It had taken four cops, using night-sticks, to get him into the paddy wagon, and Dr. Brownlee had finally had to give him a blast of super-tranquilizer with a hypogun. "Boy, Inspector," one of the officers had said, "don't let anyone ever tell you some of these guys aren't tough!" I was looking over the written report. "What about this kid he accosted in the bar? Hurt bad?" "Cracked rib, sprained wrist, and a bloody nose, sir. The doc said he'd be O.K." "According to the report here, the kid was twenty-two years old. Smith usually picks 'em younger." The cop grinned. "Smith had to get his eventually, sir. This guy looks pretty young, but he was a boxer in college. He probably couldn't've whipped Smith, but he had guts enough to try." "Think he'll testify?" "Said he would, sir. We already got his signature on the complaint while he was at the hospital. He's pretty mad." Smith's record was long and ugly. Of the eight complaints made by young boys who had managed to brush off or evade Hammerlock's advances, six hadn't come to trial because there were no corroborating witnesses, and the charges had been dismissed. Two of the cases had come before a jury--and had resulted in acquittals. Cold sober, Smith presented a fairly decent picture. It was hard to convince a jury of ordinary citizens that so masculine-looking a specimen was homosexual. The odd thing was that the psychopathic twist which got Hammerlock Smith into trouble had been able to get him out of it again. Both times, Smith's avowal that he had done no such disgusting thing had been corroborated by a lie detector test. Smith--when he was sober--had no recollection of his acts when drunk, and apparently honestly believed that he was incapable of doing what we knew he _had_ done. This time, though, we had him dead to rights. He had never made his play in a bar before, and we had three witnesses, plus an assault and battery charge. As Inspector Kleek had said, we get 'em eventually.... ... _But at what cost? How many teenage boys had been frightened or whipped into doing as he told them and then been too ashamed and sick with themselves to say anything? How many young lives had been befouled by Smith's abnormal lust?_ And if Smith spent a year or two in Sing Sing, how many more would there be between the time he was released and the time he was caught again? And how long would it be before he obligingly hammered the life out of his young victim so that we could put him away permanently? That was the "system" that Kleek--and a lot of other men on the Force swore by. That was the "system" that the boys in Homicide and in the Vice Squad thought I was trying to foul up by "babying" the zanies. It's a hell of a great system, isn't it? * * * * * I called the hospital and talked to the doctor who had taken care of Smith's victim. Then I called Kleek to see if there had been any break in the Donahue case. There hadn't.