e was within ten feet he stopped and
said, very politely: "Drop the guns, boys."

The guns thudded to the floor and the two men turned round.

"All right," Malone said, smiling into their astonished faces. "Now,
let's go on and see Mr. Sand."

[Illustration]

He picked up the guns with his free hand and put them into his coat
pockets. Together, the three men went down toward the lighted office
at the far end of the hall.

"Open it," Malone said as they came to the door. He followed them into
the office. Behind a battered, worm-eaten desk in a dingy room sat a
very surprised-looking Mike Sand.

He was only about five feet six, but he looked as if weighed over two
hundred pounds. He had huge shoulders and a thick neck, and his face
was sleepy-looking. He seemed to have lost a lot of fights in his long
career; Sand, Malone reflected, was nearing fifty now, and he was
beginning to look his age. His short hair, once black, was turning to
iron-gray.

He didn't say anything. Malone smiled at him pleasantly. "These boys
were carrying deadly weapons," he told Sand in a polite voice. "That's
hardly the way to treat a brother." His precognitive warning system
wasn't ringing any alarm bells, but he kept his gun trained on the
pair of thugs as he walked over to Mike Sand's desk and took the two
extra revolvers from his pocket. "You'd better keep these, Sand," he
said. "Your boys don't know how to handle them."

Sand grinned sourly, pulled open a desk drawer and swept the guns into
it with one motion of his ham-like hand. He didn't look at Malone.
"You guys better go downstairs and keep Jerry company," he said. "You
can do crossword puzzles together."

"Now, Mike, we--" one of them began.

Mike Sand snorted. "Go on," he said. "Scram."

"But he was supposed to be in the elevator, and we--"

"Scram," Sand said. It sounded like a curse. The two men got out.
"Like apes in the trees," Sand said heavily. "Ask for bright boys and
what do you get? Everything," he went on dismally, "is going to hell."

* * * * *

That line, Malone reflected, was beginning to have all the persistence
of a bass-bourdon. It droned its melancholy way through anything and
everything else. He signed deeply, thought about a cigar and lit a
cigarette instead. It tasted awful. "About those buttons--" he said.

"I got nothing to do with buttons," Sand said.

"You do with these," Malone said. "A shipment of buttons from