of the detectives in the large squad room looked quite haggard, Candy's skin was clear and unlined. She looked fresh and ready for work. There was a hint of perfume in the office, the aroma of which Bud couldn't quite define.

"You killed three men tonight and probably wounded others," Hamilton said firmly.

A trim eyebrow was raised. "In self defence?" There was amusement in her tone. "Justifiable homicide?"

Bud tapped on Matik's empty desktop. "The coroner will decide that," he said, adding, "with help from us, of

course."

"

Candy relaxed, uncrossed her legs and then crossed them again, smiling at Hamilton as he appraised her carefully. She was very shapely, with a narrow-waist, while her legs and ankles were enhanced by the high heels and skin-toned stock- ings that she wore. "What do you want from me?" she asked, breaking unto his inspection.

"Who killed Jimmy Walsh?” he asked, looking into her painted eyes.

She shrugged. "I don't know."

Even as Bud looked at her in disbelief, there was a tap on the door. Joanie Bryan had a sheaf of papers in her hand. "Answers to the enquiries you had transmitted," she said, smiling at Bud, and looking curiously at the glamorous Candy.

For some reason, Candy was quite uncomfortable under the policewoman's scrutiny. Bud read through the reports while the two women waited for him. Then he wrote on a memo pad, which he took from a side drawer. "Let me know what there is in anyone's records about this person," he said, handing the note to Joanie, who nodded and then left.

Bud settled back in his chair. "The gun you used on Buck's mob was taped. So, there aren't any fingerprints on it." Candy smiled prettily at him, relaxing still more. "You're probably expecting that I'm going to talk to you for awhile about Buck and Bassaglia, but then I'll have to let you go. But we lifted a good set of your prints from the bathroom door." Candy tensed up, her mouth straightened into a pink line. "Everyone worked overtime for us on this one -- even the army. It says here," he tapped the manuscript from the telex machine, "that the prints we sent out belong to one Michael John Russell." He looked hard at Candy now, and could see the fear in her eyes. "So when I let you go," said Bud, watching her hands twist together in anxiety, "you'll just become a MAN again, right, and neither Buck nor I will ever find you, right?"

-45-