There were four members of the pardon and parole board, in addition to its chairman, Beynon. Exercising his unusual privileges, Doc approached them one by one. The middle-aged woman member fell for him; he was able to buy her with conversation. The three men members were open to a cash proposition.

Unfortunately Doc had run very, very low on money. He didn't have nearly the amount needed for the three-man buy. And his lawyer, who was usually open to a «good» proposition himself, refused to play banker. "Not that I don't trust you, Doc," he explained. "I know I'd get mine right off the top of your first job. The point is there wouldn't be any job, because there ain't going to be any pardon. You'd've talked this over with me in the first place, I'd've told you you were wasting your time."

"But I'd have four members. A majority of the board."

"Majority, schmority! Three of 'em are crooks, and the gal's a well-meaning imbecile. Beynon would veto them. If they tried to crowd him, he'd start swinging. Kick up such a stink that you'd probably have to do the rest of your time in the hole."

"Turn it around then. If they can't push him, can he push them?"

"He could. He could make 'em do a skirt dance on the capitol steps if he took a notion. But lay off, Doc. He didn't get that way by going for the fast dollar."

"Good for him. The better the reputation, the less the risk."

"Yeah?" The lawyer smiled bitterly. "Like to meet a guy that almost got disbarred for offering Beynon a cigar? Well, shake hands."

Doc wasn't convinced. He'd dealt with Honest Johns before, and they'd never turned out as pure as they were supposed to be. So he arranged to see Beynon alone-and that was about all he did.Just saw him. And excused himself as quickly as he could. He was too shrewd-too able an interpreter of a man's expression, the tone of his voice, his overall attitude- to do anything else. Beynon obviously wanted him to make the bribe attempt. It was also obvious that he had some very unpleasant plans for Doc as soon as it was made.

"So I'll have to think of something else," Doc told Carol on her next visit. "I don't know what it will be, but Beynon's definitely out."

"Maybe not. We can't be sure unless we try."

"I'm sure. Beynon won't take."

"You mean he never has," Carol persisted. "He won't take from you or the lawyer. Ordinarily he wouldn't take from me. But suppose I'd broken up with you, Doc-that it looked like I had. Then he'd have a double out for himself in case anyone got nasty. If I were through with you, then naturally I wouldn't be giving him a bribe. And when a man's wife quits him, it's supposed to be punishment. Don't you see, Doc? I wouldn't have any reason to bribe him, and he would have a reason for giving you a break."

It sounded pretty flimsy to Doc. But Carol wanted to try; and it was pressing four years since he had entered the penitentiary. So he told her to go ahead.

Two months passed before he saw her again. No one could have been more surprised than he when she reported success. Beynon would sell him a pardon. The price, five thousand cash, fifteen thousand within ninety days.

News of the robbery had been on the air since tenthirty that morning. Carol and Doc listened to it, the radio tuned to a whisper, as they ate lunch at a roadside drive-in.

Rudy had been identified from rogues' gallery photographs. Except forJackson, whom he had killed, there was no mention of a confederate. Rudy had robbed the bank. Rudy had driven boldly out of town with "more than three hundred thousand dollars in swag." The authorities were «puzzled» as to how he had gained entry into the bank to kill the guard. But no one raised the question as to whether he had shot Wingate.

That would happen in about two days, Doc mused, as he turned the car back into the highway. The trajectory of the bullet, and the bullet itself, would instigate inquiries about "an unnamed businessman who had been vacationing in Beacon City." And in two or three more days the businessman would be named, along with his "business." But by that time it wouldn't matter.

The news broadcast ended, gave way to a disc jockey. Carol started to doze again, and Doc leaned over to switch off the radio. Then, abruptly, he turned it up. He and Carol listened silently, tensely, to a late news bulletin.

It was over in a moment. Carol turned the switch, turned slowly, wide-eyed, toward Doc.

"Doc…?"

Doc hesitated, then shook his head firmly. "Huhuh. After all, it happened almost sixty miles away from Beacon City. It couldn't have anything to do with…"

"Why couldn't it? Who else would do a thing like that?"

"Anyone could have. Some drunk that lost his head. Some gun-happy teenager."

"You don't really believe that, Doc. I know you don't," Carol said. "You didn't kill him. Rudy's still alive."

Aimed straight at the heart, Doc's bullet felled Rudy Torrento like a streak of lightning. He stopped breathing, all conscious movement. His eyes glazed, his wedge-shaped face became a foolish, frozen mask, and he crumpled silently backward, an idiot doll cast aside by its master.

The back of his head struck against a rock in the bed of the stream. The impact deepened and extended his deathlike state. So, far from giving him a second bullet, Doc McCoy hardly gave him a second glance.

And less than thirty minutes after Doc's departure, Rudy came to life again.

His head ached horribly, and his first move was to roll on his stomach and batter the offending rock with his fists. Then memory returned and terror surged through him, and he hurled himself to his feet, clawing. Clawing off his coat and holster. Ripping open his shirt and undershirt. Ripping aside their bloody mess, and seeing and feeling-seeing-f eeling- the scarlet frightfulness of his flesh.

He snarled, whimpered, whined. All silently, his vocal cords constricted. He threw back his head and let out a long, silent howl; the shivering, heartbreaking cry of a dying animal. That was taken care of then; the last ceremony which instinct demanded. Now he could begin the actual business of dying. He breathed more and more rapidly. Feverish, poisonfilled air rushed into his lungs, his heart raced and stuttered, and his body began to jerk and stiffen.

I knew it, he thought dully, almost with his last thoughts. Back there years ago, back when I was just a kid, back as far as I can remember, I knew it'd be like this. Everything gettin' colder and colder, and the darkness getting deeper and deeper, an'-I knew. I KNEW!

Knew. The word drummed through his mind, sending a signal back through the years, through thousands of miles, through the grim gray walls and chilled-steel cages of a maximum security prison. And back through time and distance came a voice which told Rudy the Piehead, one of the nation's top ten public enemies, that he was a foolish little child who knew nothing whatsoever.

Rudy blinked, and a little color came back into his fish-gray face. "Max-?" he whispered hopefully. "You-you here, Max?"

"_But of course I am. Where else would I be, when my leetle poy Rudy is in trouble? Now, do vot I tell you, instanter!_"

Rudy did so. He was quite alone, needless to say; alone with the whispering, half-dry stream and the deep shadows of the arching trees, and the salt-sweet smell of his own blood. But in his mind he was not alone. With him was the one person he had ever loved, or been loved by. Little Max. Herr Doktor Max. Max Vonderscheid, M.D., Ph.D., Psych. D.-abortionist, physician to criminals; a man who had never been able to say no to a need, regardless of laws and professional ethics.

He and Rudy had been cellmates for three years. Those years, in a so-called tough jug, had given the Piehead the only true happiness he had ever known. One does not forget such things, or such a man. Each of his actions, his words, becomes a thing to treasure.