The switch clicked. The lights went off.
“A woman screamed,” he said.
I waited. There was nothing save darkness and silence, a silence that was broken only by the heavy breathing of The Cracker.
After a minute or two that breathing became more quiet.
“Shucks,” he said, “I’m getting jumpy,” and switched on the light. His grin was sheepish.
“Well,” he said, “we did what we started to do, so let’s get outa here. We don’t need to stick around any longer than we have to.”
I nodded at that. It was good logic.
“Whatcha goin’ to do with the stuff?” he asked.
“Put it back in the sugar, tip off the police,” I told him.
The Cracker extended a long arm.
“Sure it’s the stuff?” he asked.
I dropped them into his palm.
“Sure,” I said.
“Well,” he observed, “we gotta be careful about leaving anything to show we—”
And he made one great leap for the light switch.
“The bulls!” he hissed.
The switch clicked off, and I knew he was right. There came the shrilling noise of a police whistle, and it sounded from the corridor, out in front of the apartment we had burgled.
The Cracker went for the back door. I could hear his feet crunch on the sugar as he ran across the linoleum. He jerked the door open.
“Come on,” he whispered. “It’s suicide to be trapped here.”
I knew he was right, but I waited.
I wasn’t at all certain there weren’t police at the back of the house, and if The Cracker wanted to do the exploring and find out, I was willing to let him.
I’ll say one thing for him, he made a quiet getaway. He may have been alarmed, but he didn’t make the mistake of rushing down those wooden stairs, making enough noise to alarm the entire place. He went down smooth and easy.
After about five seconds, I followed. If there was any fire to draw, The Cracker would draw it. But everything was quiet and peaceful save for a light flashing on in an apartment across the way, and the muffled sound of the police whistle from the hallway.
The Cracker was first out into the alley.
I let him take the chance. Then, as there was no sound of a hail, no shots, no sirens, I went after him. It was a boob play, running out exactly the way the police would have expected a crook would go, and I had my heart in my mouth, waiting for a hail.
But everything was going nicely. The Cracker was getting the breaks. Left to myself, and I’d have done something the police wouldn’t have expected a crook to do, gone into another apartment, or slipped off my clothes, and padded around in my underwear, as though I’d been an alarmed sleeper who hadn’t acquired the pajama habit, for it was a cinch there’d be a crowd gathering around the corridors. That whistle was making an awful racket.
But I wasn’t at all certain about The Cracker. I figured he hadn’t had presence of mind enough to slip those tell-tale articles of jewelry back into the sugar. He probably had them in his pocket.
And I needed to get those little bits of jewelry; so The Cracker was like a magnet for me. I had to follow.
He burst out of the alley way and had sense enough to slow to a sauntering walk. He strolled to the corner. I kept about fifty feet behind him. The sound of the whistle didn’t carry out this far, and there weren’t any sirens.
It began to look as though some hysterical dame had started tooting on the police whistle to call the police. If the officers had been in the hallway, they’d have busted in the door instead of making all that commotion.
But one thing’s sure in the crook racket, and that is that a crook has no business hesitating in a strange apartment when somebody’s bearing down hard on a police whistle in front of the door of that same apartment.
A cruising cab came along and The Cracker signaled. It came to the curb.
I came up, walking a little more rapidly.
“I beg your pardon,” I said, formally, for the benefit of a passing pedestrian who happened along, “but I had telephoned for a cab, and I think this is mine.”
The Cracker was quick enough to take the hint.
He bowed and grinned.
“No use getting sore about it, or starting an argument,” he said, “we can both take the cab — if we’re going the same way. I’m going out on Virginia Avenue.”
I bowed and let my smile match his own.
“Right on my way,” I said.
We both climbed in the cab.
The Cracker gave an address, out on Virginia Avenue.
“What did you do with the trinkets?” I asked.
“Gosh, I stuck ’em in my pocket! I guess I pulled a boner, I should have left ’em there!”
I nodded.
He fished a hand in a side pocket, pulled them our.
“Here,” he said, “you take ’em. It’s all right for a detective to have those things, but it’s sure dynamite for a crook to have ’em!”
I put the things in my pocket.
“Step on it!” called The Cracker to the driver. He was nervous.
The cab made time through the deserted streets, pulled up at a little flat building, a four-family affair that looked respectable but gloomy.
“C’mon in,” said The Cracker. “I got some more dope I can spill.”
“Fine,” I said.
I paid the cab. The Cracker fitted a key to the door. The cab ground into gear and breezed out into the quiet street. I could see it swing at the corner, then the close air of The Cracker’s staircase assailed my nostrils. The Cracker slammed the door behind us.
I went up the stairs first.
“I’ll set out the milk bottle,” said The Cracker, and took a milk bottle towards the stoop. “Make yourself at home. There’s a bottle o’ hooch in the cabinet over the radio.”
I switched on the lights, walked towards the cabinet.
There sounded a succession of backfires from a couple of blocks down the street. At first I thought they were shots, but there was a certain lack of crack about them that labeled them as exhaust backfires.
I walked through the living-room into a corridor and opened a door. It was a bedroom. There was a little stand by the bed and an ugly six-shooter in a holster on the stand.
Evidently The Cracker always played it safe.
I grabbed the gun, taking care to touch only the leather holster, and stuffed it in my inside pocket. Then I ran through the corridor to the kitchen, found some back stairs and went down them on the run.
There was a board fence at the alley and a gate that was locked. I jumped, grabbed the top of the fence and shinnied over. As I dropped on the other side, I heard running footsteps coming around the side of the flat.
I sprinted down the alley, paused at the street, turned left and picked up a cruising cab at the next corner. I gave him an address on Virginia Avenue that would make him swing around and run past the entrance to The Cracker’s Flat.
There was a low touring car parked in front, a car that had a blue light over the license in back. A man was standing near the car, and the motor was running.
The cabbie ran along to the Virginia Avenue address, then I saw, to my audible consternation that the building there was all dark, and gave him an address that would take me uptown.
I left him there, stowed the gun under an armpit where it wouldn’t show, and bought a newspaper from one of the early truck drivers that was taking a shipment out to the suburbs.
The paper had headlines smeared all over it. The headlines accused Norma Gay of the murder of Stanley Simpson.
I’d known that was coming.
I went directly to Norma Gay’s apartment. It was in a cheap house where whatever anyone did was nobody’s business. Norma had done things to her face which made her pretty well immune from casual recognition, but she hadn’t been able to do things to her fingerprints, and it looked as though somebody pretty close to the inside was gunning on her trail.