“Just a few minutes to get my train.” She was looking out of the window, so she must have seen a clock somewhere. “You don’t mind. The station!”
Somehow, I didn’t like to lose the girl altogether. Besides, there was Bronson; and there was — well, there was my client.
“The station,” I told the driver, and that was all. It was surprising how he had improved since working for me. He just nodded and turned in the right direction. I looked back at the girl.
“I haven’t even really seen you,” she said. “And I don’t know who you are. You act as if it meant nothing to you. How did you happen to do it?”
“Impulse,” I told her. “Forget it.” And then: “You’ll be seeing me again, I think.”
“You believe that? Believe in fate?”
“Fate!” I laughed. “No — it’s simply in the cards. We’ll be brought together.”
“Yes—” she said, “we will. I believe that, too. At least, I hope that.” Then suddenly: “No, I don’t. I don’t. I’ve been born to be unhappy.” And the car pulled up at the deserted railroad station.
The chauffeur sat straight and stiff. Both his hands were on the wheel. I could sit up straight in the seat and see the whiteness of them. No, I wasn’t holding my gun against his back any more. But I was covering him. And he knew it or guessed it — or he was just a cautious man.
“You think,” the girl said, as she opened the car door and lifted her little bag from the floor, “that something will bring us together again. If not Fate, if that is not the name for it, then what name—”
“The name of Bronson,” I told her simply, and watched her face.
She turned now in the open doorway and looked at me — or tried to look at me there in the darkness. Then she stepped to the street, sort of backing from me.
“Bronson—” she said. “Something tells me that you won’t believe me, but I never heard that name before tonight.”
“Easy does it, kid,” I warned her, as I came to my feet. And for the first time I got a good slant at her. At first you might think there was that sharpness that you find in the faces of too many girls. Her features were sharp — yes, but a lad with a flair for beauty would picture it as a finely chiseled face, while you and I would simply say she was nice to look at. There was a directness to those brown eyes of hers too.
“You’re not going to tell me — about yourself?” I said. “Who you are — why this happened?”
She seemed to think a minute.
“No—” she said, “I’m not. I’d like to but I won’t.” And very slowly and thoughtfully — and maybe, too, just a bit hopelessly: “I’d like to know who you are because — I like to dream. It won’t ever come true, of course — but it might help, to think it would. That some day I could see you and thank you.”
“Yeah?” She was talking like a book, and I didn’t like it. I don’t know why. The kid was getting under my skin, I guess. She talked romance, but it sounded as if she meant it.
Then, as I didn’t say anything more, she gave me one long, searching look and beat it.
I swung quickly as the girl flashed through the doors of the station. And I wasn’t any too soon either. All this had taken place in jig time — that is, the time I had my back to that driver — or rather, just my side to him.
He had the gun in his hand, a sneer on his face — and murder, I guess, in his heart.
But the gun was only in his hand, not yet raised above the door of the car, when I swung and crashed mine against his chest. I hadn’t seen his gun until then, but I knew it was there just the same. And it stayed there — stayed beneath that door. He had only to raise it a bit, just a few inches, to fire into my arm, at least — for my elbow was on the flat surface of the open window and prevented his hand coming up.
It was a bad moment for him. There wasn’t time to argue him out of firing. This guy was bad. He hadn’t given me a lot of lip. He was one of those big, strong, silent men — and now he would be silent forever. My finger half closed upon the trigger. He dropped his gun and spoke.
“A flattie. A bull.” His lips just formed the words, and my gun hammer slipped back again with a tiny click that made his face turn from a sickly white to a pasty yellow.
I heard the steps.,The measured tread of heavy feet — easy feet. The next moment I was in the car and had slammed the door.
“Park View Hotel,” I said simply.
He didn’t speak as he threw the car into gear — and I gave him credit for being nervous when the car jumped forward, rather than think he was trying to give me a jolt. Anyway, he made it directly to my hotel; jerked to a stop before the door.
I climbed out on to the sidewalk.
“Get out!” I told him. “Make it snappy!”
I half looked at the hotel — at the street, deserted except for a few people crossing down by the corner. Then I jerked the door open, and grabbing him by the collar dragged him into the street.
He stood there now, fully my size, a good ten pounds over my weight.
I just stood and faced him a moment, my face close to his. Then I lifted my gun and tucked it into its shoulder-holster. Mean eyes glinted; a coarse forehead drew into dirty ridges; his hands, at his sides, twitched spasmodically. He was looking me over.
He didn’t have the guts to do it. We stood there man to man. He had just as much chance of drawing a gun as I had. At least, from his point of view he had. And he did it suddenly. Just what I might have expected from the kidnaper of a girl. He drew back his foot and kicked at my shins.
Just kicked at them, mind you — nothing more. I stepped back and let him have it as he swung his right arm wildly. A guy in my business has to know where to hit and when to hit. Anyway, I landed square on his beak. Did I break it? I’m not a doctor and I didn’t stop to examine it. He just crashed back against the fender, clutched at it, slipped on the curb and buried his face in the gutter. The bust in the beak was my idea. Sticking his face in the gutter was entirely his. But I was satisfied.
Why did I do it? I don’t know — or maybe I do know. It’s psychology, I guess. I couldn’t just shoot him to death before the hotel. I’m only human. The urge to sock him was there. It made me feel a whole lot better. And, stupid or not, I did it. I don’t like kidnapers. And I’m a guy who shows my dislikes.
6
A clock hammered out the hour of two as I entered the hotel and hit straight to the desk. Head bent slightly, I said to the night clerk:
“I’ve come back. Key, please. 746.”
The clerk eyed me a moment, then reached back in the boxes, got himself a key and gave it to me. I turned, entered the elevator at the end of the hall and stirred up the sleeping boy.
The seventh floor hall was deserted. I slipped a gun from a hip to a jacket pocket and went to room 746. I shoved the key in the lock, spun the knob, pushed the door open slightly and held it so. There was a light in room 746. Hospitable? Certainly — if you looked on it from that point of view. But I didn’t. I had been warned that my life might be sought.
I raised my right foot and sent the door crashing back. If there were a lad lurking behind the heavy wood, he would be surprised at the result. That is, be surprised a half hour or so later, when he came to.
The door crashed against the solid wall — with a bang that must have sat a few of the patrons bolt upright in bed. It also sent someone else bolt upright. That was the man who sat to the left of the window, in the easy rocker beneath the reading lamp. He sort of jolted erect, and let the paper he had been reading fall across his knees. But the lighted cigar still reposed between his lips, though the ashes dropped from the end and sported playfully across his vest.