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I should have known it was going to be a bad day, right from the minute I stepped out of the house that morning into the pouring rain and an ankle-deep puddle.  Not that I have any real complaints about Hawaii, or about the island of Elima.  Up until that day, things were pretty good.  At least, most things were. 

The reason I came here in the first place was because of a woman.  Wouldn't you know!  I met Irene Young in Seattle.  We lived together for a while.  And then, one of those long and rainy Puget Sound winters got to be too much for her.  So she headed back to Hawaii where she was born.  I didn't know too much about the islands back then.  In fact, it had even surprised me to hear Irene, with her long blonde hair and blue eyes, calling herself Hawaiian.  She missed me when she got back here.  Or, at least, that's what she said in her e-mails.  She said she wanted me to come out here to live.  About that time, commercial aviation and the demand for new airliners were crippling along on government subsidies.  I could see the handwriting on the wall, and decided there wasn't much of a future for me as sales rep and PR man for a small Boeing sub-contractor. 

The long and short of it is that Irene's siren call lured me over here.  And, as I said, there aren't many Americans who know less about Hawaii than I did back then.  Even though I'd been a history major, the Pacific was mostly a blank as far as I was concerned.  History was still American and European History when and where I went to college.  You had to be either eccentric or Asian to study Far East History.  And, to this day, I'm not sure if that subject includes Hawaii or not. 

So, even though I can name every one of Henry the Eighth's wives, I guess it isn't too surprising I thought Elima was a suburb of Honolulu, and that Honolulu was on the island of Hawaii.  I knew enough not to expect hula girls to meet me at the airport, but I did count on finding a balmy day with the sun shining.  Well, the rain was coming down in sheets when I got off the plane, the wind was howling harder than I'd ever felt it in the Pacific Northwest, but I'll be darned if there weren't hula girls at the airport. 

None of all this would have meant much one way or the other, if I hadn't arrived with just twenty dollars in my pocket and a topped-out credit card.  I never was one for saving money.  And the fare to Hawaii had cost me twice what I'd figured on.  I'd expected to catch a bus to Irene's as soon as I got to Honolulu and to start looking for work the next day.  So, needless to say, I wasn't too happy to find out Elima was an entirely different island, and it would cost me another fifty-five dollars to get there.  And the long-distance call to Irene from a pay booth was as much as if I'd phoned her from the mainland.  It ate up three dollars and seventy cents of my twenty dollars.

Irene was eager to see me.  She was also broke.  But I'm a resourceful guy.  I told her I'd get a job on Oahu, which I discovered was the name of the island I was on, and get some cash together for the flight to Elima and for an aloha weekend.  (I catch on to language fast.) 

I like selling and I'm good at it, so that's where I started after checking out the help-wanted ads in the newspaper.  I didn't know beans about gates and fences but, with what the company called a three-day training course under my belt, I hit the pavement.  I was working on a commission basis and thought I'd have my fare and aloha money together in a week.  Was I ever wrong!  By the time I went in hock for an old wreck to get me around, I was working my way up from a minus figure. 

And then there was the complication of the office secretary.  Jeannie was no raving beauty.  And her idea of serious conversation was watching the Miss America contest and commenting on the evening dresses.  I'd been out to pasture for a long while, though.  We both knew the relationship wasn't serious, and I didn't plan on staying on Oahu.  But the weeks dragged on.  Finally, when I made the break and got off the plane at Napua Airport on Elima, I found Irene had gotten tired of waiting.  The Japanese fellow she'd acquired looked like a sumo wrestler.  Not that I would have argued with anyone she'd picked up with, and I'm not saying I wasn't disappointed, but “live and let live,” is my motto.

Besides, Elima was a big relief after Honolulu.  It's still pretty much all-rural, so it was nice to see cows again, and they made me almost homesick for the foothills of the Cascades.  Best of all, I fell into a good job without really trying, and that kept me so busy, I didn't have much time to think about my love life, or lack of it.  The job was selling real estate.  It seems like every other person on the island is a real-estate agent.  In fact, that's a standard joke around here—for identification you can produce either your driver's license, or your real-estate agent’s card.

Anyhow, the first guy I talk to in the airport bar tells me the real-estate exam is a cinch.  He's making a bundle selling houses.  Or so he says.

So while I'm holding down a security job at the Malalani Resort Hotel, I take a real estate course and study for the exam.  And I pass it first time around.  I always was good at taking tests.  That's when I went to work for Dale Matthias, the owner of Royal Elima Realty.  Now, I really must have a knack for selling, because I'm soon making that bundle I'd heard about.  And, better yet, I find myself a nice house right near my work for a few dollars down and centuries to pay, just because it needed a little fixing up.  So everything's going great, until someone uses a number five iron on Dale's skull.

That was the day I stepped ankle deep into the puddle.  That was also the day a big Portuguese lieutenant named DeMello from homicide came up to my house with this cute lady-sergeant and read me my rights.

***

Leilani routed the call directly to Qual.  That evening she told her husband, John Pak, “When someone calls and says, 'I need an attorney,' I pass the call right along to Qual.  Sid and Kay just get too fussy sometimes—Sid, especially.  But Qual can usually convince one or the other of them to take cases they probably wouldn't even consider if I let them do the choosing.”

Leilani was a heavy-set, mostly native-Hawaiian woman, who had joined the firm back when Quality Smith was the only name on the door.  After almost nine years of handling everything from bookkeeping to reception at the firm, Leilani had become indispensable.  And, with her own children grown and gone, she now mothered the three attorneys instead.

Qual was in his forties.  A thin man, with a nervous habit of adjusting his glasses with both hands, his appearance and his evident good humor hid a person of strong opinions.  Early in his legal career he had decided to follow his interests, and his major one was criminal law.  So the firm he'd established accepted only cases in that field.  Shortly after beginning his practice in Napua, Elima's largest city, he found he had more work than he could handle.  Sid Chu joined him and took on part of the burden.  Sid, a tall and handsome Chinese in his early thirties, soon built up a deservedly good reputation as a trial lawyer.

Kay Yoshinobu became part of the firm a few months after Sid.  As Leilani told John Pak many times, “That Kay is not only a beautiful woman, she's a real sharp one.  Believe me.”  After several years of turbulent courtship, Kay had finally accepted Sid's reiterated proposals of marriage, much to Sid's satisfaction and to Leilani's relief. 

Following the marriage, and in spite of Leilani's disapproval, the name of the firm—Smith, Chu and Yoshinobu—remained unchanged.  Leilani protested that Kay ought to have taken Sid's last name, as a good wife should.  Kay's answer was she couldn't see spending her life having people saying 'gesundheit' whenever she was introduced.

Have you ever thought about what it would be like to be minding your own business and suddenly have the police descend on you, charge you with murder, slap on the cuffs, and haul you off to the slammer?  Think about it!

Maybe someone who's been in trouble with the police already wouldn't be all that upset.  But, me, I've had one traffic ticket for running a stop sign, and three parking tickets, one of which was because of a faulty meter.  And all that was back in Washington State more than ten years ago.  That's it!  That's all of it!  And here a desk sergeant hands me the Elima telephone directory, grins, and says, “Make it a good one, because it's the only one you're going to get.”

I kept my head, even though I thought I was having a bad dream, and picked the attorney firm I did on an educated hunch.  They can say what they want about Hawaii, but I wasn't in the islands long before I realized there's prejudice here aplenty.  If the judge is Japanese, it makes good sense for you to have a Japanese lawyer.  So, not taking any chances, I go for a company that has haole, Chinese and Japanese attorneys.

And an hour later, when my lawyer shows up, I figure my luck is already changing.  She's a real looker.  I'm not much for Asian types, but Kay Yoshinobu is alright for my money.  She's tall, and dark, and slender, and looks like what I thought Hawaiian women are supposed to look like.  Best of all, I hear the judge at my arraignment is a woman.  So it won't hurt to have Kay speaking up for me.  Besides, Kay really seems to know her stuff.  And pretty soon she's calling me Ron, and I'm calling her Kay, like we were old friends.

She takes her time and doesn't try to brush me off.  I tell her I'm innocent.  But then I expect all her clients tell her that.  And she fills me in on what's going to happen at the arraignment on the following Monday.  I wasn't happy with the thought of spending two nights behind bars, but she told me there was nothing we could do about it.  Judges don't work overtime just to decide on bail, at least not for the likes of Ron Crockett.

***

“He seems like a nice enough guy,” said Kay, in answer to Sid's question.  “He's about thirty-five or so, a real-estate agent.  He's been on the island for almost a year.  He says he can pay our fee and handed me a retainer without blinking.  The way real estate is going around here these days, I imagine he has a good size nest egg.”

“What's he look like?” Sid asked.  The two of them were sitting in Qual's office discussing the case with the senior partner.  Craig Thomas, Qual's house partner who lived two short blocks away, was listening closely to the conversation.  Since Craig's and Qual's home was so near, Craig was a frequent visitor at the office, so much so he was almost regarded as being a fourth member of the firm. 

Kay shrugged at Sid's question.  “It's hard to say.  I guess he's just average, six-foot or so, blond-brown hair, washed out blue eyes.  Generally pleasant looking.”  She smiled at the hint of possessiveness in Sid's voice, and added.  “Don't worry, Sid.  There's no torrid affair looming.”

Sid appeared miffed.  “I just wanted to know what he was like.  Do you think he's guilty?  Or maybe I shouldn't ask that?”

“That, you're allowed,” Kay answered as she flipped through her notes.  My answer is, 'I don't know what to think.'  He says he's innocent, naturally.  Hank was the arresting officer, and he was just leaving when I got there, so I didn't have much of a chance to talk to him about Ronald Crockett.  The gist of the story is Ron was heard quarreling with Dale Matthias in Matthias's office at eleven this morning.  Ron was also heard slamming the door and stomping out of the building a few minutes afterwards. 

“At two o'clock, the same witness comes back into the office and walks right into Ron holding one of Matthias's golf clubs in his hands.  Matthias's skull is crushed, and it looks like the club is what did the dirty work.  A preliminary check by the pathologist using a temperature chart puts time of death right at two o'clock, give or take ten minutes.  Ron admits to being there that morning and admits to the quarrel.  He says he left in a huff, but eventually cooled off.  He came back to his own office at about quarter-to-two.  He was in the building for a while, and finally decided to try and patch things up with Matthias.  That's when he found the body, and that's when the witness found him.  So, what with a witness, with motive and with perfect timing, Hank figured he had more than enough reason to charge Ron, and did.”

Craig was the one incensed by the story.  “How could Hank DeMello possibly do that?  You said there was a witness.  How can Hank be sure the witness isn't really the killer?”

“The answer to that is simple.  The witness was in a serious auto accident, just last week.  This was his first full day back at the office.  Hank checked his story, and it bears out.  With his broken arms and battered hands, the witness can barely lift a coffee cup.  For sure, he couldn't swing a golf club.

And Kay is thorough.  She taped the whole interview, and went over my story twice.  She doesn't show much emotion in her face but, by the second time around, I had the feeling she was beginning to believe at least some of what I was telling her.  But the bad part is the more I talked about it, the blacker it all began to look to me.  I know I'm innocent, but it sure wouldn't look that way to most people.  And the funny thing is, I still can't convince myself what happened in Dale's office really happened.

I told Kay how I'd gone to work for Dale about nine months ago, right after I got my license.  I said I was happy working there, made several great sales in short order, and never had any problems with Dale until the day of the murder.  When I first met Dale, I figured him for being an overweight, good-natured slob.  It didn't take me long to find out I wasn't dealing with a jolly, fat guy.  He was a real hardnose.  If I hadn't produced, and fast, he'd have dumped me without thinking twice about it. 

As I told Kay, Dale was OK to work for, but I sure would never have bought any real estate off of him.  One of the first things he told me was I could promise the buyer anything, providing I didn't put it in writing.

He walked me through a couple of sales sessions with him and some customers, and those sessions were sure eye openers.  Royal Elima Realty has an exclusive on the first phase of the Fenton Project.  That's the Fenton International Development that filed for Chapter 11 a while back and finally got bought out by a big Japanese conglomerate.  It's only in the early stages of being built and, already, the international advertising they've been doing is overwhelming—three golf courses, tennis courts, riding academy, a marina with your boat in a slip right outside your condo, and on and on.

But the ads couldn't hold a candle to what Dale promised the buyers.  They were going to get all of that for practically no fees, along with twenty-four hour security protection.  He even had me convinced the place would be guarded like Fort Knox.  And he knew all the time he was talking there wasn't a word of truth to what he was saying.

The first buyers liked the idea of helicopter service to the resort, so Dale assured them there'd be a helipad smack on top of each building in the complex.  The second buyer talked about getting away from noise.  Dale picked right up on that and made the completed project sound like a chalet in the Swiss Alps, with the sound of an occasional muffled cow-bell in the distance.

And, after promising both sets of buyers everything they asked for—even before they asked for it—he piled the covenants and contracts on them, all five hundred pages plus.  The small print allows the developer to ignore everything said by the real-estate agent and just about everything said in the advertising, but the buyer would have a tough time finding out where it says that, or figuring it out if he ever did locate the disclaimer.

Between Dale and the Philadelphia lawyer who drew up all the papers, the buyer doesn't have a chance.  But as Dale said, so long as the bubble doesn't burst, the buyers will keep thinking they've found a mother lode.  And they have, if they don't figure on living there, and if they resell fast enough.  As I told Kay, I'm no Sunday school teacher, but I draw the line at outright lies to these Japanese tourists and wide-eyed mainland haoles who come through the real-estate office with their wallets bulging.  And it really isn't particularly necessary to do any lying.  I just give them the brochures, and they do the rest. 

That's what got me into the hassle with Dale.  It'd been a quiet morning at the office.  Weekends can be pretty hot for moving real estate, especially during tourist season.  But this is the lowest tourist month of the year.  Besides, all of the agents try to get away by noon on Saturday, even when it's busy. 

I'd just come back from showing this Honolulu couple an unfinished condo at the Fenton Project, and I wasn't brimming over with enthusiasm.  You can pretty well tell whether or not you've got a live prospect, and I was ninety-nine percent sure these two had just come along for the ride.  I'd sounded the male half out earlier, and he was just a grocery clerk.

But what really tipped me off was the fact they never asked word one about the price.  Now, I've heard about the guy with the hick accent and dressed in dirty coveralls who comes in, peels thousand dollar bills off a roll, and pays cash without even looking at the contract.  And I'm ready to believe there are people like that around, even if I've never run into any of them in my months of working for Dale, but I knew these two weren't in that class.  They weren't even much interested in the terms the developer was offering, and that's a sure sign you're on a dry run.

So, after I get back to the office with them, I spend most of my time trying to shoo them away so I could get out of there myself.  What I didn't realize was Dale had his door open and was listening to every word of the conversation.  As soon as they left, he comes out of his office.  And he's mad.  And I mean mad!  He's red and purple in the face and shaking.  I'd never seen him like that.  He had a temper, but he kept it pretty much under control.  And he'd never lost it with me before. 

At first, I thought he was putting on an act because he looked so weird, so I walked into his office right behind him.  He went over to his desk and just flopped down into the chair.  That's when he really chewed me out and then told me I was fired.

***

Hank wasn’t sure what to think of the new pathologist.  Elima had come of age, and its unattended-death rate had finally reached the point where even the county council and mayor had to admit the county needed a full time pathologist.

Dr. Clyde Victorine had looks on his side.  Hank had to admit to that, since Sergeant Corky Medeiros had commented on first catching sight of the new pathologist, “Hell, Hank, he looks enough like you to be your brother.”

Hank had been unable to see the resemblance.  Dr. Victorine had about the same six-feet of height; dark, slightly graying hair; an incipient paunch—which Hank denied having; and a generally athletic appearance.  However, Hank was willing to do some yielding to Corky's judgment, and so was prepared to like the new pathologist. 

And Hank did like him.  Clyde—and he had insisted on being called Clyde from the very outset—was friendly and easygoing.  But Hank was a professional policeman who took his professionalism seriously.  He'd learned to separate his feelings from his intellect, or at least he'd learned to try to.  Is he just a nice guy, Hank asked himself, or does he have some smarts to go with it?

It wasn't until the Matthias murder, however, that Hank decided to look further into Clyde's background.  Reaching for the phone, he called his old friend and former part-time pathologist, Dr. Calvin Lim.

“What do you think of our new pathologist, Cal?” Hank asked.

The short, rotund Chinese doctor paused.  Then in his Charlie Chan accent, which his friends swore he affected to caricature his appearance, Cal said, “Really know not much about him, Hank.”

Hell! Hank thought, I should have known better.  Never ask a lawyer about a lawyer, and never ask a doctor about a doctor. 

He tried a different tack.  “What do you think of his credentials?”

“Quite satisfactory.  He was in private practice as internist for several years, then studied pathology at University of Chicago and Cook County Hospital.  Council asked me for opinion.  Would perhaps have preferred experienced pathologist.  But person has to start somewhere.  Saw nothing wrong.  And his having originally been born here in islands did not hurt chances.”

“Main reason I ask is he just finished a preliminary on his first homicide.  I made an arrest, partly on the basis of his statement.  Then I got kind of worried.  He's doing the pm this afternoon.  He's invited me to come and watch.  But, hell!  I can't tell a kidney from a lung.  You know that.”

“You are perhaps asking me to be observer?”

Hank shifted in his chair and grimaced into the phone.  “That was kind of the idea.”

“Very unprofessional.  I am only back-up pathologist for county.  Would make bad impression if I asked to participate.”

Hank looked glum and said nothing.

“But,” continued Cal, “perhaps I can offer assistance.  Lab unfamiliar and all that.  Colleague helping colleague.  Yes, perhaps.”

***

Maybe I should have gone into law instead of into real estate when I came to Elima.  That's where the nice looking women seem to be. That Sergeant Medeiros, who was with the lieutenant when he hauled me in, wasn't bad looking at all.  I'm big on slim figures in women, and she has one of the nicest ones I've seen in a long time.  It must have been nice, because the occasion wasn't exactly one to fix that sort of thing in my mind.  I had other problems to ponder.

And, as I said, Kay is something else again, even if she is Japanese.  Then I was in for a real surprise when I went to court for the arraignment.  Earlier, when I heard the judge was a woman, I figured she'd look like Mother Teresa and have the temperament of the Beast of Buchenwald.

Well, Judge Raines is really something else again.  And here I thought I preferred blondes.  When she started asking me questions, my mouth was so dry I could hardly answer, and it wasn't just because a murder charge was hanging over my head.  She's got great eyes.  It's the first time I've ever seen really green ones.  And, phew, what a figure she has!  It's slender in the right places, and curved just the way it should be in all the others.  Those judicial robes couldn't hide that shape.  For a bit, I almost forgot what might happen to me.  I even thought about that line from the Mikado where one of the young lovelies says, “I'm glad that moment sad was soothed by sight of me.”  My next thought was I shouldn't have been thinking about that, because I suddenly remembered the criminal caught sight of her just before his head was cut off.

Believe me, it was lucky for me I found Kay in the phone book.  I needed someone like her to balance off the prosecutor who was a little half-pint Japanese right out of a World War II movie.  He made me feel as though I was about to do double time on the Bataan Death March.  I'm positive he wouldn't have at all minded being in charge of that trail drive.

I sneaked a look at Kay while the prosecutor was asking for the max—first degree—and I could tell she was seething under that mask.  And, boy, did she tell him off!  She said it was a travesty of justice to threaten the impossible in order to get a plea.

But if Kay's got a mask, Judge Raines's face is about as readable as Darth Vader's.  No way would I want to play poker with that lady. 

Kay won, all the way.  I got off with a second and fifty-thousand dollars bail. 

I could hear the prosecutor grinding his teeth when I left.

***

“We have to do something about that Scott Ikeda,” said Kay as she burst into Sid's office, unable to control her anger. Sid looked up and grinned.  “Don't tell me.  Let me guess.  Our new young prosecutor asked Raines to immediately impose a death sentence on Crockett.”

“He might just as well have.  Here I've got a client with no police record.  He doesn't have even a traffic ticket or a parking ticket, at least not for the past ten years or so.  He's been in Hawaii for almost a year.  He owns his own home here.  He has a steady, good paying job.  He votes.  He's not on dope.  He's even done jury duty.  There's not a hint of premeditation involved.  Even the witness, and there's only one witness, admits he didn't see the killing.  He just heard a quarrel.  And so what does Ikeda ask for?”

Sid held up his hand, palm outward.  “I can tell you exactly.  Ikeda refused to let your client plead.  He wanted to go for first degree murder.  And he tried to get Raines to deny bail.”

“You're right, right down the line.  He's a complete idiot.  Can you imagine even suggesting there be no bail?  The way Raines paused before she answered him convinces me she couldn't believe what she was hearing.  What are we going to do about that weasel?”

“Nothing,” Sid said.  “Because we're really ahead of the game when he's there.  He always asks for too much.  Both Wong and Raines regularly rule against him.  He irritates them at least as much as he does us.  What we need to do is to train ourselves to put up with him.  I'll give you moral support when you face him, and you can do the same for me.”

Kay was still looking morose.  “Or maybe we should send Qual in to deal with him.  He thinks Ikeda's a scream.  I wish I had a sense of humor like that.  But I just can't laugh at cretins, especially when they're behaving like cretins.”

“So, other than that, how'd it go

“It went surprisingly well, even though I was mad enough to chew nails.  Judge Raines turned down my manslaughter argument.  I can't really blame her for that, since Matthias was clobbered on the back of the head.  But she accepted the “heat of passion” argument.  It was Dale's club, after all.  Even Ikeda couldn't argue Ron planned to kill Dale with Dale's club, when the whole bag was sitting right there in the office.  That, alone, shot his first degree request all to hell.  He made a feeble attempt at saying Ron could have known the bag was there and was planning to walk in, take out a club and use it.  But Raines just looked him in the eye at that point, and Ikeda gave up that argument in a hurry.  And Ron did really well.  He's got an MA in History, by the way.  And he's a lot sharper than I thought at first.  His big problem was the sight of Judge Raines had him tongue-tied.  As you know, she does do that to men.”

Sid grinned.  “I'll have to meet Ron Crockett.  I want to see how he reacts when I tell him the judge gave me a great, big smackeroo, right out in public.”

“I don't think you'll ever forget that, will you?  You'll probably still remember it long after you've forgotten the other rather important event of that day.”

“Yes, there was something else, wasn't there.  Seems to me I remember that that was the day Sheena and John Samuel mated.  How long now before the kittens?  It shouldn't be much more than a week.”

“Yes.  And it's time to take John Samuel to be neutered.”

Sid winced and changed the subject.  “Let's get in a set after work,” he said, “you can make believe the ball is Scott Ikeda.”  Later that afternoon, after they'd relinquished the court at the civic center to another couple, Kay said, “I feel better now.”  She had just defeated Sid, 6-2, though ordinarily they were very evenly matched and frequently went into extra games.

Sid grinned.  “Remind me not to play you when you've had a bad day in court with our charming prosecuting attorney.”

***

The only thing worse than having the police show up at the door to arrest you for murder is to have to go back to work where everyone suspects you actually did do the murder.  It's worse yet, when it's the boss who's been murdered.

The local newspaper didn't help either.  The day after my arraignment the Elima Chronicle comes out for the first time with an editorial about judges being soft on crime.  They didn't mention any names.  But when they talked about accused murderers being released into the community for practically no bail, I caught on quick.

Fortunately, the crowd at work reads only the real-estate section in the Chronicle.  And it wasn't as though any of the crew were going to do much mourning for Dale.  I probably got along with him better than anyone else there, though that's not saying much.  Dale had been on Elima only five years or so and, in that time, he'd managed to make more than his share of enemies.  They included at least three of his employees. 

I remember my old economics teacher saying a market economy is one where you get to the front of the pack by walking on other people's heads.  I always figured he was a Marxist with a lot of screwy ideas, but I don't think he was too far wrong on that particular score.  And Dale was a good example of what the prof was talking about.  The only difference was Dale seemed to enjoy walking on people's heads.  From what I could make out, he actually went out of his way to tromp on them, even when it wasn't especially necessary or profitable to do so.

Lyle Kaupu is a good example of one of Dale's walked-on heads.  Lyle's mostly native Hawaiian, close to sixty, and a big, surly-looking guy.  I often wonder what the customers must think of him.  It took me a while to realize it wasn't me he was mad at, just the world in general and Dale in particular.

I never did get all the story straight, but Lyle and Dale started Royal Elima together as full partners.  Dale managed to squeeze Lyle out.  And, from what I heard from several sources, it was a pretty raw deal.  I never could figure out why Lyle stayed on except he still owned a small interest in the agency.  On the other hand, Dale could have bought him out if he'd wanted to, but I think Lyle's presence gave Dale some kind of sadistic thrill.

Kimmie Uchima was one of the others in the office who probably didn't shed any tears when she heard about Dale's death.  When I joined Royal Elima, it was the talk of the office about how he was having a long drawn-out affair with her, on the promise he was getting a divorce and would marry her afterwards.  It was the old story all over again.  He got the divorce, all right—and then married somebody else.

Kimmie was a short, pretty, rather shy Japanese.  It was hard for me to picture her having an affair with anyone, let alone Dale.  But then, what psychological talents I have are aimed at selling, not analyzing people's love lives.  And, speaking of selling, Kimmie was no slouch.  She had the best record of any of the agents, and that may have been her reason for staying on after the jilting.  The only other salesman there, who I knew for certain hated Dale's guts, was the one who was so quick to tell the police about my quarrel with Dale and who walked in on me while I was holding that club.  That was Reginald Kaufman of the broken arms.

Dear old Reggie!  He was the first person I saw when I got back to work after being released.  There he was, standing there with his arms in those big casts.  When I walked into the office and saw him talking to the secretary, I had the sudden urge to break his legs too.