“Searle didn’t see me,” Schmidt said.
“But the man and woman across from Greer’s saw you,” Rawne said. “He called the cops.”
Schmidt laughed harshly. “Try to describe him. His face, I mean. I was too far back in the room when I hit Mr. Greer. They might have seen a shadowy movement but nothing more.”
Lulie Nolan caught Rawne’s eye and her glance went briefly, sharply to a corner of the divan. She made a motion with the manuscript.
Schmidt glowered at her. “What’s this, Miss Nolan? You going to throw Shady Lady at me? You want, maybe, a bullet in your sweet little nose?”
Rawne belched loudly and plopped down in the corner of the divan. He sang softly.
Schmidt stared at Rawne. “You’re nuts. I’m going to knock you off and you sing ragtime. I’ve been waiting years for James Cullen Greer to snag himself a bundle of lettuce so I could bump him off profitably. This is my night.”
Schmidt stepped toward the typewriter. “You read, maybe, what’s on the machine? Yah! Lady Vandermeer: Blah, blah, blah. Lord Cavendish: Blah, blah, blah. Funny, eh? Pathetic, eh? Who’s going to buy a janitor’s lords and ladies? Why don’t I write about deadbeats and all the riffraff I know? I’ll tell you. Because I’m part of the riffraff. My life’s a gray monotone. My life screams for escape. So I kept up the facility, I kept up the flow in a fantasy world of lords and ladies. Now I’ve got the escape — ten thousand dollars’ worth of escape. I can write about the drabs now. Tremendous stuff about deadbeats and—”
Lulie Nolan laughed hollowly. “And they’ll all be as worthless as — this!”
She ripped the yellow-covered manuscript of Shady Lady in two.
“Hey!” Schmidt shouted.
Rawne’s hand came from where it was dug down behind the end cushion of the divan. That brown hand came up wrapped around a snub-nosed automatic and it was spouting flame. The walls took the angry crack of it and bounced it around. The bullet smashed the distracted Schmidt in the shoulder and knocked him back.
Schmidt was blasting as be fell. A bullet splintered the closet door. Blue-tinted plaster fell from the ceiling. Schmidt collapsed then and Rawne kicked the smoking gun from Schmidt’s hand. Rawne kicked it again, across the room.
Then he had Lube Nolan in his arms.
“You suspicious honey!” Rawne said. “If you hadn’t hid my gun—”
The door crashed open and a cop stumbled into the room with a drawn Smith & Wesson. Griffin, breathing heavily, came in behind a .38 Special. Men poured in through the bedroom.
“Whew!” Griffin exclaimed. “My tobacco heart! We heard Schmidt canary on himself, Rawne, but we were afraid to disturb him. I sent men up through the furnace room to pick Schmidt off from the rear. That wasn’t good, either. A dying man can do a hell of a lot of damage with a gun in a split second.”
“You certainly had your fun with me,” Rawne said.
Griffin shrugged. “You liked it that way, didn’t you? You were on top of the list, but I thought things would go faster letting you move around a bit.”
A plainclothesman extracted a stuffed wallet from the cursing Schmidt.
“Hey!” Rawne exclaimed. “Go easy with my money!”
“Life’s little ironies,” Griffin said, grinning. “You’ve got to stand in line with the other creditors now, Rawne.”
“I think,” Rawne told Lube when they were in a squad car bound for Headquarters, “that we should commiserate each other over a quantum of Daiquiris. We’ll be lucky to pay off ten cents on the dollar. I’ll vary the mood with a few passes.”
The car stirred up a breeze and Lube made herself comfortable in the curve of Rawne’s arm. “We’re old enough not to cry over spilt milk.”
“Okay,” Rawne said. “I’ll just make passes.”
He kissed her and her bps were dinging.
“Maybe,” he said after a while, “I should go home first and change to my bowtie.”
“You mean the one that lights up,” Lube murmured, “and makes you the life of the party?”
Murder Express
by Hiawatha Jones
I had to keep awake remembering the greedy look in Mug’s eyes when he saw the kid’s wallet.
Sleep, like a thousand thick-gloved hands, clutched at me but I kept tearing myself away. I had to stay awake! The dark wet-smelling floor lurched under me. We had pulled the freight car doors nearly shut, but through the panel of opening I saw the black night sky and the moon sliding behind a bank of dark clouds.
The sky would be lightening soon. It would be day. And the kid would be safe. I looked over to where he was lying.
He was on the floor next to me. I had been listening to his low convulsive coughing before he finally fell asleep. He’s a good kid, I thought to myself.
Once away from Mug he’ll be safe. I remembered the hard, greedy look in Mug’s eye as he had seen the kid’s wallet. Stay awake, I told myself.
I couldn’t get up and sit by the freight car door. Mug and his friend were across the car from us. The friend didn’t bother me. He was a harmless little guy. But Mug could make trouble. That wouldn’t do the kid any good; I had to lie where I was. I had to keep awake. If there was going to be trouble I had to be ready for it.
Think about something, I kept telling myself. Think about the kid and the story he told you. Think about the army. The road. The look in the kid’s eye. The picture. Stay awake. You owe it to the kid, as a friend.
As a friend. I hadn’t known the kid for more than six hours! But that’s how it is on the road. You meet a guy. You size him up as a good Joe. And before you know it, you’re both trading life stories, exchanging gripes.
We had both gotten on at a little depot outside of Albany. It was a warm night and we had shoved the doors back and were sitting on the edge of the freight car floor, watching the country whip by. The other two hoboes who had got on with us were sitting in the center of the empty freight matching coins in the moonlight from the open door. One of the ’boes was a thin, ragged little guy whose gray hair needed cutting. The other was a big guy with a flat nose and a scar sliced across his knotty cheek. One or the other of them would mutter a curse every time a coin changed hands.
The kid and I didn’t pay any attention to their game. We were both quiet, looking at the dark scenery rolling past us. He was a good looking guy, a couple of years younger than I. Not more than twenty at the most. He had red hair and a thin face. The shirt he wore was torn at the shoulder. He looked like he was still green at freight-riding.
I sat back against the edge of the open door and listened to the clatter of the speeding wheels. The fields we passed were gray with darkness. I looked over to the kid. His head was lowered to his chest as he muffled a low hacking cough.
“Why don’t you get inside, kid?”
He shook his head at me. “It’s okay. The wind feels good going down.”
I reached over and threw him a small woolen bundle I had at my side. “Put this on,” I said.
The kid undid the sweater and poked his arm into its sleeve. He wasn’t used to holding down a freight. I would have known that even if he hadn’t told me. A lot of times I meet up with kids his age who are bumming around the country just for a thrill. Road kids. A wild lot. But this kid was different.
I watched his thin fingers fumble at the buttons of the sweater. “If you just cashed in on a season’s pay, why are you riding the freights back?” I asked. He had told me earlier in the evening about working in a lumber camp all summer. He had shown me a wallet crammed with bills. The only thing wrong with the job was that it kept him near water all the time. It had given him a cold. He still wasn’t over it.