Norma answered the door at the fourth ring. Her voice over the telephone was far from being patient.
“What the hell!” she wanted to know.
That was Norma. Hardboiled and not letting anyone call her at two o’clock in the morning.
“A friend,” I said, “with a newspaper.”
I heard the electric buzzer showing that the catch was off the door, and went up. Some people were having a party in one of the apartments on the second floor. Outside of that, the place was quiet.
I padded down the hallway. It was cold, dank with the peculiar atmosphere which emanates from crowded sleepers.
Norma Gay opened the door. She had a kimono wrapped around her shoulders, and her eyes were wide and dark with emotion.
“I knew it was you,” she said, and that was all the greeting.
I walked in and she closed the door. She put down the window, lit a cigarette and reached for the paper. Her face turned a shade paler as she read the article. Then she looked up at me.
“Well, Ed, that’s the end.”
“How so, Norma? We can beat the rap, if we work fast.”
She shook her head.
“It can’t be done. There’s something back three years that hasn’t been cleared up with me, and there’s my record. What’s more, I haven’t got any alibi. You know that the couple who sat at my table did the job. I know it. Beyond the fact that we know it, we haven’t got a shred of proof. The chorus girl let you out, but no one’s going to let me out. I was wandering around there in the dark, and I can’t prove I didn’t pull the job. With my record, the D. A. wouldn’t have to prove I did it. I’d have to prove I didn’t.”
I tried to argue with her.
“We can find those two,” I said. “If we use our heads.”
Her shake of negation was flatly final.
“You’re game enough to help me try, and then we’d both get into hot water. Nope, Ed, I’m going to dust out of the city and hit the trail. I’m on the lam, and I’m lamming right now.”
“Where?” I asked.
She shrugged her shoulders.
“Got any money, Norma?”
For a second or two I thought she winced. Then she made a laugh out of the grimace, whether it had been a wince or the beginnings of mirth.
“You talk like a fish, Ed. I’m lousy with the coin.”
“I could let you have some.”
She made a gesture with her hand.
“Be your age, Ed. Think I’d be broke in a time like this? Get out of here and let me put some clothes on.”
“Can I see you off?” I asked.
She snorted.
“And me wanted for murder! You cannot! You can’t see me any place. I trust you, Ed Jenkins, trust you a lot, but not enough to let you know where I’m going. I’m that sort of a woman. I can’t bring myself to trust anyone. I’d feel uneasy if my own mother had any idea where I was going.”
“You got a place picked — a hideout?” I asked.
“Of course!” she said.
I got up and gave her my hand. She took it.
“I’m sorry, Ed. I got you in a mess, trying to help me. I should have lammed long ago. Good-bye.”
“Good-bye,” I told her, and walked to the door.
I felt the pressure of her hand on my shoulder, then I was pushed out into the dank corridor and the door slammed.
I went down the stairs, past the apartment where the party was in full swing, and some girl was shrilling with alcoholic laughter, out into the crispness of the before-dawn air.
I had to walk a couple of blocks before I got a cab.
“Swing around the block, slide down the avenue, turn out your lights and park when I tell you,” I told the driver, “but keep the motor running — and the lights out. I pay the fines.”
“Okey,” he said, and made the swing.
I ordered him into the curb when we were half a block from Norma’s apartment, and then slumped down in the cab so that I could just see over the top of the windshield.
Ten minutes slipped by and then a cab came grinding down the avenue, stopped at the curb in front of Norma’s apartment entrance. She came out, trimly tailored for the street, carrying a couple of suitcases.
The cabbie jumped out and put the suitcases in the cab.
“Follow that car,” I instructed my driver. “Don’t crowd. When it stops, swing into the curb well behind it, and then wait.”
“Okey, buddy,” he said. “You pay the fines?”
“I pay the fines.”
“Okey.”
The cab ahead swung into motion. We lurched away from the curb and tailed it.
We ran for about a mile, well down into the district of exclusive shops. The cab ahead turned a corner, slowed in speed, stopped.
My driver turned.
“Close enough?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said, and got out, standing right close to the cab, keeping in the shadows.
There was a hotel on the comer up where Norma’s cab had stopped, and Norma walked in the front entrance. I figured I knew the answer, and doubled back around the side street where I could watch the side entrance.
Norma had left the suitcases in the cab.
She came out of the side door, walking like a young lady who knew exactly where she was going. I managed to tag along, although she was nervous and stopped once or twice to size up the back trail.
She took to an alley at last, and I didn’t dare to go in after her until she’d had a few seconds start. Then I eased into the shadows and waited where I could watch the lighted exit of the alley on to the other street.
Norma didn’t come out. The alley had swallowed her.
I slipped along the shadows, looking and listening and came clean to the end of the alley without having anything give me a clue as to where she was.
I worked on back.
There was a fence along the alley and some gates. Then there was an iron grille and a gate in the grille that had a formidable lock. I paused, ran my hand over the lock and had my answer.
The lock had been wired for a burglar alarm, and there was a concealed switch along the bottom of the lock. The switch had been kicked out, and the lock was open.
I paused to put on gloves.
Then I opened the gate and eased my way inside.
There was a protected runway and a door. The door was ajar. I caught a glimpse of big bars which had been pushed back. It had been a clean cut job of lock work. There wasn’t a trace of violence.
I went through the door, taking my time and listening every few steps. I caught the stale smell of a room where there’s little ventilation. Coming in out of the fresh air of the night, the place stunk, a reek of stagnant smells.
There was a light burning in the front of the store, and I could see one corner of a massive safe. I though: I heard the rustle of motion, and paused.
Then, listening, there was the sound of swift motion right beside me. I ducked back and something “whooshed” through the air where my head had been.
Someone had taken a swing at my head with a club that must have been the size of a baseball bat. The impetus of the swing carried past, and there was a terrific racket as the assailant floundered over some obstruction.
Instantly, I heard the quick rasp of an exclamation, and saw the stabbing beam of a flashlight. Then someone fired a shot. A moving body came running from the lighted interior of the store, and I could see it silhouetted against the gleam, crouched, running swiftly.
There was another shot.
This time the spurt of streaming fire came from the darkness near my side, and the fire was directed at that running figure.
I thought I knew the answer, but it was a case of act first and do the thinking afterwards.
I flung myself forward in a football tackle, crashed down on the figure that was pulling the trigger. A flashlight beam stabbed the darkness again, settled on my face, and I felt the pressure of something cold against my neck.