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“Talk sense!”

The frozen-fish smile was full of cunning, of malice, of evil. Dorn nodded his head solemnly. “Self-defense. That’s our story. Yeah. We’ll stick by you. These limey cops can’t be too bright.”

“Listen, you damned ghoul! You can’t hang such a crude frame on me.”

Dorn spread his hands indulgently. “Self-defense. You wait and see.”

“You mean I’ll see if I wait,” the Parson banged out in a grim, menacing voice. “To hell with you. You think I’ll be standing still while you pin the kill on me? Not while I’m conscious.” “We,” said Dorn, “will attend to that part of it.”

The woman had been sidling close along the wall toward the Parson. She was only a foot or so behind him. All the time Dorn had been talking, she had been moving by inches. Whipping his head about, the Parson saw the leather thong twisted about her hand. With his sudden motion, the thong leaped like a live thing from her hand. At the end of it was a weighted leather sap. The woman handled it with the elan of a virtuoso.

Mid-air, it changed direction as the Parson dodged. He didn’t dodge enough. A blow on the crown of his head seemed to split it wide open. The .45 in his hand boomed unexpectedly in response to the convulsive jerk of his whole body. But since by that time he was traveling in the general direction of the floor, the slug went wide.

He heard the woman’s voice as from far off. “That’s for the slap, runt.”

Alex, the eagle-nosed, leaped on him from behind and tore the gun from his grasp. They didn’t seem to think he had another gun on him. He lay on the floor, nostrils wide, pumping breath, waiting to summon enough strength to get at his gun.

Dorn said complacently, “Nice going, Eva.”

“Yeah. These big gun boys, they’re always suckers for a sap.”

Dorn came over, prodded the Parson with his foot. He was laughing as at a huge joke known only to himself. But it wasn’t a pleasant laugh.

The Parson looked up at him as if the effort hurt. He said, “The laugh’s on my side.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Look at the window behind you.”

Eva yelled. Eagle-nose Alex looked white. Dorn jerked his head about. His yell was louder than Eva’s.

The middle porch window had been raised and the drawn shade lifted aside. The Parson had been looking straight at it past the others. A slant-eyed Chinaman stood in the window with a gun in his fist. The Parson recognized Soo Gee; he had seen him at the Montecita before, Lee Fong’s bodyguard.

The shade whirred up with a hoarse rattle. Soo Gee didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to; the gun in his fist, the implacable expression in his face were both eloquent.

Alex jerked up the .45 he had snatched from the Parson. A shot boomed. Glass tinkled musically, showered to the floor. The Parson dug his right hand into his coat pocket and fired through the cloth. Soo Gee’s gun cut loose.

Alex shivered, dug his left hand into his groin. Two more shots burst forth as he started to crumple to the floor. The Parson jerked his gun out, free of the pocket. Something hit him a terrific blow in the shoulder, paralyzing the arm. It was Eva’s efficient little sap. The gun spun out of his hand, hit the baseboard of the wall, skidded across the floor.

Dorn was behind a chair, a gun in his hand, snapping shots at the window. Soo Gee suddenly went down; there was not a sound out of him.

Powder smoke made the air thick, gaseous. In the sudden stunned silence, the Parson thought he could hear the insects outside in the still tropic night.

He lay perfectly still, feigning death. Carl Dorn was top dog now. Soon the Parson heard footsteps, then Eva’s voice, “The damn Chink’s dead. You got him clean in the forehead, Carl.”

Dorn said, “The yellow punk was layin’ for us. He thought we’d killed this Lee Fong. Bet he was workin’ for this Fong guy.”

“Yeah. Watch the major, Carl. He’s got the fidgets.”

“Oke,” came Dorn’s voice. “You scram, major. Forget what you saw. Forget everything. We’ll get in touch with you.”

There was a muffled sound of assent. Then Dorn’s voice again, “And don’t forget the price, two hundred grand. Cash on the line.”

“You will get your money, sir.”

“Oke. Now flit. A word to the cops and you know what’ll happen.”

“I will not breathe a syllable.”

A door opened and shut close to the Parson. Footsteps hurried out in the hall. The street door opened and shut.

The Parson heard Eva say harshly, “Alex stopped a cupla fast ones. He’s croaked.” But her tone of voice was merely informational. “Hey, the Parson looks dead, too!” She poked him with her foot.

“Yeah,” said Dorn carelessly. “He musta stopped one of my bullets.”

The Parson lay quiet, breathing imperceptibly.

Dorn went on: “We got the major buffaloed anyway.”

Eva said, “Say, I wonder who did croak this Lee Fong. Maybe it was Jake Mund. He was here sometime tonight, all right, he and that doll-face wife of his. The bedroom upstairs is topsy-turvy, clothes and things lyin’ about, like he and the wife packed a bag in a hurry.”

There was a shrill whistle somewhere. Then another, answering it.

“Cops!” said Dorn. “Let’s blow, Eva. Jeeze, I wish we knew where Jake Mund and Nina are. Boy, I’d sure like to put my hands on them!”

Eva smirked archly. “The major thinks we got ’em.”

“Yeah, that’s almost as good as havin’ ’em, if he’ll kick through with the dough. Jeez, what a mess! First, we gotta find this Lee Fong dead, then Jake and Nina gone and on top of that, the Parson barges in!”

“You afraid of him?” Eva asked scornfully.

“Hell, not when he’s dead I ain’t. Too bad about Alex, though.”

“Yeah? What’s bad about a two-way split, ’stead of three?”

Dorn gasped, then laughed shortly. “I’m damned if you don’t beat all for brains and guts, kiddo! Two-way split, huh?” His voice sounded troubled again. “But what about the tipster? You know...”

“Him?” Eva spat. “What in hell’s he done?”

“Yeah. We’ll handle him. Well, let’s get going.”

The Parson heard footsteps running out of the hall. A door slammed. For about a second he lay as still as before. Then an eye slyly opened. He saw he was alone. His gun lay across the room from him. He stepped over the still form of Alex, retrieved it, then got his hat and clapped it on his head. The shrill whistle got louder. Footsteps were pounding in the street. He went through a back door and stumbled through a dark kitchen. He was surprised to find a back door there unlocked.

Voices were shouting at the front of the house as he plunged through a tiny square of garden. He stepped over a low picket fence and reeled dunkenly down an unpaved back alley. Silver-white moonbeams chased him. He slipped fast into the gloom of the shadows.

The fruit pier was at the other end of town. But the Parson did not use a cab; he walked. Twice he had the feeling that he was being tailed but when he stopped short and turned about, there was no one to be seen. He moved warily. The pain was not yet out of his head.

Only one boat was tied to the pier. It bobbed gently against the swell, straining against the ropes. There was a pleasant odor of tar. Lights hung fore and aft. It wasn’t a big boat but it looked as if it could sleep six or eight persons. Its bow lines were sharp, betokening speed. A man was pacing the foredeck, smoking a pipe.

The Parson leaped nimbly aboard, forged past empty boxes piled along the rail. The man looked at him placidly. He was a mulatto, more white than black. His face was large, ruddy in the cheeks, deeply tanned and wrinkled at the corner of either eye. His broad mouth uncurled slowly in a smile as he took the pipe from his mouth.