to serve him after he ate the mouse, he turned
green and threatened to claw me to death.' Martin has a permit to carry
the gun and was dismissed with a fifty dollar fine and a warning by
Judge Greely against sampling his own stock too freely."

Drunken fool, thought Ellen. With fresh indignation, she remembered the
disturbance in her own hall this morning. Nothing but drunks and
gangsters in this neighborhood. She thought vaguely of looking at the
"For Rent" section of the want ads.

There was a noise on the fire escape. Ellen reached over and lifted up
the shade. The janitor was standing there with a big paper sack in his
hand.

Ellen opened the window and asked, "How do you think it got there,
Pete?"

"I dunno. Maybe fall offa the roof. Musta been in a fight."

"What makes you think so?"

"Neck's all torn. Big teeth marks. Maybe dog get him."

"Up here?"

"Somebody find, maybe throw here--I dunno." Pete scratched his head.
"You don't worry any more, though. I take away now. No smell, even."

He grinned at her and scuttled to the other end of the fire escape where
he climbed through the window to the fourth floor corridor.

Ellen poured herself a second cup of coffee and lighted another
cigarette, then turned to the woman's page in the paper. She read the
Advice Column and the Psychology and glanced through the "Help
Wanted--Women" in the classifieds. That finished the morning's reading.
She looked at her watch. Almost ten.

She carried her coffee cup to the sink, rinsed it out and set it on the
drainboard. There was still a cup or more coffee left in the pot. That
could be warmed over later, but she took out the filler and dumped the
grounds into the paper bag that held garbage. The bag was almost full.

I'll throw it in the incinerator now, she thought, before I straighten
the apartment.

She emptied the ashtrays--the one beside her bed and the other on the
breakfast table--then started down the hall with the garbage bag in her
hand.

* * * * *

The incinerator chute was at the rear of the hall, next to the service
stairs. Ellen could see the door standing slightly open. She hesitated.
410 might be there. It was bad enough to ride in the elevator with him,
feeling his eyes on her, but there was something unbearably intimate
about standing beside him, emptying garbage.

The door seemed to move a little, but nobody came out. She waited
another minute. Oh, well, maybe