It was a little after two o’clock when Timothy Rourke parked his roadster in front of a modest two-story apartment house on Miami Beach. The afternoon air was sun-drenched and humid. He got out and walked around the front of his car, crossed the palm-shaded parkway, and started toward the front of the apartment house.

A man got out of a sedan parked beyond the entrance and sauntered toward him. He was an inch or so above six feet in height and very bony. He wore a Palm Beach suit and a Panama hat, two-toned sports shoes that glistened in the hot sunlight. His features were sharp, and pallid skin stretched tightly over high cheekbones and pointed chin. His eyes were deep-set, with lids wrinkled down and closing them to mere slits.

He met Rourke at the entrance walk and said, “Rourke?”

“Who are you?”

“I’m a pal.” The man’s voice was low and husky. “Let’s take a little ride.”

Rourke laughed shortly and started up the walk. The man put long bony fingers on his arm and tightened them. His face had a tired, depressed look. He said, “Get smart, chum,” and bunched his other hand in the side pocket of his coat.

Rourke said, “All right,” and went with him to the sedan.

A man wearing a pink-striped shirt sat behind the steering-wheel. His sleeves were rolled up above hairy forearms, and he wore a black-and-white checkered cap with a stiff bill. His right ear was cauliflowered, and when Rourke opened the back door he turned his head to give a view of a profile almost perfectly flat.

Rourke got in the back seat and left the door open. His tall companion got in beside him and closed the door. He said, “All right, Monk.”

The driver raced the motor and ground the gears getting away in low. His left ear was twisted and stood away from his head at an odd angle. The back of his neck was red with a thick fold of flesh above the pink-striped neckband.