If it should be something more than a morbid prank, however, then sending the dolls had been a sly stroke on someone’s part, for this was a kind of menace outside Henlein’s experience. A “do this or else” threat he could have taken in his stride. A beating with a lead-filled sap or a gun barrel he could understand. The threat of annihilation with gun lead he could have brushed off. But this mysterious way of heralding murder, these dolls with their other-world implications, were terrifying to his dim, slow-witted brain.

Henny Henlein’s stupidity was known to mobsters and police alike. He did what he was told to do like a robot, but in any situation requiring thought he was lost. His head, like his body, was only fat, muscle and bone. His bosses didn’t often trust him with a gun, unless they told him exactly what to do with it, but the police, and others who had reason to be interested, were convinced that some of his muscular activity had added up to murder. The only way he had beaten these raps was by staying mute and letting the mob’s mouthpiece talk for him.

Henlein shook his head in genuine puzzlement. Suddenly something like a ray of hope crossed his heavy features. “I know what’s eating on you, Shayne. You been hearing too many stories about me. Lies. All lies. I never gunned nobody in my life. I’m a muscleman, not a enforcer. See?”

“There’s a difference?” Shayne asked sourly.

“Hell, yes. I only move around, collecting, and like that for legitimate rackets, and maybe ‘working’ somebody once in a while that gets out of line, ya know?”

“What’s the difference if you kill a man quick or cripple him so he dies slowly?”

“Huh?” Henlein stared vacantly. “Look, Mr. Shayne, I’ll pay. Plenty.” His hand moved to his breast pocket and came out with a fistful of green. “I’m working for D. L. now. I’m rolling in it.”

“Keep rolling. I don’t want it.”

“Don’t want-money?” The hoodlum’s mouth opened in stark disbelief. “You gotta take it!”