He almost had it when I belted him across the nose. I got him with another sharp hook and heard the breath hiss out of him. It spun him around until the packing case caught him and when I was coming in he let me have it with his foot. I skidded sidewise, took the toe of his shoe on my hip then had his arm in a lock that brought a scream tearing out of his throat. He was going for the rod again when the arm broke and in a crazy surge of pain he jerked loose, tripped me, and got the gun out with his good hand. I rolled into his feet as it coughed over my head, grabbed his wrist and turned it into his neck and he pulled the trigger for the last time in trying to get his hand loose. There was just one last, brief, horrified expression in his eyes as he looked at me, then they filmed over to start rotting away.
The siren that was screaming turned the corner with its wail dying out. Brakes squealed against the pavement and the car stopped, the red light on its hood snapping shut. The door opened opposite the driver, stayed open as if the one inside was listening. Then a guy crawled out, a little guy with a big gun in his hand. He said, “Johnny?”
Then he ran. Silently, like an Indian, I almost had Johnny’s gun back in my hand when he reached me.
“You,” Sergeant Gonzales said. He saw the package there, twisted his mouth into a smile and let me see the hole in the end of his gun. I still made one last try for Johnny’s gun when the blast went off. I half expected the sickening smash of a bullet, but none came. When I looked up, Gonzales was still there. Something on the packing crate had hooked into his coat and held him up.
I couldn’t see into the shadows where the voice came from. But it rims a familiar voice. It said, “You ought to be careful son.”
The gun the voice held slithered back into leather.
“Thirty seconds. No more. You might even do the job right and beat it in his car. He was in on it. The cop…he was working with Cooley. Then Cooley ran out on him too so he played along with Renzo. Better move, kid.”
The other sirens were almost there. I said, “Watch yourself. And thanks.”
“Sure, kid. I hate crooked cops worse than crooks.”
I ran for the car, hopped in and pulled the door shut. Behind me something splashed and a two foot square package floated on the water a moment, then turned over and sunk out of sight. I left the lights off, turned down the first street I reached and headed across town. At the main drag I pulled up, wiped the wheel and gearshift free of prints and got out.
There was dawn showing in the sky. It would be another hour yet before it was morning. I walked until I reached the junkyard in back of Gordon’s office, found the wreck of a car that still had cushions in it, climbed in and went to sleep.
Morning, afternoon, then evening. I slept through the first two. The last one was harder. I sat there thinking things, keeping out of sight. My clothes were dry now, but the cigarettes still had a lousy taste. There was a twinge in my stomach and my mouth was dry. I gave it another hour before I moved, then went back over the fence and down the street to a dirty little diner that everybody avoided except the boys who rode the rods into town. I knocked off a plate of bacon and eggs, paid for it with some of the change I had left, picked up a pack of butts and started out. That was when I saw the paper on the table.
It made quite a story. GANG WAR FLARES ON WATERFRONT, and under it a subhead that said, Cop, Hoodlum, Slain in Gun Duel. It was a masterpiece of writing that said nothing, intimated much and brought out the fact that though the place was bullet-sprayed and though evidence of other wounded was found, there were no bodies to account for what had happened. One sentence mentioned the fact that Johnny was connected with Mark Renzo. The press hinted at police inefficiency. There was the usual statement from Captain Gerot.
The thing stunk. Even the press was afraid to talk out. How long would it take to find out Gonzales didn’t die by a shot from Johnny’s gun? Not very long. And Johnny…a cute little twist like that would usually get a big splash. There wasn’t even any curiosity shown about Johnny. I let out a short laugh and threw the paper back again.
They were like rats, all right. They just went the rats one better. They dragged their bodies away with them so there wouldn’t be any ties. Nice. Now find the doctor who patched them up. Find what they were after on the docks. Maybe they figured to heist ten tons or so of machinery. Yeah, try and find it.
No, they wouldn’t say anything. Maybe they’d have to hit it a little harder when the big one broke. When the boys came in who paid a few million out for a package that was never delivered. Maybe when the big trouble came and the blood ran again somebody would crawl back out of his hole long enough to put it into print. Or it could be that Bucky Edwards was right. Life was too precious a thing to sell cheaply.
I thought about it, remembering everything he had told me. When I had it all back in my head again I turned toward the place where I knew Bucky would be and walked faster. Halfway there it started to drizzle. I turned up the collar, of my coat.
It was a soft rain, one of those things that comes down at the end of summer, making its own music like a dull concert you think will have no end. It drove people indoors until even the cabs didn’t bother to cruise. The cars that went by had their windows steamed into opaque squares, the drivers peering through the hand-wiped panes.
I jumped a streetcar when one came along, took it downtown and got off again. And I was back with the people I knew and the places made for them. Bucky was on his usual stool and I wondered if it was a little too late. He had that all gone look in his face and his fingers were caressing a tall amber-colored glass.
When I sat down next to him his eyes moved, giving me a glassy stare. It was like the cars on the street, they were cloudy with mist, then a hand seemed to reach out and rub them clear. They weren’t glass any more. I could see the white in his fingers as they tightened around the glass and he said, “You did it fancy, kiddo. Get out of here.”
“Scared, Bucky?”
His eyes went past me to the door, then came back again. “Yes. You said it right. I’m scared. Get out. I don’t want to be around when they find you.”
“For a guy who’s crocked most of the time you seem to know a lot about what happens.”
“I think a lot. I figure it out. There’s only one answer.”
“If you know it why don’t you write it?”
“Living’s not much fun any more, but what there is of it, I like. Beat it, kid.”
This time I grinned at him, a big fat grin and told the bartender to get me an orange. Large. He shoved it down, picked up my dime and went back to his paper.
I said, “Let’s hear about it, Bucky.” I could feel my mouth changing the grin into something else. “I don’t like to be a target either. I want to know the score.”
Bucky’s tongue made a pass over dry lips. He seemed to look back inside himself to something he had been a long time ago, dredging the memory up. He found himself in the mirror behind the back bar, twisted his mouth at it and looked back at me again.
“This used to be a good town.”
“Not that,” I said.
He didn’t hear me. “Now anybody who knows anything is scared to death. To death, I said. Let them talk and that’s what they get. Death. From one side or another. It was bad enough when Renzo took over, worse when Carboy came in. It’s not over yet.” His shoulders made an involuntary shudder and he pulled the drink halfway down the glass. “Friend Gulley had an accident this afternoon. He was leaving town and was run off the road. He’s dead.”