Thanks to the yellow oilskins they wore, he could make out the pair who had been left behind as they stood talking down by the tower. When they separated it was easy enough for him to stalk the blob of yellow moving along the beach.
About midway between the station and the inlet his quarry came to a halt and stood looking out to sea. Not fifty yards away, hidden back of a dune, Radway plopped down in the wet sand to wait developments. In the distance, he heard the coughing of the Coast Guard dory’s powerful motor as the rescue party tuned it up. The coughing resolved into a steady hum, and then he saw the green of the dory’s starboard running light as it streaked out of the inlet and went bouncing over the bar.
Time dragged after the sound of the engine had been lost back of the crashing surf. The radium-tipped minute hand made a complete circuit of the dial on Radway’s wrist watch and was well along on another when a light showed at sea — not a steady light, but one that blinked on and off in half a dozen quick flashes.
Evidently that was a signal to the watcher farther down the beach. He answered with a pocket flash whose strong white beam sparkled intermittently across the surf as he moved toward the inlet.
Keeping in the shelter of the dunes, Radway followed — unaware of a shadow flitting stealthily along his own trail. When a keel grated the inlet shore well in the lee of the point, he drew his pistol and quickened his pace, his steps muffled in the sand. He recognized Lazzaro’s voice ahead of him.
“Okay, Buxie! Everything’s jake. How did ya like the breeze?”
The voice that replied — a rasping one — was another that Radway had heard before.
“You always pick a soft spot for yourself, Tony. If you’d been out in that cyclone you’d have come closer to earning your cut.”
“I’m taking plenty of risks, don’t worry,” growled Lazzaro. “There’s a snooper on the beach to-night that’s got me worried.”
“Yeah? Well, if he snoops around here he gets taken for a boat ride. What’s the matter with you, Tony — turning yellow? Beginning to think everybody you see has got a ticket for you?”
“I know when a guy looks like the law.”
Radway, invisible in the long coat of black rubber he had borrowed from Docksee, was close enough then to see two other figures behind “Dopey Moe” Buxbaum in the beached speed boat. A voice sharp with alarm came from one of them.
“Is it on the square, Tony? Hell! Let’s put the stuff ashore and get away fast. I don’t want to see the inside of Atlanta again.”
That provided Radway with a dramatic entrance cue. Pistol up, he advanced into the dim circle of radiance thrown by the light in the speed boat’s bow.
“Hands up, everybody!” he commanded. “You’re all Atlanta bound!” He moved farther into the light and invited: “Take a good look at the snooper, Buxbaum! Remember—”
Right there he chopped off. Close behind him a voice husky with menace snarled:
“Drop that gun!”
Wheeling, Radway found himself looking into the barrel of a revolver in the hands of the bull-necked Karger.
“I came pretty near doing this when I seen you start after Tony,” Lazzaro’s running mate grunted. “Thought I’d have to be looking out to sea just because I was up in the watch tower, did you?”
Radway’s decision to shoot it out against odds came an instant too late. As he recovered from his paralysis of surprise, Lazzaro leaped upon him and wrenched the pistol from his grip.
“Atlanta bound, are we?” he grated. “Well, you’re going farther — and faster!”
Buxbaum jumped forward as the gun lifted.
“Hold it, you dumb-bell!” he shrilled. “Do you want to bring the whole gang down from the house?”
“Nobody home. They’re all out in the boat. Who does that make the dumb-bell?” growled Lazzaro.
Buxbaum, open mouthed, was staring at Radway. He stepped closer to him and his overbright eyes flared with exultation.
“This guy is all mine, Tony!” he cried. “I saw him first. Believe it or not, it’s the dick that nailed me in Baltimore. I spent twenty solid months wishing that I’d meet up with him again — and here he is. Ain’t it a small world?”
“You bet it’s small, Buxbaum!” snapped Radway. “A man doesn’t realize how small it’s become until he tries hiding away from a murder rap. Just get it into your head that I’m not here by accident. Plenty of people know where I am to-night — and know I expected to run into you. It would be your tough luck if anything happened to me.”
“Oh, yeah?” jeered the dope runner. “But a lot depends on where it happens, don’t it? Think I’d leave you on the beach when we’ve got plenty of room in the boat for you?” He turned from Radway with a jarring laugh and began to spout orders. “Keep the gumshoe covered, Tony. Let him have it if he makes a move. Get that stuff ashore, the rest of you. We’ll bury it right here in the sand and pick it up later. Sure! We’ll let Johnny Law see right where we hide it. It’d be kind of neat to bury him alongside it, but he can come back and haunt the beach, anyway.”
Helpless before the threatening gun, Radway followed the course of a distant dot of light that represented life itself slipping away from him. The light, already miles away, was growing steadily dimmer. It was no longer green, but red, telling him that the Coast Guard dory had changed her course toward the east. The red light was on her port side; he was familiar enough with boats to know that.
Equally well, he knew that Moe Buxbaum, drug mad, couldn’t be reasoned out of his deadly purpose. In the underworld, he had had for years the reputation of a cold-blooded murderer.
In five minutes, a deep hole had been scooped in the beach, the cargo of narcotics cached in it and covered with sand.
“All aboard!” called Buxbaum from the bow of the speed boat. “Bring the passenger, Tony. Better come along yourself, you and Karger. Might be healthier for you.”
“No use sticking around now, anyway,” grunted Lazzaro. “Trade over this beach is all washed up.”
Radway conquered an impulse to grab for the gun as Lazzaro jabbed it against his back. That would have been suicide, and while he lived he could still hope.
The lights of the Coast Guard dory had been lost in the distance, but it was out there somewhere; however slim the possibility, it represented a chance that that the dope runners might be intercepted. If that didn’t happen, an opportunity might come when the speed boat was out of the inlet and the vigilance of his captors relaxed. At least, he could jump overboard — lake a desperate gamble on eluding the bullets that would come after him, and perhaps beat the treacherous currents in a hard pull for shore.
“All right, Moe, I’m with you,” he sang out, climbing into the boat ahead of Lazzaro. “Hope you’ve got a good navigator with you.”
A cackle of crazy laughter answered that.
“You should worry!”
V
With Karger shoving at her nose, the speed boat slid off into deep water. The starter whirred.
Karger, jumping onto the deck as the engine purred into action, switched off the bow lights. Radway was grateful to him for that. Immediately, he untied a shoe lace and loosened it. With Lazzaro beside him on the thwart he had to work cautiously, but before the dope runner was fairly out of the inlet he had slipped off his shoes. But the time for the jump wasn’ yet; Lazzaro still held the pistol to his ribs.