The second ashtray was in Heller’s hand. “This one,” said Heller, “takes the top of your head off!”

Bury was shaking, he was holding his arm. He moved over to the phone. He told the clerk to go out in the street and call up to the roof across the way and tell the man there to come over quickly.

Except by the window, the room was too dark and curtained to see deeply into. Heller moved over in a leisurely fashion and took Bury’s gun.

“Just sit down there on the bed in plain view of the door. And look more relaxed.”

“I think you broke my arm.”

“Better than your head. Now, when he knocks, tell him in a normal voice to come in.”

They waited, Heller against the wall by the door.

In about five minutes there was a knock.

“Come in,” said Bury.

The door opened and a man stepped in.

Heller slammed the side of his hand against the back of the man’s neck. It catapulted him forward into Bury!

The violin case dropped.

As the man had gone by him, Heller had extracted a Cobra Colt from his waistband.

Holding two guns, Heller put the Cobra in his pocket. He stepped out, flopped the squirming sniper onto his back. The man was a thin weasel, penitentiary stamped all over his face. Heller plucked a wad of bills from his inside pocket. He riffled them.

The sniper glared at Bury. “I thought you said he was just a kid!” He was starting to get furious.

Heller stepped forward. He made a cuffing motion and the assassin flinched. And Heller had his wallet and I.D.

With his foot, Heller pulled the briefcase to him and then opened it. He took out only the car plates. “I keep my bargains, Mr. Bury. You bought some papers and you can have them. I received some in exchange and I will keep them. A deal is a deal.”

Heller moved them over off the bed and against the wall away from it. “However, Mr. Bury, I somehow doubted you were strictly a man of honor. So…”

He took the radio/cassette player out of the top of the suitcase. He hit the rewind. He pushed play. Heller’s voice came out the tiny speaker, “Come in. It’s open.” And then Mr. Bury’s voice, “I am Mr. Bury of Swindle and Crouch.” Heller spot-checked it. It was all there on the cassette.

“So,” continued Heller, “we will just put this in a safe place in case anything odd happens to me.”

“Tapes aren’t court evidence,” sneered Mr. Bury.

“So, one more thing,” said Heller.

“I’m sick of your one-more-things!” said Bury.

Heller opened the hood’s wallet. He took a notebook and, in a blur of fast writing, took down all the particulars in it. Then he read the criminal’s name aloud:

“Torpedo Fiaccola” and added his home address and social security number.

Heller took the money he had removed from the assassin. “This is about five thousand, I should judge.” He put it in the wallet, making it bulge. “It is probably half the contract price.”

He gave the wallet to the gangster. “I would not want to be accused of taking the daily bread out of anyone’s mouth. So I am buying a contract on Mr. Bury’s life.”

Bury and the gangster looked at each other and back at Heller.

“But I don’t want it executed yet,” said Heller. “If any of this I.D. turns out to be funny or if I hear any Bury bullets going past my ears, I will phone you and you can execute the contract on him. You will be paid another five thousand cash if you then execute it.” He must have smiled at the hood. The fellow didn’t know what to think.

“Oh, I can reach you,” said Heller. “I have your mother’s address and phone number here.”

The gangster flinched. I actually don’t think Heller understood that the gangster now thought Heller was saying that if the hood didn’t comply, his mother would be executed. But the gangster, I could see, took it that way.

Bury was another matter. As Heller studied him, I could see that Mr. Bury had another trick up his sleeve.

“You have nothing to fear from me, Mr. Bury,” said Heller. “You have your papers. I will keep the deal as long as you do. So let’s leave it that way.”

Heller took the shells out of the revolvers. I freaked! He didn’t have a gun on them now!

Heller opened up the violin case and inspected the dismantled sniper rifle. Then he took its supply of shells. He gave the guns and case and briefcase to them. With a screwdriver, he got a grip on the knob shaft socket and opened the door.

With a courtly bow, he signalled they could leave.

“May we never have occasion to meet again,” said Heller.

The look Bury gave him would have disfigured a brass statue.

They left.

Heller was a fool! His grand heroics might serve in another time and place but not New York, New York, Planet Earth — Blito-P3!

He should have quietly killed them both. That would have been the tradecraft thing to do!

He had humbled one of the most influential attorneys on the planet and gotten the better of Rockecenter, a thing that man never tolerates.

Then, just as if he had not made mortal enemies, Heller neatly put the doorknob back on, packed, made everything tidy. Then, as he put his baseball cap on the back of his head in front of the mirror, he said, “There’s nothing like FBI training to see you through.” And he laughed.

But they hadn’t taught him enough. Bury already had realized that any threat to Heller from anyone could be interpreted by Jerome Terrance Wister as coming from Bury. It left Bury with no other choice than, one way or another — if not at once, then at some convenient future time — to use much more adroit methods to eradicate Jerome Terrance Wister. Top Wall Street lawyers don’t ever really lose. They only postpone.

At his fingertips, Bury had at his command not only government agencies but whole governments. He could sic any of them on Heller. Money meant nothing to him. Very possibly, right this minute he was offering Torpedo Fiaccola three times what Heller had offered to give it another try. And Fiaccola, frantic at that foolish threat to his mother, as well as his disgrace today, would now listen to anything.

Heller really was dealing in a subject he knew too little about. And he was a lot too cocky! Spies are deadly things, like scorpions in hiding. They don’t walk out the door singing after they have set in motion the most powerful and vengeful machine on the planet — the Rockecenter power.

I sat and gloomed. I could think of no way to get that platen before Heller was killed. No wonder the life expectancy of combat engineers was only a couple of years of service. The life expectancy of anyone handling one, such as me, might even be much shorter!

And as I sat there glooming, a special messenger from Faht’s office rushed in with the day’s report from Raht and Terb. It said, “He registered at the Brewster Hotel and just checked out.” My Gods, I didn’t even get backup from my own men! Hells had no future like the one that waited for me!