Drake wasn t expecting visitors

Which is why he was so wary when Hazel told him about the two strangers pulling into their drive.

Drake watched as the two men got out of their car and walked toward them.

They were Easterners; the cut of their business suits announced that.

They didn t look like hoods.

And they weren t cops. Drake had a built-in radar for fuzz.

But there was something cop-like in the swaggering attitude.

Whoever they were Drake didn t like them.

Especially when they tried to get smart with Hazel.

That s when Drake shot one in the arm.

They quit fooling around then and handed Drake and envelope.

It was from Washington. About his friend Karl Erikson in a Spanish prison.

Drake wasn t thinking right then about his friend.

He was thinking that some damn fool in Washington had blown his cover. And he had better get the hell away fast before his past caught up with him again.