that they’d get away with the whole thing.