The staked Goat

other coat and that the license number I gave him was accurate.
    I got into the late model Chrysler and drove to the hotel.
    The clerk at the desk was the striking blonde the uniformed Keller had tried to pick up. I dodged her glance successfully and went to the phone bank out of her field of vision. Hanging under them were eight or ten phone books in those black, metallic, swivel looseleafs. I levered up one suburban directory after another. Nothing.
    Till I got to West Suburban. There he was.
     
    Belker, C. Bus. 73 Main Street, Weston Hills
    Res. 149 Willow Drive, Weston Hills
     
    I pictured him in that swank suburb. Tall, gawky, Alabama. Obnoxious. And a murderer.
    Bingo. If he lived in Weston Hills, he was no pauper. Martha and Al Junior had won. Now I just had to collect their prize money.
     

Twenty-two
     
     
     
    I REACHED INTO MY POCKET FOR THE LEFTOVER CHANGE from Amie’s stake to me. I fed a dime, dialed Belker’s business line, and was told by an atonal voice to deposit another forty-five. I barely made it.
    ”Weston Hills Realty, may I help you?” A nicely modulated voice.
    ”Yes,” I said, ”may I speak to Mr. Belker, please?”
    ”Certainly, sir. May I say who is calling?”
    ”Certainly,” I replied, ”it’s—” I scratched my last coin against the mouthpiece and clicked down the cradle in the middle of her second, concerned, ”Hello?”
    I beat it to the car and drove to Weston Hills as moderately as a man without a license should.
     
    I wanted a look at Belker before I spoke with him. After everything else that had happened, I wanted to be sure it was him so I wouldn’t scare the daylights out of some innocent citizen.
    I passed slowly by 73 Main, a two-story, brick-front building, newish and typically suburban, WESTON HILLS REALTY was painted on the windows, and an apparently classy woman was seated at what seemed a reception desk. I parked a half-block past the building and adjusted the passenger outside mirror to focus on the front door of the building. A real estate broker should walk out and around often enough so I wouldn’t be there all day. The clock outside the bank said it was nearly 12:30. Lunchtime. I hoped Belker was hungry, because a good cop or nervous operative would spot me after about fifteen minutes.
    Of course, Belker had no reason to be nervous anymore, now that I was dead. Also, he never was a good cop.
    A little voice in my head whispered, ”But he was good enough to take Al.”
    ”Al was away from it and out of shape,” I replied.
    ”He was in good enough shape to bounce two Steeler fans around a sidewalk a few months ago,” said the little voice. ”And he would have been on his guard.”
    My response to the little voice’s troubling logic was thrown offtrack by the short, red-headed, and bespectacled man who exited the realty door. He smiled and waved to someone. The someone said, ”Hi, Mr. Belker.” He said ”Hi” back and walked away from me.
    Mr. Belker. Shit. Five-foot-six and red hair was not the Clay Belker that I knew. But the coincidence. Belker’s name in the phone book where Al—
    ”But there are dozens of names that you wrote down in Washington that appear in hundreds of phone books,” said the voice. ”Besides, you don’t even know that ‘C. Belker’ stands for ‘Clay Belker.’ ”
    Neither had Al, of course, unless Al had called the office. Or the residence. But then, so what? Even if it is ”C” for Clay, it still isn’t the right Clay Belker. The man I’m looking for is well over six feet and bigboned.
    Wait a minute. The man who came to the clerk at Al’s hotel. He was described as short. But, still, where’s the tie-in? When Al talked to or saw this little guy, Al would have realized he wasn’t the right Clay Belker. Besides, what would Al have had to blackmail Belker about? The only time Belker and Al were in the files was...
    The little man was back in mirror-view again, politely walking around an older woman and saying something to her. He was carrying a take-out bag, and his smile was phony, a real salesman smile. Familiar, somehow, like an older...
    Damn! I nearly hit my horn, slamming my hand against the wheel. The little man disappeared into the building.
    So that was it. I could see how Al would have been taken and why he was killed. Had to be killed. And why Ricker wanted information first from me, too.
    I started up and pulled out. I drove slowly as a plan I’d been mulling over took more definite