"I told you once, Professor, but I'll tell you again. I have to get rid of these bodies they keep leaving in my kitchen. I can take 'em and throw them in the river, sure. But what if me or my boys are stopped en route by some tipped badge?"
"Quicklime?" I suggested automatically.
"What are you talking about? Are you sure you're some kind of scientist? Lime doesn't do much to a stiff at all. Kind of putrifies them like...."
"I forgot," I admitted. "I'd read it in so many stories I'd forgotten it wouldn't work. And I suppose the furnace leaves ashes and there's always traces of hair and teeth in the garbage disposal... An interesting problem, at that."
"I figured you could handle it," Carmen said, leaning back comfortably in the favorite chair of my bachelor apartment. "I heard you were working on something to get rid of trash for the government."
"That," I told him, "is restricted information. I subcontracted that work from the big telephone laboratories. How did you find it out?"
"Ways, Professor, ways."
The government did want me to find a way to dispose of wastes—radioactive wastes. It was the most important problem any country could have in this time of growing atomic industry. Now a small-time gangster was asking me to use this research to help him dispose of hot corpses. It made my scientific blood seethe. But the shadow of the Black Hand cooled it off.
"Maybe I can find something in that area of research to help you," I said. "I'll call you."
"Don't take too long, Professor," Carmen said cordially.