Blood risk

into the room, where he found a pudgy, mustached, bald-headed little man sitting up in a Hollywood-style bed, a book open in his hands.
        "Who are you?" the pudgy man asked.
        Tucker leveled the silenced Lüger at the shiny forehead and said, "Shut up."
        The stranger shut up.
        He turned back to Shirillo and said, "I can handle this one. Go see if everything's all right with our friend."
        Shirillo vanished through the open doorway.
        Tucker pulled up a chair, facing the man on the Hollywood bed. "Who are you?"
        "Who are you?" the stranger asked. The book he was reading was a popular sociological study of the criminal mentality, and it had recently reached the best-seller lists. Tucker supposed that was funny, though he didn't laugh.
        "Who are you?" he repeated, pushing the gun closer.
        The pudgy man blinked. "Keesey. I'm the cook."
        "Sit still, Keesey, and don't try to sound an alarm. If you open your mouth once when I don't tell you to, you'll never open it again."
        Keesey understood. He sat stiff, still, quiet, blinking at Tucker until Shirillo and Harris entered the room a couple of minutes later.
        "Well?" Tucker asked.
        "It's all taken care of, my friend," Harris said. "Next door's a big room that two of Baglio's men share. One of them was in there drinking coffee when I opened the door. He looked like he'd just swallowed a frog when he saw me."
        "And?"
        "I caught him under the chin with the Thompson's butt. I don't think I broke his jaw, but he won't be up and around for a while. Jimmy tied him with his own bed sheets, just to be sure."
        "His roomie?" Tucker asked.
        Harris said, "Must be the one you got outside." He turned directly to Keesey. "What've we got here?" He was smiling without humor. It was clear to Tucker that Harris was moving closer to the edge, now growing antagonistic without reason.
        "The cook," Tucker said.
        "What's he say?"
        Tucker turned back to Keesey. "How many gunmen does Baglio keep in the house?"
        "None," Keesey said.
        Tucker reached across the bed, gently lifted the book out of the cook's hands, marked the man's place with a leaf of the dust jacket, put the book down, leaned forward and slammed the barrel of the Lüger alongside the pudgy man's head.
        Just in time Keesey remembered not to yelp. He slid down in the bed and rubbed at his bruised skull, drawing deep and trembling breaths.
        "How many gunmen does Baglio keep in the house?" Tucker repeated.
        The cook said, "Just two."
        "The two in the room next to this one?"
        "Yes."
        "They mount the night watch?"
        "Yes."
        Tucker said, "No day shift?"
        The cook rubbed his bald head, looked at his hand as if he expected to find it covered with fresh blood, said, "We don't need a day guard most of the time. Mr. Baglio has those only on Mondays and Tuesdays every other week."
        "What do you think?" Shirillo asked. He was leaning against the wall by the foot of the bed, and he looked twice as thin and as ineffectual as ever.
        Tucker shrugged. "If he's lying, I can't tell."
        "I wouldn't lie!" the cook said, raising a hand to touch-his tender scalp.
        Tucker said, "Who's upstairs right now?"
        The cook stopped rubbing his head and said, "Mr. Baglio, Henry Deffer, Louise and Martin Halverson-and Miss Loraine."
        "Deffer is the chauffeur?"
        "Yes."
        "Who are the Halversons?"
        "Maid and handyman."
        "How old?"
        "Fifties?" the cook asked, questioning himself. He nodded, grabbed his neck as the pain forced him to stop nodding, said, "Yes, in their fifties somewhere."
        "He pack a gun?"
        "Halverson?" the cook asked, incredulous.
        "Yes, Halverson."
        "Of course not!" The cook chuckled. "Did you ever see Halverson?"
        "No."
        "Well, then-"
        "Who is this Miss Loraine?" Tucker asked.
        The cook actually blushed and, for a moment, forgot about his wounds. The blush carried over from his face and stained the top of his gleaming skull. He said, "She is a very nice young lady, a very pleasant girl. She's Mr. Baglio's-uh, his-well, his lady."
        "They sleep together?"
        "Yes."
        "Is she a big blonde, well built, tall?" Tucker asked, remembering the girl who had