In the Best Families

It took acrobatics, but I made it. I was standing, slightly wobbly, on concrete, near a concrete wall of a room sixty feet square with no windows and not too many lights. My darting glance caught cars scattered around, seven or eight of them. It also caught four men: Christy, coming around the rear end of the Olds, and three serious-looking strangers, older than our driver, who wasn't there.

Without a word two of them put their hands on me. First they took the gun from my armpit and then went over me. The circumstances didn't seem favourable for an argument, so I simply stood at attention. It was a fast and expert job, with no waste motion and no intent to offend.

“It's all a matter of practice, I said courteously.

“Yeah, the taller one agreed, in a tenor that was almost a falsetto. “Follow me.

He moved to the wall, with me behind. The cars had been stopped short of the wall to leave an alley, and we went down it a few paces to a door where a man was standing. He opened the door for us-it was the one that made little noise-and we passed through into a small vestibule, also with no windows in its concrete walls. Across it, only three paces, steps down began, and we descended-fourteen shallow steps to a wide metal door. My conductor pushed a button in the metal jamb. I heard no sound within, but in a moment the door opened and a pasty-faced bird with a pointed chin was looking at us.

“Archie Goodwin, my conductor said.

“Step in.

I waited politely to be preceded, but my conductor moved aside, and the other one said impatiently, “Step in, Goodwin.

I stepped, and the sentinel closed the door. I was in a room bigger than the vestibule above: bare concrete walls, well-lighted, with a table, three chairs, a water-cooler, and a rack of magazines and newspapers. A second sentinel, seated at the table, writing in a book like a ledger, sent me a sharp glance and then forgot me. The first one crossed to another big metal door directly opposite to the one I had entered by, and when he pulled it open I saw that it was a good five inches thick. He jerked his head and told me, “On in.

I stepped across and passed through, with him at my heels.