Wingate belched, emanating an odor of day-old rolls and coffee. "But you're goin' to let me bake your weddin' cake, ain't you, Charlie? Or was you figurin' on Crazy pickin' one up from the garbage?"

Charlie made a strangled sound. His shoulders slumped helplessly. He just wasn't any match for the bank guard. No one in the town was. Anything you said to him, why, he just ignored it, and kept coming at you harder than ever. And he never got off of you until he got someone better to ride-which would be a darned long time in this case.

The guard gripped one of his inert hands, and shook it warmly. "Want to be the first to congratulate you, Charlie. You're really gettin' something when you get Crazy. Wouldn't say what it is exactly, but…"

"G-get out of here," Charlie whispered. "Y-you tell anyone about this, an' I'll…"

"Sure, now. Sure, you're kind of up in the air," said Mack Wingate with hideous sympathy. "It ain't every day in the week that a man gets hisself engaged. So don't you worry about sendin' out no announcements. I'll see to it that everyone…"

Charlie turned abruptly and went behind the desk. Mack laughed, snorted wonderingly and started across the street.

On the opposite side, he stood poised for a moment, hand on the butt of his gun, and looked deliberately from left to right. Some two blocks away a car was slowly rounding the corner. No one was immediately nearby, except a storekeeper sweeping off his walk and a farmer driving a spring-seat wagon-and both were well known to him. Mack turned and unlocked the bank door.

Reaching quickly inside, he shut off the automatic alarm. He stepped up to and across the threshold; and then-as it appeared to Charlie at least-Mack tripped over his own feet and went sprawling into the darkened interior.

The clerk hugged himself delightedly. He wanted to see the expression on Mack's face when he stuck his head out the door for a quick look around before locking it again. After a stupid tumble like that, he'd be a cinch to look out, Charlie figured. He'd be scared to death that someone'd seen him and would say something about it-a bank guard that couldn't do any better than that! And you could just bet that someone was going to, if Mack said anything about something else.

Unfortunately, Charlie couldn't go on watching the door. Because, just then,Mr. Kramer's light flashed on the switchboard. And he was one person Charlie never kept waiting.

And "Mr. Kramer," that prince of men, would be the first to say so.

It was doubtful whether Rudy Torrento had ever enjoyed a good night's sleep in his life. He was afraid of the dark. Early in his infancy, the night and the sleep that was normal to it had become indelibly associated with terror; with being stumbled over, smothered under a drunken mountain of flesh. With being yanked up by the hair, held helpless by one meaty hand while the other beat him into insensibility.

He was afraid to sleep, and equally fearful of awakening; from the dawn of his memory, the days had also been identified with terror. In the latter case, however, his fear was of a different kind. A cornered rat might feel as Rudy Torrento felt on coming into full consciousness. Or a snake with its head caught beneath a forked stick. It was an insanely aggressive, outrageously furious fear; a self-frightening, selfpoisoning emotion, gnawing acidly at the man whose existence depended upon it.

He was paranoid; incredibly sharp of instinct; filled with animal cunning. He was also very vain. On the one hand, then, he was confident that Doc McCoy intended to kill him, as soon as he had served Doc's purposes, and on the other, he could not admit it. Doc was too smart to tangle with Rudy Torrento; he'd know that no one pulled a cross on Rudy.

When the first gray streaks of daylight seeped through the boarded-up windows of the old farmhouse, Rudy sat up groaning, eyes still closed, and began a frantic pummeling and massaging of his ribs. They had all been broken and rebroken before he was old enough to run. By now, they had long since grown together in a twisted mass of cartilage, bone and scar tissue, which ached horribly when he became chilled or when he lay long in one position.

Having pounded and rubbed them into a degree of comfort, he fumbled among his blankets until he found whiskey, cigarettes and matches. He took a long drink of the liquor, lighted and inhaled deeply on acigarette,and suddenly-with planned suddenness- opened his eyes.

The punk, Jackson, was staring at him. Being a little slow on the trigger, compared with Rudy at least, he continued to stare for a moment longer.

Torrento beamed at him with sinister joviality. "Got a mug like a piece of pie, ain't I, kid? A chunk with a big end down."

"Huh-what?" The kid suddenly came alive. "Uh- ain't that funny? Guess I must've been sittin' here asleep with my eyes wide open."

Rudy's lips parted in a wolfish, humorless grin. He said yes, sir, it was funny as all hell. But not nearly so funny, of course, as the way he himself looked. "My maw's doctor did that for me, Jackie boy. The one that took care of her when I was born. I had a pretty big noggin on me, y'see, so just to make things nice and easy for her he kinda sloped it off to a point. That's how I got the handle-'Piehead' Torrento. Didn't know I had a real first name for a long time. Maybe you'd like to call me Piehead too, huh, Jackie boy?"

The kid jerked his head nervously. Even in the two-bit underworld of window smashers and jackrollers which had been his recruited ground, Rudy's sensitivity about his appearance was a legend. You didn't call him Piehead any more than you'd've called Benny Siegel "Buggsy." The mere mention of pie in his presence was apt to inspire him to murderous fury.

"You need some coffee, Rudy," the kid said mannishly. "Some good hot coffee and a couple of them snazzy sandwiches I bought last night."

"I asked you a question!"

"That's right, that's right, all right," the kid murmered vaguely, and he poured a steaming cup of coffee from the vacuum bottle; diffidently extended it, with a sandwich, toward the gangster.

For a moment Rudy remained motionless, staring at him out of fixed, too-bright eyes. Then, abruptly, he burst into laughter, for he had remembered something very funny. The kind of thing that would amuse him when nothing else would.

"You got a lot of guts, Jackson," he said, snorting and choking over the words. "A real gutsy ginzo, that's you."

"Well," the punk said modestly, "I wouldn't want to say so myself, but most anyone that knows me will tell you that when it comes to a showdown, why, uh…"

"Uh-huh. Well, we'll see, Jackson. We'll see what you got inside of you." Again Rudy was convulsed. And then, with one of his mercurial changes of mood, he was overwhelmed with pity for the kid.

"Eat up, Jackie," he said. "Catch onto some of that coffee and chow yourself."

They ate. Over second cups of coffee, Rudy passed cigarettes and held a light for the boy. Jackson felt encouraged to ask questions, and for once the gangster did not reply with insults or order him to shut up.

"Well, Doc didn't just happen to pick this Beacon City jog," he said. "Doc never just happens to do anything. He has this plan, see, so he goes looking for exactly the right place to fit into it. Probably scouted around for two-three months, traveled over half a dozen counties, before he settled on Beacon City. First, he looks for a bank that ain't a member of the Federal Reserve System. Then-huh?" Rudy frowned at the interruption. "Well, why the hell do you think, anyway?"

"Oh. Oh, I see," the kid said quickly. "The Feds don't come in on the case, right, Rudy?"

"Right. The talk is that they're fixin' to cut themselves in on any bank robbery, but they ain't got around to it yet. Well, so anyway, he checks that angle, and then he checks on interest rates. If a bank's paying little or nothing on savings, y'see, it means they got a lot more dough than they can loan out. So that tips Doc off on the most likely prospects, and all he has to do then is check their statements of condition-you've seen them printed in the newspapers, haven't you? How much dough they've got on hand and so on?"