Rudy snorted. He jammed a cigarette into his mouth, put his left hand in his jacket pocket, ostensibly seeking a match. It came out with a heavy automatic which he leveled across his lap.

"Get rid of the rifle, Doc. Toss it out in the ditch."

"Might as well." Doc didn't appear to notice the automatic. "Doesn't look like we're going to need it."

He lifted the rifle, muzzle first, and dropped it out the window. Rudy let out another snort.

"Doesn't look like we're gonna need it!" he mocked. "Well, you ain't going to need that rod in your jacket either, Doc, so-_don 't move for it!_ Just take the jacket off and toss it in the back seat."

"Listen, Rudy…"

"Do it!"

Doc did it. Rudy made him lean forward, then backward, swiftly scanning his trousers. He nodded, gave Doc permission to light a cigarette. Doc turned a little in the seat, eyes sorrowful beneath the brim of his hat.

"This doesn't make sense, Rudy. Not if it's what I think it is."

"That's what it is. Exactly what you'd figured for me."

"You're wrong, Rudy. I shouldn't have to tell you that. How would I get by at Golie's without you? They're your relatives, and if Carol and I pulled in there by ourselves…"

"They'd probably give you a gold watch," Rudy said sourly. "Don't kid me, Doc. You think I'm stupid or something?"

"In this case, yes. Perhaps we might get along as well without you, but…"

"As well? You'd be a hell of a lot better off, and you know it!"

"I don't agree with you, but let it go. You'll need us, Rudy. Carol and me."

"Huh-uh. Just a different car, and some other duds. Yeah, and your share of the take. That's all."

Doc hesitated, looked through the windshield. He glanced at the speedometer. "Too fast, Rudy. We're liable to pick up a cop."

"You mean we're ahead of schedule," Rudy grinned. "That's what you mean, ain't it?"

"Give Carol the signal, at least. She'll think there's trouble if you don't. Might even lam out on us."

"Not on you." Rudy's laugh was enviously angry. "She'll know you was going to bump me, and…"

"No, Rudy. How…"

"… and she'll figure you got caught in a snarl, so she'll move right on in and try to get you out of it."

Doc didn't argue the point. In fact, he ceased to argue at all. He simply shrugged, turned around in the seat and was silent.

Coming so quickly, his apparent resignation bothered Rudy. Not because he was afraid Doc had a fast one up his sleeve. Obviously he couldn't have. The feeling came from something else-the irksome, deeply rooted need to justify himself.

"Look, Doc," he blurted irritably. "I wasn't burned over what you was going to do to me. You'd've been a sap to do anything else, and I'd be a sap to do anything else. So what's there to cry about?"

"I didn't realize I was crying."

"And you got no right to," Rudy said doggedly. "Look. A hundred and forty in cash. Maybe a hundred and twenty-five out of the bonds. Call it a quarter of a million all together. That ain't no dough in a three-way split-not when it's the last you're going to get and you got to hole up with The King all your life. He doesn't put out anything without cash on the line, and plenty of it."

"Exactly." Doc smiled witheringly. "So it would be an excellent idea not to simply live up your cash, wouldn't it? To use it in such a way that you'd be sure of a generous income as long as you lived."

"How you mean?" Rudy waited. "Like startin' a tamale parlor, huh?" he jeered. "Or maybe a gambling casino?" He waited again. "You're goin' to run competition with The King?"

Doc laughed softly. The laugh of an adult at a small child's antics. "Really, Rudy. In your case, I'd suggest a circus. You could be your own clown."

Rudy scowled and licked his lips uncertainly. He started to speak, stopped himself. He cleared his throat and made another attempt.

"Uh, what'd you have in mind, Doc? Dope, maybe? Smuggling? I figured them things was sewed up, but-ah, to hell with you, Doc! I'm holding aces and you're trying to buy out with hot air."

"Fine. So why don't we let it go at that?" Doc said easily.

Rudy's foot eased up on the gas. Two emotions warred within him: ingrained suspicion and inherent terror of being in want. Doc was conning him-or was he? Would a smoothie like Doc go out on a limb unless he saw a better one to grab? And-and what did a guy do when he ran out of dough, and he couldn't take it away from someone else?

"You ain't got a thing, Doc," he mumbled. "You got something, what you got to lose by telling me about it?"

"Very little-but what would you have to gain? Take such a simple matter as Mexico's foreign policy, its relations, I should say, on a global basis, as compared to those of its Latin-American neighbors. The situation isn't going to change any. Or if it does, it will be to a still more favorable position. It's tied directly to the monetary market-the foreign exchange rate, to use the more popular term-and with inflationary tendencies being what they are, and with gold staked at thirty-five dollars an ounce, the potential for the right kind of operator is…"

Doc let his voice trail away. "Never mind, Rudy," he said pleasantly. "It seems simple enough to me, but I didn't really expect you to understand. It's something that's confused a great many highly intelligent people, men who were very successful in their own particular professions."

"Like double-talk maybe?" Rudy scoffed. But he said it rather feebly. There were certain words, phrases, that rang a bell in his mind. Foreign exchange- inflationary tendencies-monetary market. The terms were identified with news stories which he invariably skipped over, but he guessed they probably meant heavy sugar to a lot of people.

"Like double-talk," Doc was saying. "Yes, that's exactly the way it would sound to you. And I can't say that I blame you a bit. It would probably sound the same way to me if I hadn't spent most of my last four-year stretch reading up on it."

"Well…"

"No, it's no use, Rudy," Doc said firmly. "I wish I could. It's a good deal-and a perfectly legitimate one-and you'd have been just the right man to hold down one end of it. But I can't make it any clearer than I have, so there's nothing more to be said."

Rudy was not a fast thinker-if the weird processes of his mind could be called thinking. But when he made a decision, he made it fast. Abruptly he dropped the gun into his pocket and said, "All right, Doc. I'm not buying just yet, but I'll take an option."

Doc nodded. He didn't trust himself to speak.

"I'm keeping your gun," Rudy went on. "I'm taking any iron that Carol has when she shows. We stop at night, you two get tied up. We stop for grub or something during the day, one of you stays with me. Either one of you tries anything, that'll be it. Know what I mean? Okay?"

"I know exactly what you mean," Doc purred, "and naturally it's okay."

They crossed a bridge over a small creek. Immediately on the other side, Rudy turned the car straight down the road's embankment, then down the bank of the creek. The wheels bounced high in the air; the steering wheel jerked and spun in his hands. Rudy fought it around to his left, heading the car up the rocky bed of the stream with its shallow trickles of water. A couple of hundred yards farther on, beneath a cloaking arbor of trees, he brought it to a stop.

Doc took a handkerchief from his pocket, mopped at his forehead. He said mildly that he was afraid his neck was broken.

Rudy laughed. Doc got out of the car and removed his hat, continuing the mopping process as Rudy climbed out.

"You kill me, y'know, Doc?" Rudy was still snorting over the joke. "You really slay me sometimes. I…"

"So what's wrong with that?" Doc said. And as Rudy burst into renewed laughter, he took a gun from his hat and fired.