Making a wide arc to avoid this group, Shayne swerved back toward the theater, then back toward the Volkswagen. As he slowed to a stop in an empty bay, the girl on the mattress cried: “Oh! Oh! The greatest. Never in my life. The Fourth of July!”
Pepe had pulled the stick out of the gate, so it was free to swing. Rizzo, in the front seat of the bus, waited for the right moment to back out without being seen. The two cops had now lined up the occupants of the car they had stopped, turning them to face the fence so they could be searched for forbidden substances. Frankie Capp, behind them, was trying to convince them to ignore these small fry and look for a VW covered with left-wing graffiti. He was annoying them, and it was easy to predict that in another minute he would be included among the suspects.
He strode away in disgust.
Shayne had been ad-libbing, as usual, changing his plans as the situation changed. Now he decided it was time to make his presence felt.
The gate opened inward. The gun Shayne had taken from Angel was a heavy.45 Colt, an erratic weapon at this distance. To check its accuracy, he fired at a mercury-vapor lamp. It shattered. Pepe jumped at the sound, and as he came about, Shayne drilled him through the shoulder.
“Still going on,” the girl said. “I hear like sirens, explosions. Never.”
Capp and a security man, doubling up on a motor scooter, had begun a circuit of the lot, dipping in and out of the bays in search of the VW. Shayne left the sedan with the lovers moaning on the mattress. He had the two-by-two in one hand, the.45 in the other. Pepe stumbled forward and reached the bus, weaving.
Out in the open, the motor scooter struck a fire hose and spilled its riders on the slick pavement. Capp was up again at once, running. The VW was still hidden from him, but on that heading he would see it in a moment. Pepe grabbed for the door handle, beginning to slide. Shayne assisted him with a push.
He went down hard. “Pussy, I’m shot…”
Rizzo opened the door. Shayne came up alongside the bus on the opposite side.
“Swenson, is that you?” Rizzo demanded.
Shayne, out of sight, uttered a meaningless syllable, got into the cab and slammed the door.
“Start the motor,” Rizzo told him. “Nothing serious, Pep. It’s O.K. I want to take care of this Frankie.”
Capp, seeing the bus, slowed to a walk. There was a glint in his hand. Rizzo, too, had his gun out. He was down on one knee, steadying the gun on his bent left arm. He had the advantage. Capp was silhouetted against the fire.
“Swenson,” Rizzo said, tightening up for the shot. “Let’s time this. I’m going to drop the mother. Heave Pep in back and I’ll get in with him. Back out slow. You’ve got a nice face. Nobody’ll stop you.”
Shayne leaned out of the window and clubbed him with the two-by-two. Rizzo jackknifed forward. Shayne came out, unfolded him and took his gun.
“Take it easy,” he told Pepe. “There were four of you. I only count three. Where’s Swenson?”
“Out the gate, gone. I’m bleeding!”
“Is that your first gunshot wound? You’ll be surprised how fast you get well.”
Capp had seen the activity beside the bus, but not knowing what to make of it, he retreated a little, signaling for help, believing that the bus could only leave by the main gate. Shayne stepped over Pepe. He had a minute or two in which he could separate Domestic Relations from the rest of the hijacked film. And if it hadn’t been in the vault — he had known for some hours that this was a possibility — he would pick a half dozen cans at random, and use them as chips to buy his way into the game. As he reached for the rear door, a heavy-caliber bullet slammed into the metal a foot from his head.
He went all the way down. The shot had come from the bushes between this parking bay and the next. Nothing moved there. Pepe, beside Shayne, had passed out. Shayne moved, and as he came up from the asphalt, he brought the boy with him.
Another shot went into the bus. Shayne saw the flash and fired at it twice.
Letting Pepe slide, he wriggled under the bus and out. The gun in the bushes banged again. The bullet ricocheted from the pavement. Shayne pulled the side door open, reaching up from beneath.
Then the cop car arrived, pulling to a stop between Shayne and the concealed gunman. There was only one cop inside, the driver. Shayne went to meet him.
“That’s the man,” Capp said excitedly, running up and pointing with his whole hand. “His name’s Shayne. I saw him set the fire.”
CHAPTER 13
Capp continued to point at Shayne. “He threw a burning rag in through the window. I got a good look at the guy.”
The charge couldn’t be made to stick, of course, but at this time of night, in this part of town, it might take hours for Shayne to get back into contention. This would give Capp time to pick up the pieces here without any interference. Shayne decided — it was more of a reflex action than a conscious decision — to take Capp out until he himself was circulating again.
He reversed the.45, as though to hand it over, stepped forward and chopped at Capp’s mouth with the butt. He sidestepped, meeting the cop as he turned, moved in close and dragged down on the cop’s gun arm.
“Let’s not do any more shooting. I know that was uncalled for, Frankie. I apologize.”
It was doubtful if Capp could hear him. A bloody gap had appeared in his face and he was making a bubbling sound.
The cop tried to get away, swearing in an ugly voice, but Shayne had him in a firm grasp.
“You’ve got a good pinch here,” Shayne told him. “Arson, aggravated assault, resisting an officer. You see these two guys on the ground. I did that — two more counts. There’s a kid in back of the building with a broken leg. I broke it. This is a stolen car, with a load of stolen property. There’s a professional thief named Swenson around somewhere, and there’s also a guy with a gun out in the bushes. But things are complicated enough, and I have a feeling you’ll be satisfied with what you’ve got.”
“You’ll be sorry about this,” the cop said hoarsely.
“We’ve got a lot to talk about, so let’s get started. If I let you go, will you promise not to shoot anybody?”
“Try it and find out.”
Shayne shifted his grip to the cop’s elbow and jerked the gun out of his holster before letting him go. He collected the guns. There were four.
“I have a carrying permit, but I’m afraid none of these are mine.”
Capp was blowing blood, trying to speak. He was barely conscious. The security man was holding him up.
“What he’s trying to tell you,” Shayne said, “is that the Warehouse has been robbed. Dirty movies, very artistic stuff. Look in the VW.”
Another patrol car drove up. There was a delicate moment while Shayne surrendered the guns. One of the newly arrived cops recognized Shayne, and might have listened, but several of the Warehouse customers, who had been arrested for possessing the wrong kind of cigarette, broke loose and had to be chased and recaptured. It was decided that the confusion could only be resolved in the quiet of a station house.
As Shayne bent over to get into the back seat of one of the police cars, a back seat without inside door handles, and a wire grate to separate the prisoners from their captors, the cop he had had the altercation with sneaked a two-knuckle punch into his kidneys. Shayne had had this kind of thing happen to him before, but he had never learned to like it.
Entering the police station, he was sorry to see that the sergeant on duty was one Gus Neihart, who at the moment was attempting to live on his city salary and finding it difficult. In happier days, he had had a lucrative assignment in the hotel district, netting him over $60,000 a year. A Tim Rourke series in the News, based on information developed by Shayne, had been followed by several jail sentences and Neihart’s transfer to a part of town where the private-enterprise money was considerably thinner.