idered that. It sounded fine. Only he wished
he knew what else there was to think of.

Well, that was just pessimism. Leibowitz would find something, and the
case would be over, and he could go back to Washington and rest. In
August he was going to have his vacation anyway, and August wasn't
very far away.

Malone put a smile carefully on his face and told Boyd, "Get going."
He slammed his hat on his head.

Wincing, he took it off and replaced it gently. The bottle of pills
was still in his pocket, but he wasn't due for another one just yet.

He had time to go over to the precinct station in the West Eighties
first. He headed outside to get another taxi.

4

The door didn't say anything at all except _Lt. P. Lynch_. Malone
looked at it for a couple of seconds. He'd asked the desk sergeant for
Lynch, shown his credentials and been directed up a set of stairs and
around a hall. But he still didn't know what Lynch did, who he was, or
what his name was doing in the little black notebook.

Well, he told himself, there was only one way to find out.

He opened the door.

The room was small and dark. It had a single desk in it, and three
chairs, and a hatrack. There wasn't any coat or hat on the hatrack,
and there was nobody in the chairs. In a fourth chair, behind the
desk, sat a huskily built man. He had steel-gray hair, a hard jaw and,
Malone noticed with surprise, a faint twinkle in his eye.

"Lieutenant Lynch?" Malone said.

"Right," Lynch said. "What's the trouble?"

"I'm Kenneth J. Malone, FBI." He reached for his wallet and found it.
He flipped it open for Lynch, who stared at it for what seemed a long,
long time, and then burst into laughter.

"What's so funny?" Malone asked. Lynch laughed some more.

"Oh, come on," Malone said bitterly. "After all, there's no reason to
treat an FBI agent like some kind of a--"

"FBI agent?" Lynch said. "Listen, buster, this is the funniest gag
I've seen since I came on the force. Really a hell of a funny thing.
Who told you to pull it? Jablonski downstairs? Or one of the boys on
the beat? I know those beat patrolmen, always on the lookout for a new
joke.. But this tops 'em all. This is the--"

"You're a disgrace to the Irish," Malone said tartly.

"A what?" Lynch said. "I'm not Irish."

"You talk like an Irishman," Malone said.

"I know it," Lynch said, and shrugged. "Around some precincts, you
sort of pick it up. When all th