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he’d sent his little girl Irene off to college at Chelsey University. Before Irene was born, there had been Rosie, his wife; and when he lost Rosie, there was Diane, till she found somebody younger and richer. And always Irene, a wild but sweet kid, ever devoted to her old man. Tisor shook his head and sipped at the bitter coffee. Now there was nobody. Except Tisor himself, a lonely old man too afraid to take his own life.
    Nolan said, “I have the same problem.”
    Tisor shook himself out of reverie. “What’s that?”
    “The past. I think about it, too. It’s no good thinking about it.”
    Tisor smiled. That was the most personal remark Nolan had ever made to him.
    Nolan poured himself another cup of the steaming black coffee and said, “What happened to Irene?”
    Tisor’s head lowered. “Suicide, they say.”
    “They don’t know.”
    “Not for certain. You see . . . she was on LSD.”
    “Oh.”
    “She was on top of a building, fell off. The cops say she took a nose dive . . .”
    “Yeah. Since she was tripping, they figure maybe she thought she could fly.”
    Tisor’s eyes pleaded with Nolan. “Look into it for me, Nolan. Find out did she jump, did she fall, did she get pushed. But find out.”
    “What about the local law?”
    “Hell,” Tisor said. “The Chelsey cops couldn’t find their dick in the dark.”
    “That where she went to school? Chelsey?”
    “That’s right, Nolan. Chelsey University at Chelsey, Illinois.”
    “Damn, Sid, I didn’t want to come to Illinois for even a day, but here I am. Now you want me to hop over to Chelsey and play bloodhound for you.”
    “Listen to me, Nolan, hear it out. . . .”
    “Chelsey’s only eighty miles from Chicago, Sid.”
    Tisor got guts for once. “Goddamn you, Nolan! Since when are you afraid of the Boys? Do you want to pay a debt you owe, or do you want to welsh on it?”
    Nolan knew what Tisor said was the truth; he wasn’t afraid of the Boys—he just had better things to do than make like a gumshoe. But it was a debt he owed, and it needed paying.
    He said, “Go on, Sid. Tell me about it.”
     
     
    5
     
     
    TISOR’S EYES turned hard and he leaned toward Nolan. “My Irene was a wild one, Nolan. She could’ve taken that LSD trip on her own. And if so, maybe she did try a Superman off that building. But there were some things going on in Chelsey that might have got her killed.”
    “Like what?”
    “She was home one weekend this summer and told me about this operation the Boys got going in Chelsey.”
    “What did she know about the Boys?”
    “Well, before she went to college I broke it to her about my connection with them, explained it all. She took it pretty good, but it must’ve been a shock since I was always such a Puritan-type father. You know, not mean to her or anything, just old-fashioned.”
    “Yeah. Tell me what she saw going on in Chelsey.” Nolan could see it would be a struggle getting the facts from Tisor; the guy would just keep reminiscing about the dead girl if Nolan let him.
    “The Boys’ operation, yeah. Well, they’re selling everything from booze to pills to marijuana to LSD. All aimed at the college crowd.”
    “Irene a customer?”
    “She never said, one way or another. I really can’t imagine her taking drugs, but then, I’m her father, what do I know? Anyway, she knew about the Boys’ operation and their market. You see, there’s this hippie colony in Chelsey she’s got friends in. They number over five hundred and all live in the kind of slum section of town. It’s got some publicity, maybe you read about it.”
    “I didn’t. But Illinois seems too far east for a hippie colony.”
    “Why?”
    Nolan lit a smoke. “Too cold. Communal living’s swell, free love and all that. Till you freeze your ass off.”
    Tisor smiled, nodded. “You got a point. But these kids aren’t what you’d call real hippies, if there is such a thing. Not California-style, anyway. They’re rich kids, most of