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was a diamond. "I get you girl tonight to celebrate you return. Anything you like special? How 'bout two girl for price of one?" He leered and leaned close, a wave of cheap cologne radiating from his black coat. "I fix with Lil," he whispered as though they were fellow conspirators. Dev could barely control an urge to pick the little Italian up by his shiny lapels and cast him as far as he could. "Not now, Pauly, maybe later. It's Lil I wanted t'see. I got a proposition to talk over with her. Can you arrange for me t'see her in private?" He stepped back, his nose twitching with the man's scent.
    Pauly's eyebrows raised almost comically in surprise. "You got some idea to make lotsa money, eh? I go look for her-you stay, order drink on me."
    Dev watched him scuttle off toward the upstairs rooms where Lil kept an office and ordered his free drink, sniffing it suspiciously even though there was no reason for anyone to slip him a drug. He had barely taken a sip of the brandy before Pauly returned, his face split by his conspiratorial grin.
    "You come. Lil, she's always interested in propositions!" He winked as though he'd told a sly joke and told Dev to follow him. Pauly opened a door near the end of the bar to reveal a staircase. "Go," he directed, "up the stairs and down at the end a the hall. She's wait in the office. Lil, she say she call me if she need advice."
    Dev frowned as the Italian slipped back into the saloon, leaving him alone in the semi-darkness of the hall. A single .wall lamp flickered there, casting dancing shadows on the walls. As he moved toward the office, he passed other doors on either side of him and several times heard shrill giggles from within.
    He paused before the door, brows knit together, wondering why he hadn't taken more time to think about this. He really had no plausible proposal to make Lil and should have just circulated among the girls on the floor, trying to pry some information out of one of them.
    Maybe he should'tell her he wanted to start a place similar to hers up north. The idea amused him and instead he knocked before he could change his mind.
    "Come in, Mr. Cantrell!"
    Then, it was too late to back out and he forced a smile to his face as he swung the door open and found Lil standing in front of her desk. She posed with unconscious seductiveness and Dev realized that at one time she must have been something to look at. Time seemed to have taken its toll, though Lil had not lost the manner of a woman used to flattery and admiration from the opposite sex.
    "Please, do come in! I've been anxiously awaiting your arrival."
    She smiled; and the last thing Dev remembered before something hard slammed viciously against the back of his head, was the flirtatious and almost ridiculous way the woman batted her fake eyelashes at him.
    "Very good, Jim," Lil Conti remarked as she surveyed the immobile form lying at her feet. "I'll see to it you have a suitable reward for this. You saved me a great deal of trouble; Now check the hall and make sure no one's out there. I want him taken to the storeroom and tied, securely!"
    "Yes, ma'am, always glad t'help you!" The man checked the hall as ordered and then began to drag Dev Cantrell out through the office door.
    "Oh, Jim," Lil called, and he stopped dragging his unconscious burden for a moment to raise his head. The light cast by one of the two lamps on Lil's desk caught the piece of metal pinned to his shirt, winking off the incised word, DEPUTY. "Jim, I want to know, if there are any other inquiries at the sheriff's office. Send some-one with a message if you can't get away."
    "Yes, ma'am," came the respectful reply before the deputy returned to his appointed task.
    Three
    When Jenny finally awoke, she was dazed and disoriented, unable to think clearly for the first quarter-hour or so. She found herself wearing nothing but a sheer, gaudy pink negligee and lying beneath the covers of a wide and comfortable enough bed.
    She could not think how she'd