Chapter Fourteen

I took a chance going out the next morning. I took a chance going into the barber for a shave, took another when I stopped off for breakfast.

But all this was only a rehearsal. A rehearsal for the big chance, when I called Bannock’s office.

The girl put me through.

“Mark. Where are you?”

“That’s what a lot of people would like to know. Have you heard?”

“Damned right I’ve heard. What’d you do?”

“Don’t want to talk about it over the phone. Where can I see you?”

“Better not come out here.”

“I didn’t intend to. But I want to go over some things fast. I’d counted on getting together with you at Trent’s funeral this afternoon. Now it looks as if I’m not going.”

Bannock was silent. “Hello?” I said, jiggling the receiver.

“I’m still here. Just thinking. Look, I’m leaving around noon to pick up Daisy. We planned to eat and then go to the funeral. Suppose I tell her to eat at home and I’ll come by for her later. That okay?”

“Fine.”

“Where’ll I find you?”

I hesitated. “You know Perucci’s?”

“You mean that spaghetti joint way down near the Union Station?”

“That’s the one.”

“Don’t tell me I’ve got to drive all the way down there.”

“Suit yourself,” I said. “It’s pretty tough on you, I know that. Me, all I have to worry about is how to dodge the police and a couple of strong-arm artists and a murderer.”

“All right, I’m sorry. I’ll be there. Twelve?”

“Good. Reason I picked it is nobody ever comes there at noon. And they’ve got a back room.”

“Fine. Mark, I’m awfully upset about getting you into such a mess.”

“Don’t be. If you want to help, here’s what you do. Try to get a line on Estrellita Juarez for me.”

“But I thought the cops—”

“Sure, they looked for her. Probably called Central Casting, stuff like that. You know a few people. Get on the phone this morning and ask around. Make it sound as if you had a part lined up, or she has a check coming for back work. Say anything. Do what you can for me. I think it’s important.”

“You do? You mean you’ve found something out?”

“Tell you when I see you.”

And I did.

He met me at Perucci’s and we ate spaghetti. That is, he ate spaghetti and I talked. While he was busy unraveling the stuff, I was busy unraveling the saga of the past two days, including, of course, my reasons for trying to locate Miss Juarez.

He shook his head. “No dice, pal. I tried. Called everybody in town. Nobody knows where she disappeared to. I even contacted Central Casting, just for the gag of it. They said her name had been dropped from the rolls. How do you like that?”

“I don’t. We need her, Harry.”

“If you say so, sweetheart.”

I stabbed my fork at him. “What’s the matter?” I asked.

“Matter? Nothing’s the matter. Why?”

“I don’t know. Anytime anybody makes with that ‘sweetheart’ stuff I get suspicious. Level with me, Harry. Has your wife been talking to you?”

He moved his head up and down between mouthfuls.

“Wants you to drop this investigation, is that it?”

Another movement.

“How do you feel about it?”

“I don’t know.” He pushed his plate back. “I’ve been doing some thinking, Mark. About this whole setup. Maybe she’s right. Maybe we made a mistake stirring up trouble when we didn’t have to. Just suppose I hadn’t gotten this idea of trying to clear Ryan’s name. So I wouldn’t sell the series to See-More for a while. What of it? In another five or six months or so, everybody’d have forgotten. I could sell it to them then, or someone else. But no. I had to play eager beaver. I had to get smart, call you in. And now where are we? With all these killings, Ryan’s name has fresh mud all over it.”

I tugged my mustache. “Is this you talking, Harry, or is it Daisy?”

“Oh, she gave me hell all right. But not about the business deal. It’s the murders that worry her. Ever since I got this call telling me to lay off she’s been frightened about it. Last night she told me about seeing you, made me promise to quit.”

“Did you promise?”

“Well—”

“Do you want to fire me?”

“Mark, what the hell are we going to do? I don’t want to get bumped off, and I don’t want to see you get bumped off, either. If Kolmar or anybody else finds out I’m responsible for you re-opening the case, my goose is cooked all over town. Look at the trouble he’s caused you already. You can’t expect to dodge the cops forever.”

“I don’t,” I said. “Just give me another twenty-four hours.”

“You really think you’re that close?”

“Just a hunch,” I answered. “If I could only talk to one or two people.”

“But couldn’t the police do it? If you went to them?”

“I can’t go to them. Kolmar’s fixed that. They’ll put me on ice so fast there won’t be a chance to get a word in edgewise. By the time they listen to me anything can happen. And you know what I mean by anything, Harry.”

“I know.”

“Besides, if I went to them, I’d have to go clean. Tell them the works, all about you hiring me and why. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”

“No, I wouldn’t.”

“Twenty-four hours, that’s all I ask. I’ve come this far. Maybe we can still save this deal for you. That’s worth a gamble, isn’t it?”

“If Daisy knew—”

“Don’t tell her, then. No sense of her worrying any more. Leave it to me, Harry. I’ll get word to you before tomorrow night. Either way.”

“Where you going now?”

“It’s best that you don’t know,” I said. “Give me a hundred on account, though. Hiding out costs money.”

He gave me two hundred.

“Thanks. Now run along and pick up Daisy and go to your funeral. Tell her I called you and you fired me over the phone because the cops are after me. Tell her anything that’ll make her happy. And just wait until you hear from me.”

Bannock scratched his head. “The way you act, anybody’d think you had some kind of personal interest in this case.”

I smiled at him. “Maybe you’ve got something there. After a guy gets his apartment broken into, his life threatened, his brains knocked out, and his liberty jeopardized by the police, he’s inclined to take a rather personal interest in such matters.”

Harry Bannock glanced around the back room, then pulled me over into the corner. “I almost forgot,” he murmured. “Can you use this?” His hand disappeared inside his coat, emerged again. I caught the glint of metal on a gun barrel.

“Where’d it come from?” I asked.

“It’s mine. I’ve been carrying it, ever since I got that call. But something tells me you’ll probably need it more than I will.”

“Something tells me you’re right,” I said.

I slipped the gun into my pocket.

“Careful, it’s loaded.”

I nodded. “Thanks.”

Then he went out and climbed into his big car, and I went out and climbed into the nearest drugstore.

They didn’t have what I was looking for, so I went to another, and another. Finally I hit a dingy little place which carried the product I was looking for. It was the City Directory.

Nothing so remarkable about that. You want to look somebody’s address up, that’s the first thing you go for. Even the cops use it.

But nine times out of ten, they look in the current issue. And nine times out of ten, that’s all they ever look in.

That’s why I tried the run-down drugstores, the ones with the dusty displays in the windows and the rubber goods counter up front. Sometimes they have an older edition of the Directory. This one did.

I turned to J in a hurry. Juarez. Plenty of names here; a lot of them right in this neighborhood, around Olvera Street. But no Estrellita. Of course, I could start calling or start hiking around. Maybe I’d strike a family sooner or later...if she lived with her family.

No, come to think of it, she wouldn’t have. She’d been Trent’s girl, and before that probably anybody’s. Including guys like Joe Dean.

Joe Dean. I went after the Ds now. Dean was living with Kolmar on the ranch, and he’d worked for Ryan. But where was he two years ago?

I found out. Dean, Joseph. And the address, on Broadway, not more than five blocks away.

Hunch, long-shot, call it whatever you like. I only knew that I had to start someplace. And it might as well be over on Broadway. That seemed to be the right neighborhood for what I was interested in.

I walked over, slowly. The afternoon sun was hidden by smog, and the streets were gray, gray as stone. And crawling along them were what you find when you turn over a stone.

This was Broadway. Not Broadway, New York. Broadway in L.A.; just a knife’s throw from Main and a blind stagger from Olive. Bumway. Skidway. Wrongway. The kind of a street you find in every big city. Even in that nice eastern city where the newspaper doesn’t want to contaminate its readers with sordid stories of unpleasant people.

I saw plenty of unpleasant people during my walk, and their sordid stories were usually quite apparent. There was a girl with platinum blonde hair who somewhat resembled Polly Foster in appearance. But her dress was sleazy, her eyes were puffy, and she was walking with a big Mexican who’d never put her in the movies; at least, not in the kind of movies that would lead to stardom in anything except a public health clinic. I noted a man of the same general physical build as Harry Bannock, up to a point. Down to a point, rather; he rolled along on a coaster platform because he lacked legs. I saw a baldheaded little fellow who might have passed for Abe Kolmar, except that Kolmar wouldn’t have been snoring in an areaway with an empty pint of rotgut cradled in his lap. A fellow resembling Al Thompson stood picking his teeth in front of a cigar store; he stepped out and offered to sell me some pictures Thompson would never have approved of, and said he could introduce me to the subjects if I so desired. I saw a man almost as handsome as the late Dick Ryan, in a Latin sort of way. He was cursing and being cursed by a fat Indian woman whose four offspring clung to her skirts and pummelled her pregnant belly. There was a girl about the same age and complexion as Billie Trent; at least I thought so until she turned her head and I saw the purple blotch covering the left side of her face. And there was a man with a mustache and an eye-patch, just like me. Only his patch covered both eyes, and he held out a battered tin cup. There but for the grace of God...

Yes, there but for the grace of God went all of us, and there seemed to be plenty the grace of God had somehow overlooked. Everybody overlooked them, including the nice, clean family newspapers and the smug little moralists who devoted their oracular pronouncements to solving the vital problems of people who couldn’t make up their minds between buying a new station wagon or taking a vacation in Hawaii this season.

I walked on, thinking there wasn’t anything particularly original about my philosophy. On the other hand, there wasn’t anything particularly original about a run-down neighborhood or its run-down inhabitants, either. Maybe they were happy. Maybe they pitied me. Most of them would, if they knew the police were looking for me. That they could understand.

And remembering, I kept a lookout for squads or patrolmen. My luck held. My luck held all the way to the Harcourt Apts.

That’s what the grimy stone lettering read: Harcourt Apts., in abbreviated grandeur. There hadn’t been much grandeur to begin with when they built this old three-story block of flats, and none of it remained now. The lobby was about the size of a pay toilet and looked no more inviting. To the right on the ground floor was a liquor store; the left had been retained as living quarters by someone who’d placed a sign in the front window reading Gypsy Horoscopes.

I walked up the steps, into the lobby. There were twelve buzzers to ring, but only seven names to choose from in the adjoining panels. Three of them I could read; the other four were either illegibly written or had been rendered illegible by the action of time and grime.

There was nothing resembling the name of Dean or Juarez that I could read. Maybe I was the wrong guy for the job. Fellow name of Jean-Francois Champollion might have had better luck. This stuff couldn’t be much harder to decipher than the Rosetta Stone. Say 50 percent harder at the most.

I was still squinting, wondering whether or not I ought to start ringing doorbells at random and going into a one-eyed version of a Fuller Brush Man routine, when somebody shuffled out into the hall and leaned against the side of the wall.

“Lookin’ for me?”

She was a fat woman with almost invisible eyebrows and pale yellow hair done up in pin curlers; she was wearing a pink housecoat decorated at the throat with braid and egg yolk. I smiled at her.

“Could be,” I said.

“You after a readin’? C’mon in.”

I remembered Gypsy Horoscopes. Victor Herbert should see this little Gypsy Sweetheart. But I followed the un-corseted amplitude of her behind into the musty flat off the first landing.

The front room was dark, rankly odorous. She waddled over to a gas burner.

“Sit right down,” she said. “First I gotta make the tea.” But she didn’t move away immediately. I noticed she had her paw out. “Two bucks,” she said. “Advance.”

I gave her two dollars. She turned away and busied herself at the stove. The tea came from a cabinet. I noticed that the better Gypsies were doing their tea leaf readings with Salada nowadays.

She put the pot on, then came over and planted herself in a chair across the table from me. A lamp switched on.

“Let me have your palm,” she said. “Give you a readin’ while you wait.”

“Look,” I said. “I’m in a hurry. I don’t need a regular reading. It’s something else.”

Her eyes narrowed. She watched me as I put my hand in my pocket.

“What?”

“Do you have any experience locating missing articles?”

“Lost somethin’, eh? What was it?”

“It wasn’t a something. It was a someone. A man named Joe Dean lived here a few years ago. I’m looking for a friend of his, a girl named Estrellita Juarez.”

She stood up. “Who sent you?”

“Nobody. I just thought you might be able to help.”

“Don’t know the name, mister. I just moved in here last year.”

“But I thought you might be able to use your divination—”

“Crap!” She stood up. “You a copper?”

“No. I’m an agent. I used to work for the same studio as Miss Juarez. She’s got some money coming to her for a bit she did some while ago. They asked me to find her. All we had on file was Dean’s old address.”

“I wouldn’t know nothin’ about it.” She started to get up.

I took my hand out of my pocket. “Maybe if you concentrate on this it might help,” I told her.

She stared at the twenty I held in my palm, then sat down again.

“You on the level about having money for her?”

I nodded. “I’m no cop, you ought to know that. If I was, I’d have put the cuffs on you the minute I came in and took a sniff. That tea on the stove isn’t the only kind you serve here.”

“You’re crazy.” Her upper lip was wet.

I held out the bill. “Knock it off,” I said. “I’m just interested in saving time. All I really have to do is start rapping on doors. But like I said, I’m in a hurry.”

She reached for the money. “Yeah. But if there’s any trouble.”

“There won’t be. I’m not even going to say where I found out.”

“Crap.” It must have been an old Gypsy expression of some sort, and I wondered what it meant.

“Well, if you won’t tell me where to find her, at least you might be able to tell me something about her. What she’s doing nowadays, and—”

“Oh, ast her yourself!” she sighed. “Number eight. Second floor rear.”

I stood up and made for the door.

“You won’t say nothin’ about who told you?”

“No. How could I? I’ve never been here. Let’s both try to remember that, shall we?”

I went out and closed the door on the mustiness behind me. Then I walked upstairs.

Number eight was easy to find. I knocked. There was no answer. I knocked again. Still nothing. I tried the door gently, turning the knob and pushing. It was locked, all right.

Well, there was only one thing to do—wait, sit it out. And perhaps it would be safer downstairs, across the street.

I turned and walked down the hall, started down the stairs. Somebody was coming up. There was the clatter of heels, the swish of skirt, a glimpse of a broad olive face with high cheekbones surmounted by dark curls. This was type casting if I’d ever seen it. She started to brush by me. I stuck out my arm.

“Miss Juarez,” I said.

“Yaiss?”

“I’ve been looking for you. My name’s Clayburn, Mark Clayburn.”

“So?”

“Can’t we go somewhere and talk?”

“I do not onnerstand. Why for we talk?”

“We’ve got mutual friends to discuss. Such as Joe Dean.”

“You know heem?”

“He sent me.”

She hesitated, then turned. “We go to my place, eh?”

I followed her up the stairs. The view was a distinct improvement over the pink posterior of my downstairs hostess.

Estrellita Juarez unlocked her door. “Come een,” she invited.

Her parlor was a cut above the average for a joint like this: new furniture, and in fairly good taste. I noted the door to a closet and a bedroom, both shut. There was a kitchen and a bath in back.

“Seet down.” She put her purse and gloves on the table, then turned. “Now, what ees all thees?”

“Friend of Joe’s, like I say. He told me about you.”

“How ees Joe? I ’ave not seen heem for long time.”

“Funny. He talked like he’d been in touch with you regular. As if you’d know all about me.”

“No. Heem I ’ave not seen for months.”

“Quarrel?”

She didn’t answer.

“Well, it doesn’t matter,” I said. “Main thing is, he told me you’re the one to contact about the stuff.”

“Stoff? What you talk about?”

I tried my hands-in-pocket routine again, but this time I came out with a fifty.

“What’ll this buy?” I asked.

“I doan know what you talk about.”

“Business must be better than I thought, if you can turn down this kind of money.” I grinned and kept my hand extended. “All right, if you don’t want to help me out, there’s other places I can go. Right downstairs, for instance. She pushes a pretty good brand of weed, I hear. Or does she get her supply from you?”

Estrellita Juarez licked her lips. Then she took the money and put it in her pocket. She walked over to the closet door, opened it, and took out an upright vacuum cleaner. I watched her unfasten the dust bag attachment. She began to shake packages out on the floor.

“That’s enough,” I said. “This is all I need.” I stooped and picked up the manila-wrapped carton of muggles.

“Bot for feefty dollair—”

“This is all I need,” I repeated. “One package. So when I walk in and tell them where I got it, they’ll have evidence.”

Her mouth opened. “Why, you lousy, double-crossing stoolie!”

She came at me, trying to grab the refers. I got her arm and twisted it back.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “You forgot the accent.”

“Never mind the accent,” she panted. “Give me that before I—”

“Before you what? Call the police? Or try to kill me?” I shook my head. “Better not. You’re mixed up in enough killing so far.”

“Who told you that? Joe?”

“No. He didn’t tell me. I lied to you. Joe hates my guts.” I let her arm go. “But I’m not lying to you now. And if you don’t lie to me, I’ll forget about going to the cops.”

“So that’s it, huh? Shakedown. I might of known.”

“No shakedown. All I want from you is a little information, information you should have given to the law a long time ago. You’ll have to sooner or later anyway, you know. They’re looking for you right now, Estrellita, or whatever your real name is.”

“Never mind about my real name. Suppose you tell me who you are, instead.”

“I already did. My name’s Mark Clayburn. Didn’t Joe tell you about me?”

“I haven’t seen Joe, honest I haven’t. Not since—”

“Not since Ryan was murdered?” I nodded. “That’s what I’m really here to talk about.”

“I don’t have anything to tell you. I already talked to the D.A.’s office.”

“Sure you did. But where were you when they tried to find you after Polly Foster’s death?”

“I had nothing to do with that setup.”

“Nevertheless, they wanted to question you, and you hid out here, in Joe Dean’s old apartment.”

“That’s no crime.”

“You’re sure you haven’t seen him?”

She shook her head. “I tell you, not since Ryan died.”

“He didn’t die. He was murdered.” I had to keep reminding people of that, it seemed. “Was that the reason for the quarrel? Were you afraid of Dean because you knew too much about what happened?”

“I didn’t know anything.”

“Yes you did. And you’re still getting information from some place. Enough information so that you called Tom Trent the night he was murdered, warning him to get out of town.”

“Who told you that?”

“His sister.” I pushed her back into a chair. “It’s bound to come out sooner or later, just like I told you. All you’ve got to decide is whether you want to talk to me or to headquarters.”

“What’s your angle?”

“I want to solve this case, that’s all. I’ve got no axe to grind, nothing against anyone except the killer. Which means you’re safe, as far as I’m concerned, unless you happen to be the guilty party.”

Her hand went to her mouth. “No. I’m not. Honest.”

“That’s the way I want it,” I said. “Honest. All right, let’s get on with it. How long have you been pushing this stuff?”

“Two years.”

“You work for a syndicate?”

“I don’t know.”

“Quit that talk.”

“I said I don’t know. I get it from a guy. I pay him when I make delivery. He tells me where to take it.”

“You’re a runner, in other words.”

“That’s all. I don’t have anything to do with the stuff, where it comes from. They wouldn’t be fools enough to tell me.”

“What about Dean? Does he push, too?”

“No, but he knew about it. He saw me pass some to Dick Ryan.”

“Ryan was one of your customers?”

“No. He only bought once. Said he was getting it for a friend.”

“How did he know you could supply him?”

“I asked, but he wouldn’t tell me. He could have heard talk, though. I had a lot of customers in the industry.”

“You’re sure Ryan wasn’t a viper?”

“Positive.”

I nodded. That’s what I’d started out to clear up, a long time ago. That’s what I’d wanted: a plain statement clearing Ryan of addiction, from somebody who knew.

But I felt no satisfaction in hearing it now. Even if I could get her to put it in writing, that wouldn’t help. Too much had happened since I began my search, too many murders.

“All right,” I said. “So he bought some for a friend. Who was it? Polly Foster?”

“No.”

“Didn’t she use tea?”

“Sometimes. But she knew where to get it. Right from me.”

“What about Trent?”

“He dealt with me, too. And Ryan wouldn’t be buying for him.”

“Well, somebody was smoking at Ryan’s trailer. You were all there that night.”

“Nobody took anything when I was around.”

“Kolmar?”

“I don’t know about Kolmar.”

“Joe Dean works for him now.”

“I wouldn’t know about that, either. I told you I haven’t seen Joe since.”

“But you left Ryan’s trailer with Dean the night of the murder. You spent the rest of the night with him in a motel, didn’t you?”

“Yes. The little rat! He was always after me, and when he caught me slipping the stuff to Ryan, he made me promise to go with him or else he’d squeal.”

“That’s how it was, eh?”

“That’s how it was.” She scowled. “In the morning I kicked him out and told him to go peddle his papers. I haven’t seen the little fink since, and I don’t want to.”

“But you’re sure Ryan didn’t take weed. And you’re sure Dean didn’t kill him.”

“Positive. Somebody else must have come to Ryan’s trailer after we left. Somebody he expected, somebody who liked kicks.”

“So Polly Foster said.”

“She did?” Estrellita Juarez clenched her fists.

“I talked to her the night she died. In fact, I found her body. You must have read about that. She told me over the phone that she’d gone back to the trailer later that evening. She’d seen someone there. Whether or not she could identify the party, I don’t know. But if she could, somebody made sure of getting to her before I did. So maybe your idea is right. Why didn’t you tell the police about it when Ryan died?”

“Why get into trouble? Let them do their own figuring.”

“Even if they suspect you? That doesn’t make sense.” I sat down and leaned forward. “Because they do suspect you, now. This business of disappearing after Polly Foster’s death looks mighty suspicious. Everybody else showed for questioning and gave an alibi. Everybody but you. Why?”

“I got my orders to lay low. Changed my territory on me; I don’t work the studios any more.”

“You’re sure it isn’t because you know who killed Polly Foster?”

“I haven’t any idea.”

“Then why did you phone Tom Trent and warn him to get out of town?”

“I—I was worried. I liked Tom. He was on the stuff, sure, and I used to get it for him. Then I was told to hide out here and that cut off his supply. From something he said to me after Ryan got killed, I got a hunch he might know who did it. I think he must have gone back that night, just like Polly Foster. Maybe he just guessed. But I figured he knew, and after Polly Foster died, I was scared for him. I called him up and told him maybe he’d better get out of town for a while. We figured maybe he’d be safe then.”

“We?”

“I mean, I figured.”

“Uh-uh. You were told to warn him, weren’t you?”

“You’re getting me all confused.”

“You’re confused plenty, if you ask me. You’re shielding somebody who’s put you on the spot.”

“I’m not on the spot.”

“Yes you are.” I talked right into her face. “Whoever this party is, he’s got you right where he wants you, the perfect suspect. You disappear the minute Foster gets murdered. You call Trent the night before he’s killed. Somebody came out to his place in a car and bumped him off—couldn’t that be you? The cops think so. They know about that call.”

“But I didn’t.”

“Don’t tell me. Tell them. Tell them when they come for you.”

“Nobody knows where I am. I’m safe. Unless you double cross me.”

“I’m not going to double cross you,” I answered. “I don’t have to. Because you’re not safe here. I found you in fifteen minutes. I used my head, and an old City Directory. Got your apartment number from that tea peddler downstairs. She sold you out for twenty bucks. I’ll bet you another twenty the police will be knocking on your door before tomorrow morning.”

“I won’t be here,” she said. “I’m getting out of town.”

“Suit yourself. But you’re a sucker if you keep on trying to protect somebody who’d line you up for a rap like this. Who is it, this guy you’re running for?”

She nodded. “That’s right.”

“Suppose you tell me his name?”

“No. I couldn’t do that—”

“Give you my word. I won’t say anything about it for twenty-four hours. You’ve got time to clear out of here.”

“I couldn’t.” She dug her fingers into the arm of the sofa. “He’d come after me.”

“I doubt that. Because if you ask me, he won’t have a chance. The police will grab him right away. Don’t you see? This guy’s the killer.”

Her fingers stopped clawing.

“Haven’t you figured that yet? It has to be that way. I’m not playing brilliant; it’s just simple elimination. He’s the only one left who’s linked to all three of the victims: Ryan, Foster and Trent.”

She stared at the wall behind me.

“Come on,” I said. “Is it Kolmar?”

“No.”

“Tell me his name.” I reached over and shook her. “Don’t be a fool. Do you want to end up like the others did?”

Estrellita Juarez stared.

“All right,” she said, tonelessly. “It isn’t Kolmar. The name is Hastings. Edward Hastings. He works for—”

She wasn’t staring at the wall any more. I realized that now. She was staring at the door, because it was opening, fast. I turned in my seat, my hand searching for the gun Bannock had given me. I felt the butt in my fingers, started to tug it out as I tried to get up.

I never got the gun out, never reached my feet.

Joe Dean came in right behind my chair. “Here’s what I owe you,” he said.

What he owed me was something hard, something that cracked down to split my skull and leave me sprawling on a floor that went spinning and spinning around. It was like one of those outfits you ride in the Fun House of an amusement park, where centrifugal force finally throws you off to the edge. It was throwing me off now.

I hit the edge and dropped into darkness.