Survival... ZERO!

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They had left him for dead in the middle of a pool of blood in his own bedroom, his belly slit open like gaping barn doors, the hilt of the knife wedged against his sternum. But the only trouble was that he had stayed alive somehow, his life pumping out, managing to knock the telephone off the little table and dial me. Now he was looking up at me with seconds left and all he could do was force out the words, "Mike ... there wasn't no reason."

I didn't try to fake him out He knew what was happening. I said, "Who, Lippy?"

His lips fought to frame the sentence. "Nobody I ... not the kind... .No reason, Mike. No reason."

And then Lippy Sullivan died painfully but quickly.

I went out in the hallway of the shabby brownstone rooming house and walked up to the front apartment that had SUPER scrawled across the top panels in faded white paint and gave it a rap with the toe of my shoe. Inside, somebody swore hoarsely and a chair scraped across bare wood. Two locks and a bolt rasped in their sockets and the door cracked open on a safety chain.

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