ROCKABILLY

 

 

Detectives Helmsly and DeSalvo had formed a two-man Committee to End the Noise.

"That racket's gotta go, Tracy," DeSalvo was saying.

"Yeah," said Helmsly.

Tracy couldn't look at these two without thinking of Abbott and Costello—Helmsly as the former, pudgy DeSalvo the latter. In fact they once did the "Who's On First" routine at a PBA talent show. But they were good cops, even if they were a little rough around the edges.

"You know we like the kid as much as anybody," DeSalvo said, "but either he takes his jungle-bunny music somewhere else or one of us goes in there and accidentally sits on his pipsqueak phonograph."

Tracy put down the newspaper. The news from Hungary was pretty depressing—martial law and mass arrests since the Soviets marched in—and the presidential campaign at home was boring, with Ike and Nixon looking like shoo-ins.

He stared at DeSalvo. He didn't like the jungle-bunny reference but he let it slide. A lot of people were getting pretty worked up about this new rock and roll music the kids were playing, calling it jigaboo jive and nigger music. He'd even heard some preachers and teachers on the radio calling it the devil's music. Tracy didn't know about that. All he knew was that it wasn't his kind of music.

The trouble started when Junior brought his little, fat-spindled phonograph into the locker area off the squad room and started playing these funny-looking pancake-size records with big holes in the middle—"forty- fives," he called them. There were times when the music coming out of that tiny little speaker made Tracy want to try a forty-five of his own on that thing—something .45 caliber.

Obviously Tracy wasn't the only one bothered by it. DeSalvo was still carrying on.

"Bad enough we have to listen to it half the day workin' on the Wonder Records case, but we'd like a break when we come back to the squad room."

"Okay," Tracy said. "Send him out here. I'll talk to him."

"Thanks, Tracy," said Helmsly. "Peace and quiet again, huh?"

"Peace on earth," Tracy said.

Tracy thought about Junior as he waited for him to appear. He was a little concerned about some of the changes he was seeing in the boy. The most obvious was his hair. Junior was starting to look like some of the JDs they were picking up on car thefts and in gang rumbles on the north side. What was next—a studded black leather jacket and engineer boots? Tracy would have to draw the line there.

Not that Junior wasn't a good kid—he was the best. But Tracy couldn't help feeling uneasy when he saw him looking like a young hood.

And listening to hood music.

Ye gods, that rock and roll stuff was enough to drive any sane man up the wall! Junior played it endlessly at home. You couldn't pass his bedroom on the second floor without hearing twangy guitars, thumping drums, and wailing voices. Tess seemed to tolerate it better, even claimed to like some of it. But it set Tracy's teeth on edge. Especially that Little Richard fellow.

"Hi, Tracy," Junior said as he opened the door to Tracy's office. "You wanted to see me?"

"Yes, Junior. Sit down a minute."

Tracy was at once fascinated and repelled by Junior's hair. What formerly had been a wild red shock was now a carefully combed masterpiece of. . . what? The kid had let it grow and now it was Brylcreemed to within an inch of its life. Parted high up on each side, combed toward the center and a little forward so that some carrot-colored curls hung over the forehead; the sides were slicked back above the ears to meet at the rear of his head in what was being called a D.A.—and it didn't stand for District Attorney.

Tracy didn't like any of it.

"This music you've been playing. Do you like it?"

Junior's freckled face lit with enthusiasm. "You bet! All the kids like it."

"Surely not all of them."

Junior's smile broadened. "You know that Elvis Presley song you hate— 'Hound Dog'?"

Tracy winced. "How can I forget? You play it a hundred times a day."

"Well, it's the number one song in the country right now."

"There goes the country. Can you tell me why?"

"It's cool. It's a gas."

Tracy laughed. "Ah! That explains it. And that's why you listen to it all day long?"

"And all night too. At least till I fall asleep."

A thought struck Tracy.

"Would you consider yourself an authority on rock and roll, Junior?"

The kid shrugged. "Sure. An expert even."

"Good. I want you to look at something."

Tracy called to DeSalvo to bring him the evidence in the Wonder Records case. DeSalvo came in lugging the box.

"Hey, Junior," he said as he placed the box on Tracy's desk. "This is the kind of stuff you listen to. Maybe you can have them when the case is done."

Junior's eyes lit as he peered into the box. He glanced at Tracy. "Can I look?"

"Sure," Tracy said. "Handle them as much as you want."

Junior fished out a stack of 45s and shuffled through them like cards. Tracy noticed the kid's enthusiasm fading.

"Aw, these are all copies."

If the statement startled Tracy, it shocked DeSalvo.

"How do you know?" the detective said.

"Just look at the labels. 'Long Tall Sally' by Mark Butler, 'Blueberry Hill' and 'Ain't That a Shame' by Kevin Coyle, 'Maybellene' by Buster Squillace, 'I Hear You Knockin'' by Eleanor Robinson, 'Eddie, My Love' by Diane Gormley, 'Sh-Boom' by the Flat-tops? These aren't the real records. I have the real records, the ones that were done first—and best— and they're sung by Little Richard, Fats Domino, Chuck Berry, Smiley Lewis, the Teen Queens, and the Chords."

Suddenly Tracy saw what Junior meant.

"Oh, I get it. You're saying these are copies because they're sung by different artists than the originals."

"Right. They're put out for radio stations who want to play the top hits but don't want to play the originals."

DeSalvo ran a hand through his thinning hair.

"Why on earth would they want to do that?"

"Because all the originals were sung by Negroes," Junior said, looking DeSalvo straight in the eye. "Some folks call it jungle-bunny jive and so the big stations won't play it unless it's rerecorded note for note by white guys."

Tracy could see that Junior's sense of fair play was deeply offended, and he had to admit the kid had a point.

"That's not the kind of copying we're concerned with here," Tracy said before DeSalvo could reply. "The president of Wonder Records, Mr. William B. Cover, came to us with a complaint that someone is pressing perfect copies of his records and then selling them to all the stores in the city."

"If they're perfect copies," Junior said, "how did he find out?"

"Sales reports," DeSalvo said. "He read where a store reported sales far above what he'd shipped to them. He checked further and found out it was going on all over town."

"Serves him right," Junior said under his breath.

"No talk like that, understand?" Tracy said. "Whether you approve of what Wonder Records is doing or not, it's perfectly legal. Bootlegging copies of his product is not."

Junior looked down. "Sorry. You're right."

"We know it's an inside job," DeSalvo said. "Mr. Cover is positive someone's 'borrowing' his masters and pressing the copies."

"Borrowing?" Junior said.

"Yes," Tracy said. "None of the masters is missing, but Cover says someone must be pulling them one set at a time, pressing off the copies in a secret plant, then returning them. He says that's the only way the crooks could make such perfect copies."

DeSalvo snapped his fingers. "Say! What if we put Junior inside and—"

Helmsly burst in before Tracy could tell DeSalvo to forget it. "Just got a call from the Wonder Records. They found William B. Cover dead in his office."

Tracy was on his feet. "Foul play?" "Strangled."

"Find Sam," Tracy said. "Tell him to meet me down at the Wonder offices."

 

 

* * *

 

As Tracy pulled into the parking lot at Wonder Records, he marveled again at the design that had made it one of the city's landmark buildings. The upper two-thirds of its north wall had been designed to look like the top of a phonograph. The huge black disc representing a record was the most arresting feature. A giant tone arm rested beside it; once every five minutes it would swing over and land on the disc. The disc itself didn't spin, but the bright orange Wonder Records label at its center did, giving the illusion that the whole gargantuan record was turning on its spindle.

Inside, Sam Catchem was waiting for him on the top floor. Cover's office took up most of the level. There was a small lobby outside the elevator vestibule where a receptionist's desk guarded the passage to a set of oak double doors. These opened on a suite of richly appointed rooms. In the rearmost office a team from Forensics was dusting everything in sight while a pair of morgue attendants waited for the signal to load the sheeted body onto their stretcher and take it down to the meat wagon.

Tracy went down on one knee beside the body and pulled back the sheet. He'd met William B. Cover only once before, at headquarters. A bluff, hearty man of about fifty with thick brown hair and apple-red cheeks.

"Strangulation didn't do much for his complexion," Catchem said in his usual laconic tone, talking around the lighted cigarette that dangled from the corner of his mouth.

Tracy had to agree. The big red cheeks were now a dusky blue mottled with tiny purple hemorrhages in the skin. "What have we got, Sam?"

"One dead rock and roll record mogul, done in with the cord from his telephone." "How long?"

"Still got some warmth left in him. I'd say about two hours. How about you?

Tracy pressed the back of his fingers against Cover's throat. Not completely cold yet. He glanced at his watch.

"I'll go with that—which puts time of death right in the middle of lunch hour. Witnesses?"

"None."

"No secretary by the door?"

"Yeah, but there's a private elevator at the back end of the suite. According to his secretary—who found the body, by the way—he often brought his new talent in and out via that route. Seems he liked to keep them secret till he went public with them."

"She never heard anything?"

"I don't know. She was still pretty hysterical when I got here. She's down on the next floor. Maybe she's pulled herself together now."

Tracy threw the white sheet back over the corpse and nodded to the morgue attendants to take it away.

"Let's see what she can tell us."

The receptionist was Carolyn Typo, a pert brunette, young, barely out of secretarial school. She was shivering like someone with total body frostbite. After a few soothing remarks and reassurances, Tracy got to the point.

"I understand, Carolyn, that you saw no one enter Mr. Cover's office."

"That's right," she said, nodding and sobbing. "They must've come up the private elevator."

"Do you remember hearing anything strange, any sounds of a struggle?"

"No struggle, but they were talking pretty loud in there. In fact they were arguing."

"Did you hear any of the words?"

"Mr. Cover said something like, 'You'll never work in this town again, or in any other for that matter!' "

"Did you hear the other voice?"

"Yes, but I didn't understand what he was saying. Neither did Mr. Cover, I guess, 'cause he kept saying, 'What he say?' I guess the other man was foreign or something. Every time the other man spoke, Mr. Cover would ask over and over again: 'What he say?' "

In the far recesses of Tracy's mind, a bell of recognition chimed faintly. He shook it off.

"Would you recognize that voice again?"

"Oh, yes."

"Good. There might come a time when we'll need you for that. But right now, I want you to go down to police headquarters and make a complete statement."

After the receptionist had been led away, Tracy turned to Catchem. "Who's the number two man around here, Sam?"

Catchem checked his list.

"Hyram Figh. His office is on—"

"Did someone say my name?" said a short, slim, dapper man standing nearby. He appeared to be in his midtwenties.

"I'm Detective Tracy, this is Detective Catchem, Mr. Figh."

"Just call me Hy. Everyone does."

"Okay, Hy. Do you have any knowledge of any associate of Mr. Cover's who doesn't speak English?"

"No. Not a one."

"How about some new act he might have been auditioning?" Catchem said.

"Well, I do know he was pretty excited about a new rockabilly quartet he was secretly rehearsing in one of our recording studios."

"What on earth is 'rockabilly'?" Sam said.

"Hmmm." Hy scratched his chin. "I guess you could best describe it as a hillbilly white kid singing rhythm and blues to a rock and roll beat."

"Oh. Thanks. That clears it up perfectly."

"Any time. Anyway, W.B.—we called him W.B.—was grooming this quartet to cut the first all-original recording in the history of Wonder Records. He'd always said the key to a hit rockabilly record was to make the lyrics unintelligible. He told me he'd found a singer no one would ever understand. Said the kids would go crazy wondering what he was saying. They'd play the song over and over on jukeboxes all over the country, trying to figure out the lyrics. He was very excited."

Again that bell rang in Tracy's brain, louder now. He glanced at Catchem, who shook his head.

"I know what you're thinking, but it ain't possible."

Tracy turned back to Mr. Figh.

"Thanks, Hy. You've been a big help. Please don't leave town for the next few days. We may have some other questions for you."

"Anything I can do to help. Anything. Just call."

As the young executive headed for his office down the hall, Tracy turned to Catchem.

"Who does that sound like to you, Sam?"

"Mumbles," Catchem said, lighting another cigarette. "Who else? But Mumbles is dead, remember? He drowned over a year ago and almost took you with him."

"I know, I know. But it fits so perfectly. A guy no one can understand: That was Mumbles. Sings with a quartet: That was Mumbles. Crooked enough to have been 'borrowing' the Wonder Records masters and making illegal copies of Wonder hits—"

"I know," Catchem said. "Mumbles. But he drowned, he was buried, and neither of us believe in ghosts."

"And violent enough to kill when cornered," Tracy said. "That would fit Mumbles too." Tracy pushed back his yellow fedora and scratched his head. "Yeah. A crazy thought."

"No argument there," Catchem said. "But until Mumbles shows up, what say we get back up to the murder scene and see if we can find anything to point us toward a living suspect."

 

 

* * *

 

Tracy couldn't sleep. The William B. Cover murder wouldn't permit it. Finally he gave up trying. He left Tess slumbering peacefully in their bed and wandered down the hall to Junior's room. He put his ear against the door and listened. A radio was playing low. He knocked and stuck his head in the darkened room.

"Got any rockabilly records?"

The light came on and Junior sat up in bed.

"Sure. Want to hear some?"

"Just a couple of samplings. And real low. We don't want to wake the sleeping, let alone the dead."

Junior hopped out of bed and pulled out his record box. He showed Tracy the labels with the titles and artists and played snatches of the songs.

They all sounded pretty much the same to Tracy. Junior ran through "Blue Suede Shoes" by Carl Perkins, "Tongue Tied Jill" by Charlie Feathers, "Ooby Dooby" by Roy Orbison, "Be-Bop-a-Lula" by Gene Vincent ...

"Enough," Tracy said. "That's all I can take. But thanks for the lesson, Junior."

He tousled the kid's hair affectionately, the way he used to, but came away with a hand coated with grease. Wiping his palm on his pajama pants leg, he returned to his own bedroom.

And still he couldn't sleep.

Mumbles . . . was it even remotely possible that he was still alive?

Tracy thought back to July of last year when he and Mumbles had been caught in that salt marsh at high tide. Tracy had survived but Mumbles had drowned because he wouldn't—or couldn't—let go of the loot he had dug up. Tracy racked his brain now trying to remember if he or Sam or anyone for that matter had officially identified the body. They'd found it strapped to the barrel of jewels, they'd shaken their heads and said that Mumbles's greed had finally killed him, then they'd sent the body off to the coroner— tagged as Mumbles.

Tracy dragged himself back to the present. This was fruitless. All it did was distract him from zeroing on a real suspect in the Cover murder.

And yet. . . rockabilly, with all its hiccupping vocals and nonsense lyrics, was almost custom made for Mumbles, wasn't it? If he were alive, he could very well have been rehearsing in the Wonder Records recording studios—

Tracy bolted upright in bed.

Rehearsing! Wouldn't they be recording those rehearsals? At least parts of them? After all, the quartet in question was slated to be a recording sensation. Wouldn't W.B. have wanted to hear what they sounded like on vinyl?

Tracy was out of bed again, this time reaching for his clothes. Those tapes might break this case.

 

 

* * *

 

The all-night security guard at the main entrance let Tracy in and directed him to the recording studios on the tenth floor.

"On the way in I noticed that the big record player isn't working," Tracy said.

"We turned it off in mourning for Mr. Cover. The big Wonder record won't play again until after his funeral."

"I'm sure he'd have appreciated that."

Tracy headed directly to the recording studios. All the tapes and masters in W.B. Cover's office vault had been accounted for this afternoon, so Tracy figured that the mystery quartet's rehearsal tape, if it existed, might still be in the studio.

But which studio? There were eight of them on the floor.

He realized he should have brought Sam along to help go through the hundreds, perhaps thousands of tapes that were stored here. But better to

let Sam sleep so he'd be fresh for the morning. Tracy hadn't been getting any sleep anyway.

Where to start? He decided to begin at the end. As he walked down the hall toward Studio H he heard a noise. He stopped and heard it again. A clatter .. . very faint. Coming from Studio C.

Tracy pulled his snub-nosed .357 and edged the door open.

The studio was a shambles. Empty tape canisters were everywhere; the entire studio was festooned with tangled garlands of recording tape. As Tracy watched, a ten-inch reel, trailing a shiny brown ribbon behind it, sailed across the room and clattered against the wall.

To his left, out of sight, he heard someone shouting.

"Fina fug inape!"

A chill crawled over Tracy's skin. He knew that voice. But it couldn't be. Without thinking, he shoved the door open and stepped inside.

There were four men in the room. Three of them—one wearing a gray fedora, one with a knitted cap, and one bald and bareheaded—were tearing through the studio's tape library. But it was the fourth, standing in the center of the studio floor, who seized Tracy's attention. Short, medium- framed, close-cropped blond hair, heavy-lidded eyes, dark eyebrows, and a small, thin-lipped mouth.

"Mumbles!"

The man's eyes widened. "Syoo!"

Tracy shook off the shock of seeing Mumbles alive and covered the room with his pistol. He realized he'd made a rookie-level error: no backup. But he had the drop on them so maybe he could pull this off.

"Hands up and into the middle there—all of you!"

They hesitated, looking to Mumbles for direction.

"Doozee sz," Mumbles said.

"What he say?" whispered the one with the knitted cap.

"What'sa matter? You deaf?" the bald one replied. "He said 'Do what he says,' So let's do it."

They joined Mumbles in the center.

"Now—everybody face down on the floor."

When he had all of them down he could use the wrist radio to call for backup. This would be a good collar, even if it wasn't by the book.

Three of them went face down on the rug. Only their leader refused to comply.

"You too, Mumbles," Tracy said.

Mumbles stepped to his left behind a microphone on a chrome stand. He stayed on his feet.

"Newt beoo, Tree."

"What he say?" said the knitted cap.

Baldhead said, "He said, 'I knew it'd be you, Tracy.' "

Tracy said, "How did you survive that tide? That's what I want to know, Mumbles. And who did we bury if it wasn't you?"

"Yoofih grout, eppr."

"What he say?"

"Shuddup," said the fedora.

"Down, Mumbles," Tracy said.

Mumbles' stare was coolly defiant.

"Nway, eppr."

Tracy approached Mumbles warily, keeping the three on the floor in full view.

"I'm warning you, Mumbles. Don't try anything foolish. You're now the prime suspect in the W.B. Cover murder. And if that isn't enough, you'll be tried for Cinn's murder and as an accomplice in the George Ozone murder. Now get down on that floor!’

Mumbles sidestepped, keeping the mike stand between Tracy and himself.

"Kz maz, eppr."

Tracy reached out to knock the mike stand out of the way. The instant he touched it, he knew he'd been suckered. He heard the buzz, felt the electric current shoot up his arm, saw Mumbles' sneering face dissolve in a cascade of blinding white, yellow, blue, and orange explosions.

Then everything went black.

 

 

* * *

 

Tracy awoke slowly, to the chilly caress of a city-flavored October breeze, to the sound of faraway voices, and to the throb of a thundering headache. He opened his eyes and immediately snapped them shut against the sudden, overpowering rush of vertigo.

He took a deep breath. For a moment there, he'd almost thought—

Tracy opened his eyes again. To his left the sun was rising. The dark, sleeping city was spread out above him . . .

No—below him. He was upside down—trussed up and being lowered by his ankles on a long rope from the roof of the Wonder building. He could feel the grooves of the giant record logo jouncing against his back as he was lowered along the north wall.

Voices filtered down from above. He picked out Mumbles's voice immediately.

"Hole air."

"What he say?"

"He said to hold it there. C'mon. We'll tie it to this vent stack here."

"Hey, that's pretty swell, Mumbles. You got him right over the dent where the needle hits. When the arm comes over it'll nail him good!"

"Lemring amurwep innacor!"

"What he say?"

"He said, 'Let them bring that murder weapon into court!' "

There was laughter from above.

"Swaj blow," said Mumbles and the voices faded out.

Tracy's hands were tied behind his back. He probed the depth of the pit in the surface of the giant record where the tone arm's "needle" impacted twelve times an hour. A deep pit. He glanced over at the metal spike that served as the needle. It wasn't sharp, but it had to come down with considerable force to wear a pocket like this. Force enough to punch a hole in Tracy's gut.

But the laugh was on Mumbles. The giant phonograph had been shut off.

Just then Tracy felt a hum through the back of his head. The giant record vibrated as the label at its center began to turn. To Tracy's right, the tone arm shuddered to life.

Mumbles had turned on the power!

As the arm began to lift, Tracy began to swing his body left and right. Soon he had a bit of a pendulum motion established. The arc was small, but he hoped it would be enough to give him a fighting chance to be out of harm's way when the tone arm came down.

It was swinging toward him now, looming over him. He augmented his pendulum motion with a quarter roll to the right just as the needle slammed down onto the record.

Missed me!

Now he had a couple of minutes to work at the ropes around his wrists. The left was not looped quite as tightly as the right. He made an all-out bid to pull it loose, clenching his teeth against the pain as the upper layer of the skin over his wrist tore away. He groaned and broke out in a cold sweat as something popped inside his wrist, but suddenly his left hand was free. Seconds later the right was also free.

Using mostly his right hand, Tracy pulled himself up inside the tone arm. He twisted himself around to an upright position and wedged his body into the metal struts of the supporting framework. His legs and ankles were still trussed up like a roast but he left the ropes where they were for now. He had to close his eyes and let this sick feeling pass. Good to be right side up again, but his left wrist was swollen and puffy and throbbing like an elephant's migraine. At least he still had his wrist radio. He flicked the transmitter switch.

"Headquarters, this is Tracy. I'm at the Wonder Records building. I need immediate backup. Repeat: Immediate backup requested. Do you copy?

But when he switched to receive, he heard only static. He tried again with similar results. Maybe he'd damaged the radio getting out of the ropes. Maybe just the receiver was out of commission. He hoped that was all.

Because things were a bit dicey up here.

Voices . . . from far below. Angry shouts. Tracy peeked down at the gesticulating forms in the parking lot below. He realized with a grin that they couldn't see him from down there. Couldn't even see the rope. They probably thought he'd escaped.

Well, in a few minutes they'll be right!

He went to work on the rope around his legs, doing the best he could without putting too much stress on his left wrist.

Just then the tone arm began to rise. He heard the motor groan with the strain of lifting his extra weight. The arm was just starting back toward its rest position when something snapped in its base. The motor screeched and died as the arm jolted partially free of its supports and tilted at an angle.

Tracy hung on by his fingertips, then got his feet braced against the framework again. Renewed shouts rose from below as he realized his hiding place was now exposed in the growing dawn light.

He saw two figures, one blond, one bald-headed, dart for the rear of the building. It looked like Mumbles and one of his gang were coming back up to finish the job—probably by way of W.B. Cover's private elevator.

Tracy redoubled his efforts on the ropes but they resisted him. If only he could use both hands!

Moments later he heard a clank above him. Mumbles was there, grinning maniacally as he leaned over the edge of the roof and hammered at the tone arm's remaining supports with a tire iron.

Tracy felt the structure twist and sag further. Any second now it would go, taking him down with it. And still the knots on his legs resisted him. If he could just free his legs he could climb up the arm and at least give himself a fighting chance.

And then Tracy heard a wonderful sound: sirens.

So, apparently, did Mumbles's companion.

"The cops, Mumbles. Let's get outta here!"

"Ntlee fls!"

"Are you crazy, Mumbles?" Baldhead said. "What're you doin'?"

Tracy glanced up and saw Mumbles swing his leg over the edge of the roof and begin kicking at the tone arm's base.

"Dmthns tuck!" Mumbles said.

The sirens were getting louder but every kick sent increasingly violent shudders through the arm. Its base was edging free of the support. A few more good kicks ...

Tracy yanked on the rope that ran from his ankles up to the roof. Still tied. Suddenly he was glad he hadn't been able to conquer those knots.

Far below, Tracy saw the two other members of Mumbles's crew running for their car. He looked back up toward the roof to see Mumbles hanging from the edge of the roof by his arms, ramming both feet against the base of the tone arm.

Suddenly it twisted loose, but in twisting it caught Mumbles's foot. Mumbles lost his grip on the parapet. Baldhead made a grab for his arm but it was too late. Tracy dove free of the arm as it began to fall. The metal screeched but Mumbles's scream was louder as man and tone arm plummeted to earth.

Tracy was hanging upside down again, the blood rushing to his head. He saw the tone arm crash through the hood of the getaway car as it pulled away, saw Mumbles bounce off the car roof and land in a broken heap atop the trunk.

"That crazy bastard!" said Baldhead from above. "All because of you."

Tracy angled his neck to see the man's angry face glaring down at him. A knife snapped open in his hand.

"No reason why you shouldn't join him, cop."

As Baldhead began to saw at the rope, Tracy stuffed his right hand into the pocket the needle had made and clutched one of the record grooves with his bum left, hoping he might be able to hold on but knowing deep in his gut that there was no way in hell he could.

Suddenly there was a shot. Tracy looked up and saw part of Baldhead's scalp explode in a spray of red. Then the body slumped over the parapet. Warm blood began to drip on Tracy.

Sam Catchem's face appeared over the edge of the roof.

"You all right, Tracy?"

"Just fine, Sam. Enjoying the view."

Catchem lit a cigarette. "Yeah. Me too. You know, I was listening to a preacher on one of the news shows last night. He was warning the kids that hanging around these rock and roll joints would bring them nothing but trouble. Looking at you makes me think he may have a point."

"Pull me up, Sam. Now."

"Yes, boss."

As he was being dragged upward across the grooved surface of the giant Wonder record, Tracy stared down at Mumbles's inert form and . . .

No—not inert. His arms and legs were moving—not much, but moving all the same. He was alive. Tracy shook his head in silent wonder. Mumbles's luck never seemed to run all the way out.

Well, at least now they had a good chance of finding out who was really buried in Mumbles's grave: They could ask Mumbles himself. Either way, though, Tracy would have to get an exhumation order. But that could wait.

At least until this afternoon.