The Cut of the Whip / Bring Me Another Corpse / Time Enough to Die

THE CUT OF THE WHIP

Daniel Port is driving through Texas when the other car appears out of nowhere. When Port eventually wakes up, he finds a ministering angel named Jane and her father, Carl Heering, the richest man in town. Heering admits that it was his son, Robert, that ran into Port and that the kid has run off with important business papers. He offers Port an easy grand to bring his son and the papers back. But when Port tracks the kid down, all is not as it seems. The business papers are love letters, the Heering heir is kidnapped, and Port finds he must solve the mystery and rescue Robert before he himself is implicated in the plot and put in prison for kidnapping.

BRING ME ANOTHER CORPSE

He could go it alone, or he could do it with the knowledge and help of a big organization. He didn't like either alternative because it would be too much like going back, like starting all over in the kind of a life about which he no longer had any illusions ... All those surface satisfactions that used to make life spin around with a speed that made you think, Sure now--you're going someplace.

"I'll try it your way," he said to Lubinski, "and I hope it's the fast way out."

Lubinski smiled at Port. The smile lasted a second, and then Lubinski opened his briefcase and drew out the usual folder.

"It can be fast," he said. "A lot of it is already set up."

"Where do I fit?"

"You go to Cleveland," said Lubinski, "and you hire out as your own killer..."

TIME ENOUGH TO DIE

Port thinks he's escaped his problems. Time moves slowly in the Mexican coastal village of Guanadera, and that's just the way he likes it--the sun on his face, a beer in his hand and nothing but Maria on his mind. So when Maria asks him to help her find her missing neighbor, an elderly gent named Kiamoto, he doesn't give the project much thought. How could he know that d'Ortega and his henchman Capo were also looking for Kiamoto? They figure that an American gangster--and why else would Port be living in Guanadera?--must be in on the caper. Because Kiamoto is much more than he seems. And pretty soon there are American agents in on the game. Just when Port thought he was out of the rackets for good, he gets pulled into a crime that might cost him his life.