“Depends on who’s in the picture,” said Dubinsky.

“Mm,” muttered Sanders. “Before you get started on that, I want to see if we can make any sense of this stuff.” He picked up a small slip of paper. “‘M.—3—Tues.’ and ‘G.—5—Tu.’ We found that on Friday; it was sitting by her phone and she was a very neat person, wouldn’t you say?” Dubinsky nodded. She was even neater than Sally. “So that must have been the Tuesday of the party at Marny’s or she would have thrown that out. If these numbers aren’t times, then what are they? What do you write down when you’re on the phone to someone?”

“Amounts,” said Dubinsky. “So you won’t forget them.”

“Three what? Five what?”

“Kilos?”

“That’s a hell of a lot, if we’re talking about coke. How about three grams? That’s hardly enough to worry about. Three hundred bucks worth?”

“In that case, the three could just as well stand for thirty or three hundred grams. Who’s M.? Mike?”

“Marny Huber, obviously. And G., of Course, is Grant Keswick. It makes sense. Why else would Jimmy Fielding be hanging around? So that would have made her a distributor. Which explains the large amounts of cash in her bank account and the extra twenty thousand she wanted to squirrel away somewhere.” He sighed. “Seems funny that she would be so upset at losing her job.”

“I don’t know about that. It was a good cover. Maybe she figured she’d just stay in the business until she made her pile, and wanted to have something respectable to fall back on. She should have stayed away from places like the After Hours, in that case.”

“I wonder where Mike fitted in with all this,” said Sanders, picking up the sad little note sent down by the Cobourg police. Dubinsky’s reply was interrupted by someone sticking his head in the door and throwing a letter On Sanders’ desk. It clunked as it landed.

“Mail for you,” he said. “Just arrived by special messenger. Since it was marked ‘urgent’ I thought I’d be a sweet guy and bring it up here.” He waved and disappeared.

Sanders picked it up. His name was neatly typed on the envelope along with the word “urgent,” underlined in red. It was very thickly stuffed with something that felt like cloth. Inside it was something hard and lumpy as well. “Jesus,” said Dubinsky, “it’s probably a bomb.”

“Don’t be stupid,” said Sanders. “It’s too small an envelope.” He turned it over. “But I’m going to be goddamn mad if it blows up in my face.” He slowly eased up the flap and peered gingerly inside. His face suddenly went gray. “God almighty,” he breathed, and pulled out a long thick bundle of curly red hair and dropped it on his desk. Dubinsky leaned over to look at the envelope. Next he pulled out a door key, with a red Webb and MacLeod label on it, and an address on the label. Then he unfolded a piece of paper. His hands were trembling as he smoothed it down on his desk to look at it.

“Sanders,” it said briefly, “You can rescue the lady at the address on the label. And if you don’t want her to lose more than her hair, I suggest you stop meddling with Jimmy and his friends. You might hurry out there. She’s anxious to see you.” The message was typed and unsigned.

“Dubinsky,” he whispered, his voice shaking, “get the dispatcher. Send out an emergency unit to that address.” He pointed at the key. “Get someone working on where this came from. And get the car. We’re going out there now.” He took a deep breath, and then held up the key tag so Dubinsky could read the address. He dropped it in his pocket, looked back and picked up the hair, put it carefully into a clean envelope in his desk drawer, then headed for the door.

Eleanor felt as if she had been lying on the cold, dirty wood floor for at least a day. Her arms ached from being tied behind her back in an abnormal position. Her ankles were tied tightly together and then lashed to her wrists, preventing her from straightening out her legs and from attracting attention by kicking a wall. Her mouth was taped shut. The neighbourhood seemed to be absolutely deserted. Surely someone must think it odd that her car had been sitting in the driveway all this time? But then, she thought, why should they? Strangers had probably been going in and out of here for days, doing all sorts of things. In the distance she heard the rising and falling hoot of a passing ambulance. Much good that does me, she thought. It was joined, however, by the shrill scream of a police siren, which suddenly got so loud it sounded like two police sirens inside the house. The ambulance stopped hooting. The police sirens stopped screaming. She heard the pounding of fists on the door, then more pounding closer to her. There was a confused babbling of voices, then a crash of broken glass. “We’re in,” called a voice loudly, then footsteps began to move very slowly and faintly in a room behind her. She tried to make a noise, but Vito had done his job very well.

“There she is.” Above her loomed a uniformed figure, then two. “Miss Scott?” Hands quickly yanked off the tape before she could think about what they were doing, then untied the ropes on her hands and feet.

“Yes,” she said. “That’s me.” Running footsteps rang through the empty house. Sanders, following the sound of voices, came into the study and was instantly on his knees beside her.

“Are you all right?” he asked, rubbing her wrists, scarlet with rope burns, then pulling her up to her feet.

“Ouch,” she said. “Yes, I’m fine.”

Sanders drove back in grim silence with Eleanor beside him. Dubinsky was driving her car. Still thinking of bombs, Sanders had inspected the Rabbit carefully for signs of tampering. The lady next door, however, assured him the two gentlemen in the Lincoln had left the house at a brisk pace and had promptly driven away in their lovely car. “How in hell did you get yourself in that situation,” he said finally. “You went out all alone to meet someone you’d never even heard of to look at a house that isn’t even in your district. Christ! You’re lucky that’s all that happened to you.”

“I’m a real estate agent,” she snapped back. “If I only showed houses to people I knew, I’d starve. That’s the way we operate. On faith. I must say, you’re not very sympathetic.” Tears filled her eyes. “I didn’t have a very pleasant time in there.”

“I was too sick with worry to be sympathetic. I didn’t know what they had chopped off besides your hair.”

“Is that why all those cars and ambulances came? There seemed to be an awful lot of them.”

“Well—they sent out the works.”

“Where are you taking me, by the way?” she asked in a small voice as he turned off University Avenue onto Dundas.

“Where I can keep an eye on you, that’s where.”

“And my car?”

“That’s going where no one is likely to tamper with it for the time being. I don’t want to have to worry about you all the time.” He turned and glared at her for a second, then pulled the car into the garage.

Eleanor sat in his office, moving slowly from fury to starvation. “Is it too much to ask for something to eat?” she said finally. “I haven’t had any lunch, and it’s past two.”

Sanders looked up, then smiled. “Sure. I’ll send out for sandwiches.”

“Oh gee, thanks,” she replied, with heavy sarcasm. “And I have a friendly message for you from Mr. Jones and Vito.”

“Oh,” he said warily. “What’s that?”

“He told me to tell you that I shouldn’t go out with people who tread on other people’s toes. Who were those guys, anyway?”

“The whole thing had the nice clean touch of the professional. Somewhere we’re getting very close to the mob, and they’re reacting predictably.” He ruffled her hair. “But I’d rather they hadn’t got on to you.”

“Oh well,” said Eleanor. “I always wanted to know what I looked like with really short hair.”