He walked out. Hinch lingered. All of a sudden he was reluctant to leave Howland.

“Where’s the rope, he says.” When Hinch grinned his mouth showed a hole where two front teeth had been. He was wearing a black leather windbreaker, black chinos, and blue Keds. He had rusty hair which he wore long at the neck and a nose that had been broken during his wrestling days. His eyes were small and of a light, almost nonexistent, pink-gray. “We forgot the gag, too, pidge,” he said to Howland.

“Hinch.”

“Okay, Fure, okay,” Hinch said. He catfooted after Furia, looking pleased.

“I knew it,” Goldie said. Hinch was backing the Chrysler around.

“You knew what?” Furia had the flight bag on his lap like a child.

“The shots. You killed him.”

“So I killed him.”

“Stupid.”

Furia turned half around and his left hand swished across her face.

“I don’t dig a broad with lip neither,” Hinch said approvingly. He drove across the lot on the bias, without lights. When he got to the turnout he braked. “Where to, Fure?”

“Over the bridge to the cloverleaf.”

Hinch swung left and switched on the riding lights. There was no traffic on the outlying road. He drove at a humble thirty.

“You asked for it,” Furia said.

There was a trickle of blood at the corner of Goldie’s pug nose. She was dabbing at it with a Kleenex.

“The thing is I don’t take names from nobody,” Furia said. “You got to watch the mouth with me, Goldie. You ought to know that by this time.”

Hinch nodded happily.

“What did you have to shoot him for?” Goldie said. In his own way Furia had apologized, they both understood that if Hinch did not. “I didn’t set this up for a killing, Fure. Why go for the big one?”

“Who’s to know?” Furia argued. “Howland sure as hell didn’t sound about our deal. Hinch and me wore gloves and I’ll ditch the heater soon as we grab off another one. So they’ll never hook those three slugs onto us, Goldie. I even picked up the cases. You got nothing to worry about.”