“Stick ’em up — high!” hissed a voice in my ear.
Then there was a gasp of surprise. I recognized the gasp. It came from Norma’s lips.
“What are you doing here?”
“I think,” I said, “that I’m holding the watchman.”
“They don’t have one,” said Norma.
“Let’s look,” I said.
She swung the flashlight down to the huddled figure that was under my arm.
It was in uniform, one of those “merchant patrols” that are hired by groups of stores to prowl around, switch off lights and report suspicious circumstances. There was a gun on the floor near his hand, and his eyes were glassy with fright.
He’d evidently seen Norma go in, or else had stumbled on the open door and had walked in, not certain of what was happening. Then he’d heard me following along and had crouched in the darkness, figuring on taking a full swing at my head with his nightstick. That would have been a sweet mess.
I reached down, jerked the coat up and over his head. It made a pretty effective blindfold.
“Yell and you’ll be shot,” I told him.
I looked up at Norma.
“Ready?”
“Ready.”
We went out on the run. The figure behind us got to its feet and let out a husky bellow, heedless of the admonition I’d given him.
I pushed Norma through the gate, pulled it shut and shot the bolt. The Merchant Patrol was locked in. He bellowed and screamed.
“Follow me,” I told Norma.
We got to my cab before the chase got too hot. There was a police whistle blowing somewhere, and a bull was banging a nightstick on the pavement, but no one knew exactly where the commotion was centered.
Norma was almost all in as I got her to my cab.
“Can they trace you from your suitcases?” I asked her.
“I don’t know,” she gasped.
I ordered the cabbie to pull up alongside of the other car.
“We’ll have to crawl in a hole,” whispered Norma in my ear. “It’s a mess. The cabbies will testify.”
“Sure they will,” I said, and chuckled.
“Well,” snapped Norma, “I don’t see the joke.”
“You will,” I told her.
We slowed alongside her cab. I had the driver fling in the suitcases. I was careful to keep my hat pulled way down over my eyes, and I paid him off by flinging a five dollar bill at him, and telling him to drive to a certain apartment, wait five minutes, and, if no one was there, to call it a day.
The apartment I gave him was the one The Cracker and I had burgled.
The police whistles were sounding, and there was a siren.
My cab driver glanced around him, curiously.
“Sounds like a raid,” he said.
“Yeah,” I grunted at him. “Make it snappy. Out Virginia Avenue. I’ll tell you when to stop.”
He shifted into gear.
“Okey,” he said.
I figured from the noise, that the bull on the beat had located the trouble in the jewelry store. He and the Merchant’s Patrol were good for a few minutes rag chewing before they found out what it was all about, but the siren indicated that the Patrol had managed to hook in the burglar alarm.
I don’t know whether my driver was suspicious or not. I think he was. But he couldn’t figure the play.
When we came to the place where The Cracker had his flat, I stopped the cab.
“This’ll do,” I said.
We got out.
I dragged out the suitcases. Norma looked at me doubtingly, started to say something, then thought better of it.
I paid off the cab driver. There was a calculating look in his eyes.
“I got a short memory for an extra five spot,” he said.
I gave him the five. He drove away — in a hurry.
“He’s going to double-cross us,” said Norma. “Oh, Ed, why did you cut in on it?”
I stared at her.
“You said you had plenty of money. What you meant was that you were broke, but you figured on pulling a job and making getaway money. You had that jewelry store all planted!” I charged.
She didn’t say anything for a minute, then she straightened her shoulders, looked me in the eye.
“You’re damned tootin’ I did,” she said. “Know why? Well, the bird that runs that place was the one that gave me my last rap, ten years ago. I ranked a job for him and got nothing. He caught me, claimed that I’d got away with five thousand dollars worth of sparklers. I claimed I hadn’t. But I had to admit I’d sprung the joint and they all laughed at me. I got an extra jolt because I wouldn’t tell where the sparklers were.
“The place was covered by the insurance company. It paid the loss. The guy that runs the place had the insurance, also the sparklers, that he’d salted away.
“When I said I had getaway money I meant it. That bird just owed me five grand with interest, and I figured on collecting. I had the lay all figured out. If anything happened and I had to make a fast getaway, I planned on copping from him.
“You followed me — and then — hell!”
“Did you get anything?” I asked.
“Don’t be a simp,” she said, and stuck her hand down the front of her dress. She pulled out a chamois bag, thrust in her hooked forefinger, pulled the bag open. The light glittered on an assortment of sparklers that represented a wad of money.
“Give ’em here, Norma,” I said.
She thrust out her jaw.
“Ed, you’re going to give ’em back!”
“Sure I am, but not just the way you think.”
She hesitated.
“Don’t argue. Time’s precious. You’re going straight.”
“Ed, it ain’t worth while.”
There were tears in her eyes now, and she was fighting to keep them back, blinking her lids, but keeping her gaze on mine, straight and unfaltering.
“I’ve done the best I know how. I worked and saved a little money, and a damned ex-cop blackmailed me out of it, bled me white. They’ve done nothing but hound me from pillar to post, and now I’m—” She passed over the stones.
“Now you’re going straight,” I said, picking up one of the suitcases. “Grab that other bag.”
She was a crook who knew her onions and didn’t lose her head in an emergency, and she’d been in tight places before. She knew it was no time for argument.
She followed me up to the door of the flat. I rang the bell.
There was a moment of silence.
“Do you know what you are doing Ed?” she said. “The bulls will come here.”
“Sure they will,” I told her.
“The taxicab driver will spill what he knows.”
I laughed.
“There’s a better reason than that,” I said.
“What is it?” she asked.
But there were steps on the stairs, and I pushed her to one side, stood where only my face was visible through the diamond shaped pane of glass in the doorway.
The Cracker switched on the porch light, looked into my face, and switched it off again. He hesitated with his hand on the door knob, then suddenly turned the bolt and opened the door.
“You!” he said. “What happened to you?”
“I heard a car backfire, and it sounded like a shotgun squad answering a hurry-up call, so I played safe and ducked out. Did anyone come?”
He grinned at me.
“Boy, but you’re a wise baby. It’s a good thing you’re weren’t here. I’ll say there was a squad out. I was registered here, and could prove it. They were looking for some prowler someone had seen earlier in the evening, half an hour or so before we got here. They might have asked you embarrassing questions... Who’s the broad?” he asked.