Where this man was deadly, the other was merely unpleasant – a short, moon-faced youth with wet, very pale blue eyes and fat wet lips. His skin was very white and he had that hideous disease of no hair – no eyebrows and no eyelashes, and none on a head that was as polished as a billiard ball. I would have felt sorry for him if I hadn’t been so frightened, particularly as he seemed to have a bad cold and began blowing his nose as soon as he got his oilskins off. Under them he wore a black leather windcheater, grubby trousers and those Mexican saddle-leather boots with straps that they wear in Texas. He looked a young monster, the sort that pulls wings off flies, and I desperately wished that I had dressed in clothes that didn’t make me seem so terribly naked.

Sure enough, he now finished blowing his nose and seemed to take me in for the first time. He looked me over, grinning delightedly. Then he walked all round me and came back and gave a long, low whistle. ‘Say, Horror,’ he winked at the other man. ‘This is some bimbo! Git an eyeful of those knockers! And a rear-end to match! Geez, what a dish!’

‘Not now, Sluggsy. Later. Git goin’ and look those cabins over. Meantime, the lady’s goin’ to fix us some chow. How you want your eggs?’

The man called Sluggsy grinned at me. ‘Scramble ’em, baby. And nice and wet. Like mother makes. Otherwise poppa spank. Right across that sweet little biscuit of yours. Oh boy, oh boy!’ He did some little dancing, boxing steps towards me and I backed away to the door. I pretended to be even more frightened than I was, and when he got within range I slapped him as hard as I could across the face and, before he could recover from his surprise, I had darted sideways behind a table and picked up one of the little metal chairs and held it with the feet pointing at him.

The thin man gave a short, barking laugh. ‘Ixnay, Sluggsy. I said later. Leave the stupid slot be. There’s all night for that. Git goin’ like I said.’

The eyes in the pale moon-face were now red with excitement. The man rubbed his cheek. The wet lips parted in a slow smile. ‘You know what, baby? You just earned yourself one whale of a night. An’ it’s goin’ to be long and slow an’ again and again. Get me?’

I looked at them both from behind the raised chair. Inside I was whimpering. These men were dynamite from Nightmare-land. Somehow I kept my voice steady. ‘Who are you? What’s this all about? Let’s see those credentials. The next car that comes by, I’ll break a window and get help. I’m from Canada. You do anything to me and you’ll be in bad trouble tomorrow.’

Sluggsy laughed. ‘Tomorrow’s tomorrow. What you got to worry about’s tonight, baby.’ He turned to the thin man. ‘Mebbe you better wise her up, Horror. Then mebbe we’ll get some co-operation.’

Horror looked across at me. His expression was cold, uninterested. ‘Ya shouldn’t of hit Sluggsy, lady. The boy’s tough. He don’t like the dames not to go for him. Thinks it may be on account of his kisser. Been like that since he done a spell in solitary at San Q. Nervous sickness. What’s that the docs call it, Sluggsy?’

Sluggsy looked proud. He brought the Latin words out carefully. ‘Alopecia totalis. That means no hair, see? Not a one.’ He gestured at his body. ‘Not here, or here, or here. What d’ya know about that, eh, bimbo?’

Horror continued. ‘So Sluggsy gets mad easy. Thinks he ain’t had a fair deal from society. You had that puss of his, mebbe you’d be the same. So he’s what we call in Troy an enforcer. Guys hire him to make other guys do what they want, if you get me. He’s on Mr Sanguinetti’s roll, and Mr Sanguinetti thought he and I better come along and keep an eye on this joint till the truckers come. Mr Sanguinetti didn’t care for a young lady like you bein’ all alone here at night. So he sent us along for company. Ain’t that so, Sluggsy?’

‘That’s the spiel. Sure is,’ he giggled. ‘Just to keep you company, bimbo. Keep the wolves away. With them statistics of yours, there must be times when you need protection real bad. Right?’

I lowered the chair on to the table top. ‘Well, what are your names? What about these credentials?’

There was a single tin of Maxwell House coffee on the shelf above the bar counter, all by itself. Sluggsy suddenly swivelled and his right hand – I hadn’t even seen him draw a gun – shot flame. There was the crash of gunfire. The tin jumped sideways and then fell. In mid-air Sluggsy hit it again and there was a brown explosion of coffee. Then a deafening silence in which the last empty shell tinkled away on the floor. Sluggsy turned back to me. His hands were empty. The gun had gone. His eyes were dreamy with pleasure at his marksmanship. He said softly, ‘How’s them for credentials, baby?’

The small cloud of blue smoke had reached me, and I smelled the cordite. My legs were trembling. I said, scornfully I hope, ‘That’s a lot of wasted coffee. Now, what about your names?’

The thin man said, ‘The lady’s right. You didn’t ought to of spilled that Java, Sluggsy. But ya see, lady, that’s why they call him Sluggsy, on account he’s smart with the hardware. Sluggsy Morant. Me, I’m Sol Horowitz. They call me “Horror”. Can’t say why. Kin you, Sluggsy?’

Sluggsy giggled. ‘Mebbe one time you gave some guy a scare, Horror. Mebbe a whole bunch of guys. Leastwise that’s what they tell me.’

Horror made no comment. He said quietly, ‘Okay. Let’s go! Sluggsy, see to the cabins like I said. Lady, you make us some chow. Keep ya nose clean and co-operate and ya won’t get hurt. Okay?’

Sluggsy looked me over greedily. He said, ‘Not much, that is. Eh, bimbo?’ and walked over to the key rack behind the desk and took down all the keys and let himself out through the back entrance. I put down the chair, and, as coolly as I knew how, but painfully aware of my toreador pants, walked across the room and went behind the counter.

The man called Horror sauntered slowly over to the cafeteria table farthest from me. He pulled a chair away from the table, twisted it in his hand and pushed it between his legs. He sat down and leaned his folded arms along the back and rested his chin on them and watched me with unwavering, indifferent eyes. He said softly, so softly that I could only just hear him, ‘I’ll take mine scrambled too, lady. Plenty crisp bacon. Buttered toast. Howsabout coffee?’

‘I’ll see what’s left.’ I got down on my hands and knees behind the bar. The tin had four holes right through it. There was about an inch of coffee left and a whole lot scattered over the floor. I put the tin aside and scraped what I could from the floor on to a plate, not caring how much dust went with it. The unspoiled remains of the tin I would keep for myself.

I spent about five minutes down there, taking my time, desperately trying to think, to plan. These men were gangsters. They worked for this Mr Sanguinetti. That seemed certain because they had got my name from him or from the Phanceys. The rest of their story was lies. They had been sent up here, through the storm, for a purpose. What was it? They knew I was a Canadian, a foreigner, and that I could easily go to the police the next day and get them into trouble. The man called Sluggsy had been in San Quentin. And the other? Of course! That was why he looked grey and sort of dead! He had probably just come out of prison, too. He smelled of it, somehow. So I could get them into real trouble, tell the police that I was a journalist, that I was going to write up what happened to girls alone in the States. But would I be believed? That Vacancy sign! I was alone in the place, yet I had left it on. Wasn’t that because I wanted company? Why had I dressed up like that, to kill, if I expected to be alone? I dodged away from that line of thought. But, to get back. What did these two men want here? They had an ordinary car. If they had wanted to clean the place out, they would have brought a truck. Perhaps they really had been sent up to guard the place, and they just treated me as they did because that was the way gangsters behaved. But how much worse were they going to get? What was going to happen to me tonight?