Stan raced down half a dozen doors, then suddenly stiffened. There was the wail of sirens. And then the heavy chatter of a machine gun and the drifting choking of tear gas. The spanging sounds and the violet beams suddenly stilled and figures slipped quietly from the buildings towards the side streets. Stan hesitated and then started running, away from the intersection. He collided with Avis when she darted from a doorway. The granite face had broken and tears were streaking down it. Before he realized it, he was holding her tightly around the shoulders while she sobbed into his chest. He had been fooling himself all along, he suddenly knew. He couldn't kill her. He couldn't come anywhere near to it. He didn't want to. "In every game," he said quietly, "there has to be a side that wins and a side that loses." Her sobs broke off and she looked up at him, shaking her head to clear the hair from her face. "I'm not crying because I've lost," she said quietly. "I'm crying because ... a brave man is dying! Because so many brave men have died!" She paused and the lines of weariness etched themselves back into her face. "I should have told you, Stan. I should have told you long ago. Maybe it might have helped." She pointed to the intersection. "He won't ... last long. Go out and say good-bye." * * * * * He stared back at the intersection. It was quiet now, powdered concrete dust settling slowly out of the air. Police were circling among the quiet forms lying on the pavement while curious onlookers began to form a ring around the corner. He walked quietly back to the street. "Over here, Stan." The voice was faint. "You better ... hurry!" A figure was slumped by one of the cars, its whole left side a singed and blackened mass of ash. Stan walked over to him. The man coughed and spewed a gout of red over the front of him. "We always wondered what had happened, Stan ... Mom and me. And then Avis found me and told me you had sold out." The low hacking cough again and a spasmodic heaving of the chest. "N ... never believed it. You weren't the type." His eyes closed in brief pain. "Told her that a hundred ... a thousand times, I guess." He paused for a moment and Stan thought he was gone. Then the eyes flickered open. "I was g-gonna break the whole story in tomorrow's editions. Guess ... your man got wind of it." Stan couldn't bring himself to look down at the left side where the clothing was burned and where half of the waist was carbonized. He knew Tanner's work with the heater and he knew how well the man liked to see his victims squirm. The cough started in again and suddenly the man was sitting up, his face twisted with pain and tears. "_Y-you don't even remember me! Y-you d-don't even remember your own damned brother!_" And just before he died he said: "I'm s-sorry, Stan. God bless...."