Shayne moved along on hands and knees to the front of the car, keeping it between him and what he guessed to be Perry’s position, studying the situation carefully and trying to decide his next move.
The motor in the car that had been backed around to throw light on the doorway was still idling. It stood a few feet beyond the car Shayne was hiding behind, and he saw that if he could get to it and turn off the headlights, his chances of coming out of the cellar alive would be much improved.
Reflected light lay on the concrete floor between the two cars, and Shayne dared not risk crossing between them. He crouched silently for a time, closing his mind to Getchie’s moaning and to everything except his next move.
He finally began to inch cautiously back toward the far wall of the garage where other cars were parked, taking an angling course. His shoeless foot stubbed against a hard object, and he swore under his breath. He felt for it, grasped it, and threw it hard toward the dark wall beyond him.
Perry’s. 38 roared twice in quick succession. Then there was utter silence except for the slackening tempo of Getchie’s moans. Shayne guessed that the Negro was dying.
Shayne reached the wall of the garage, slid along it behind the parked cars until he reached a point which he calculated placed the car with burning lights and idling motor between Perry and himself.
Still inching forward in a half-crouch, alert for some sound of movement from Perry and hearing nothing, he decided the man was playing it smart, waiting Shayne out, close enough to the stairway and the street door to prevent the detective from getting past him. Shayne had the hope, too, that Perry was holding his fire after those five shots.
Shayne reached the rear of the car with the idling motor and felt his way cautiously along the side of it. The front door stood open. He had only to reach inside and switch off the headlights. He hesitated, his mind wary and active. Perry would still be guarding the exits with gun and flashlight. Things wouldn’t be much different with the car lights off.
He made one last survey of the dimly lighted garage before reaching in for the light switch. The door leading in from the street was ahead and to the left, out of the direct beams of light, but close enough for the side glow to light it clearly. It was a ramshackle wooden door hanging on rollers from an iron girder.
If it were open, Shayne thought despairingly, it would be a good bet to leap behind the wheel at the same moment that he turned off the lights and put the idling motor into action.
The hanging door swayed slightly at the bottom as he considered this. His body muscles tightened. Somewhere off to the right in the darkness Perry was crouched, waiting quietly for him to make a break for freedom.
Shayne studied the position of the front wheels in relation to the car exit. A slight swing of the steering wheel to the left would head the car directly toward it.
He drew in a deep, silent breath and got one foot on the running board. The dash light was on, illuminating the instrument panel. He picked out the headlight switch, lunged forward into the seat and pushed the switch while his left foot found the accelerator.
The blackness was absolute when the lights went out. Shayne gunned the idling motor and jerked the shift lever into low, swung the steering wheel slightly to the left, crouched low over the wheel, and drove the heavy car directly at what he hoped was a flimsy, swinging door.
He was conscious of a flashlight gleaming on his right and of a pistol thundering in the room, but there was no time to think of such things in the few seconds before the car struck the door with a splintering crash.
He was through at the same instant, and surging up the concrete incline to the street. He straightened behind the wheel and eased up on the gas, swung to the right on the deserted street, passing directly in front of the two-story frame structure above the cellar garage.
Street signs on the next corner located the spot perfectly for him. He heard another car roaring up the incline behind him. Perry was in pursuit.
For the first time since his prison door opened, Shayne became fully conscious of the fact that he was stark naked, behind the wheel of a strange car, and in a strange part of town.
Chapter Six
There was enough moonlight for driving without headlights, yet not quite enough, Shayne believed, to enable Perry to see the unlighted car a block and a half ahead.
Just as Perry’s headlights swung into the street behind him, Shayne took his foot from the accelerator and turned into a driveway leading to a vine-covered porte-cochere by the side of a small bungalow. He shut off the motor and let the car roll silently along the drive, braking it gently to a stop beneath the porte-cochere.
Perry’s car raced past the house, and the sound of it was presently swallowed up in the night.
Shayne sat very still, slouched low under the wheel, alarmed now by the thought of his naked body. The bungalow was dark and silent. If the family was at home it evidently had not been aroused by the sound of his tires.
He shivered as he sat there, not so much for lack of clothing as at the thought of some member of the household rousing and discovering his plight. That, he thought morosely, would be the crowning episode of the night’s crazy and puzzling adventure.
He became aware of a bundle on the other side of the seat-a fold of hard fabric. He sat up quickly and examined it by feel, unfolding and spreading it out. He found it to be a pair of mechanic’s coveralls, evidently left there by the owner when he finished work the preceding day.
Clutching the garment to him, he opened the door and got out, sidled to a corner of the porte-cochere where the vines were thick and stepped into the coveralls. They had been made to fit a short, stout man. The cuffs reached halfway between his knees and ankles, and the sleeves were well above his wrists. He gave a great sigh of relief as he fumbled with the metal buttons down the front.
As he gave a hitch to pull the coveralls more comfortably around his groin, he heard a metallic jingling. Thrusting his hand into the right-hand pocket, his fingers closed over a few coins. He drew them out and counted them by feel. Half a dollar, a quarter, and two nickels. He felt rich, and stopped thinking about the well-filled wallet he had left in the basement garage.
Sliding back under the steering wheel, he started the motor and backed quietly out of the driveway, made a left turn at the next corner and drove two blocks southward before turning on the headlights. He then turned west to Miami Avenue, and south again until he came to a lighted hole-in-the-wall drinking place. He parked and got out, crossed the sidewalk, and padded inside in his stocking feet.
There was a small bar with a skinny, hard-faced girl behind it. A man and a woman were seated on stools, bickering angrily. He was insisting that she had one up on him and refused to leave until he caught up with her. She accused him of having two up on her before they left home and intended to keep pace with him. He stated flatly that she was drunk before she left home, and she demanded to know how he thought she could take even a teaspoonful of his damned brandy when he kept the bottle marked every time he took a drink. He said that was easy because she snitched drinks and poured water in up to the mark. She called him a liar, and he called her a liar, and they went on drinking.
The skinny girl had a flat, unintelligent face, a tight mouth, and almost no chin. She turned from the quarreling couple and looked at Shayne without much interest as he slid onto the end stool. At that hour in the morning and at that spot on Miami Avenue, it was apparent that a customer with a cut lip and wearing a pair of undersized coveralls wasn’t out of the ordinary.