And now he’d dislodged it somehow at the bottom. Yes, now it was sliding under him, out and down, down, down, and — glass crashed with a din that could have been heard in the next county. Splinters flew all around Johnny Dolan.
The ladder itself seemed just to dematerialize. Johnny Dolan, with a mighty thud, struck the ground squarely on his back.
His head bounced once or twice. Then he lay still, blinking. It looked like the damn’ thing must ’a’ slid right out under him, huh, so the top end of it went through the first-floor window. It looked like — Johnny Dolan staggered hurriedly to his feet. Rat McGee, great fists clenched, was wheezing with pure maniacal effect: “You — dumb — aaah!”
His temper gone, his knife quite forgotten, he swung at Johnny Dolan’s jaw with his powerful left. He connected, too, and Johnny Dolan spun away crazily, stumbling, gasping and, now, running. Aye, running as he had never run before in all his days; running so swiftly that, had any fleet gazelle been there to race him, the fleet gazelle must have quit in tears; leaping, too, as leaps the frightened stag before the hounds.
Once, just for a second, he looked back. Hell sure had busted loose! Mr. McGee, clumping slowly after him, had been overtaken by a great white nightgown and a huge pair of light pajamas. There was shouting and scrambling and the distinct sound of a whack. Very faintly, Johnny Dolan caught: “Bashed him with the blighted rolling-pin, Curtis! Fetch a rope before he comes ’round!”
Johnny Dolan kept on running. Not so bright perhaps as a rule, his sense of location now seemed no less than marvelous. He shot into Mr. McGee’s car as if a mighty magnet had dragged him through the door.
Mr. James (Red) Binney paused in the swabbing of his car and studied the approaching Johnny Dolan.
“Stick your head in a beehive, pal?” he queried. “Your pan’s quite swole on both sides. More on the right than on the left, I’d say.”
“It’s my pan,” Johnny Dolan answered morosely.
“An’ who else’d want it?” Mr. Binney merrily laughed and changed the subject. “Well, things didn’t break so good last night, accordin’ to what I read in the early evening editions, huh? The butler an’ the chauffeur put the collar on the Rat, outside that Rudwell house, up above, an’ what with the stretches he’s done a’ready it looks like this time he gets life!”
“That’s his headache,” Johnny Dolan said, more morosely.
He was trying to think. He was trying to get it, and he couldn’t get it. Molls, what he meant. Not any moll — maybe nine molls out of ten would cross you, the way Red said. But that moll! An’ him, the poor sap, kidding himself last night he’d have sixty grand this morning!
Mr. Binney, always anxious to please a customer, changed the subject even again.
“Well, how’s it coinin’ about this knockout you was speakin’ o’ gettin’, Johnny?” he asked jovially.
“What?” Johnny Dolan rasped, coming out of the trance.
Mr. Binney started and stared at him. Johnny Dolan, breathing noisily, stared right back at Mr. Binney. On account of, it this guy had heard something and was trying to make a crack. He relaxed a little. Red hadn’t heard nothing; a moll like her wouldn’t be trading here.
“Gimme beer!” he snapped. “No — hold it! Gimme that beer glass, empty. Now gimme rye!” He dropped a ten dollar bill to the bar. “Take out for the bottle!” Johnny Dolan said savagely.
Fit to Be Framed
by Roland Phillips
I
Jerry Sullivan parked his little sedan at the curb in, front of the Ajax Café, got but, heard his name called softly, back-tracked to a doorway to behold the lean form of Detective Clem Brower.
“Hello!” he exclaimed, and stuck, out a hand. “On the job again, are you — and back pounding pavements!”
“With both feet,” the detective responded. “Only one of ’em’s a bit game. Except for that I’m as good as new. Takes more’n a couple slugs to lay me away — you know that.”
Sullivan peered into Brower’s thin, lined face, noted the added stoop to his shoulders, and shook his head. “You ought to be camped by the fire with pipe and slippers. You don’t look so hot. Why not rest at home?”
“They’ve been trying to keep me there,” Brower, grumbled. “But I wouldn’t stay put. I’m not ready for the shelf yet. I’ve got work to do before I quit.”
Sullivan knew what he had in mind, but did not refer to it. Everybody in the district knew.
“Things have been pretty quiet since you were away,” he said. “I guess the bad boys are waiting for you to show up before touching off any more fireworks.”
“They can start right now,” the detective came back. “I’ll be waiting for ’em on the line... You see Lew Kibbler recently?”
Sullivan nodded, having anticipated that query. “He was asking about you just the other day.”
“Yeah? Know what that slick-haired mug had the gall to do? Sent me flowers at the hospital. The louse I Needn’t mention having seen me,” Brower added. “I want to run across him when I won’t be welcome. That’s what I need to close my book. That’s what got me out of bed.”
It was all of three months now since Brower had stopped a car — and two slugs. The lead had dropped him, but he emptied his revolver after the car as it sped away, got its license number, and the police were hot on the trail by the time the detective reached the hospital.
The car belonged to young Andy Reed, whose father ran a drug store in the neighborhood, and Andy was found dead back of the wheel, a few blocks from the shooting; but those who had been riding with him were gone.
There had been two men in the back seat, and Brower swore one of them was Lew Kibbler. The suspect was jugged before morning, and released before noon. There was nothing to hold him on except the detective’s suspicions and unsupported testimony.
That always had been the rub where Kibbler was concerned; the police couldn’t produce enough evidence, couldn’t pin anything on the wily crook. He never lacked an iron-clad, puncture-proof alibi. He was as smart as the mouthpiece that always defended him.
“Never been able to make out how Andy Reed came to be driving that punk,” Brower said; once the unpleasant subject was brought up. “A nice, respectable kid if there ever was one; and I’m knowing him and his family the past dozen years.”
The thing had puzzled Sullivan as well. There had been countless rumors, theories, contrary opinions. In the merry game of cops and robbers, the district took sides, expressed themselves freely. But Andy Reed was beyond talking, and those who might have told the facts kept mum. So the riddle hadn’t been solved.
“Andy’s folks won’t even see me,” the detective continued, aggrieved. “They’re bitter, and a lot of others are holding with them. Because one of my bullets got the kid, they’re calling it murder.
“Demanding the commissioner make an example of me. Claiming I’m too free with a gun.”
Some of the newspapers were riding Brower as well, Sullivan reflected, especially those antagonistic to the city administration.
“I’m thinking it’s dope that Kibbler’s running, along with his other rackets,” the detective pursued. “The Federal boys are snooping around, but they haven’t got anywhere. Maybe I’ll beat ’em to it. Around this section’s the hot spot. That’s why I’m gambling on Kibbler having a finger in it. If I had a better pair of legs... Hello, here’s Lew now.”