Blood risk

spills. They aren't as limited in their choice of techniques as the police are."
        Tucker picked up the glasses again, trained them on the front doors which opened on the promenade, followed two men as they came out of the house and walked toward the white Thunderbird. One was in a business suit and carried a black satchel, obviously the physician. The other man was tall, dark and distinguished, with full sideburns and a mane of gray-white hair. Twenty pounds too thick around the middle but otherwise in good condition, he might have been a Congressman or successful oilman. He had to be Baglio, and Shirillo confirmed that he was.
        "What's going on, friend?" Harris asked.
        Tucker said, "They're arguing, but not heatedly. I'd guess the doctor wants Bachman moved to a hospital, while Baglio disagrees. Right now he's probably telling the doc that he pays these exorbitant medical fees to be able to disregard his advice whenever it's convenient."
        A moment later the doctor got into the Thunderbird and drove away, with Baglio waving at him in a friendly fashion. A third person came out of the house then and stood beside Baglio: the rangy blonde who'd been driving the Cadillac which had cut off Bachman's escape route. She wore shorts and a halter, and everything about her was zaftig, so ripe she would already have begun to decline by the age of thirty, when many women were reaching the fullest bloom. Right now, though, at twenty-two or twenty-three she was perfect, and she knew it; that was clear in the way she carried herself, the conscious provocative tilt to her hips when she stood beside Baglio. Tucker watched her as, with her arm around the old man, she went back into the mansion.
        "You know the girl?" he asked Shirillo. "The one driving the Cadillac?"
        "No, but she's probably the latest in Baglio's string of women."
        "Lives in?"
        "His women usually do."
        Tucker watched the house, though no one moved down there and the guards had slumped back into attitudes of boredom. "Is there any way we can find out for certain how many people are in that place at night, besides Baglio and this woman?"
        Shirillo considered that for a moment and said, "I guess I could ask around, carefully, but I'm already sure that there's going to be at least four bodyguards. Outside of that, I just don't know."
        "Why does it matter?" Harris asked.
        Tucker brushed the ant off his sleeve again, flicked it gently away with his fingernail. "We're going to have to go into that house and get Bachman away from them."
        "Are you crazy?" Harris's face, for once, was not even pink but the color of a mild yellow cheese. All the lines showed in it now, and he looked as old and tired as he was. He reached out and touched the Thompson lying in the grass beside him, but that did not do any good this time.
        "Name me an alternative."
        Harris said, "We split and go quiet for a while."
        "That's good," Tucker said, a bit sarcastically. "That would be fine if these were the cops out looking for us. Cops have so damn much to do, they can't keep after you for long; no leads for a couple of months, and they put you in the back files and go on to something else. But these people, Pete, have the time and the resources. Baglio looks and sounds like the kind of man who could hold a grudge and nurture it. He's going to pump Bachman for our names, for Felton's name. He'll lean on Felton until he gets a mail-drop address for each of us. Then he just has to wait for us to pick up the mail."
        "When do we go in?" Shirillo asked. "Tonight?"
        "Tomorrow night, I think."
        Harris said, "You're both nuts! Bachman will have spilled it all by then, anyway."
        "Maybe not," Tucker said. "From the way the doctor was pushing Baglio, I'd guess Bachman's in a bad way right now. He's probably coked to the hairline and will be until tomorrow morning. Even if he comes out of it then, he won't be a good subject for interrogation. Especially not for Baglio's type of interrogation. What good is it to threaten a man with torture when he's already in too much pain to think straight?"
        "And if he isn't as racked up as you think?" Harris asked. "What if we go in there and find out Bachman's talked, that he's dead and ready for planting in the woods?"
        "Then we're no further behind than if we walk away now. Either way, Baglio will be