«Yeah.»
«You give him the office?»
«Yeah.»
He shrugged. «That’s okay from your end. Sure. Only I’ll never get to talk, if Fulwider pinches me. If I could get to talk to a D.A. I could maybe convince him she’s not hep to my stuff.»
«You could have thought of that, too,» I said heavily. «You didn’t have to go back to Sundstrand’s and cut loose with your stutter gun.»
He threw his head back and laughed. «No? Suppose you paid a guy ten grand for protection and he crossed you up by grabbing your wife and sticking her in a crooked dope hospital and telling you to run along far away and be good, or the tide would wash her up on the beach? What would you do — smile, or trot over with some heavy iron to talk to the guy?»
«She wasn’t there then,» I said. «You were just kill-screwy. And if you hadn’t hung on to that dog until he killed a man, the protection wouldn’t have been scared into selling you out.»
«I like dogs,» Saint said quietly. «I’m a nice guy when I’m not workin’, but I can get shoved around just so much.»
I listened. Still no noises on deck outside.
«Listen,» I said quickly. «If you want to play ball with me, I’ve got a boat at the back door and I’ll try to get the girl home before they want her. What happens to you is past me. I wouldn’t lift a finger for you, even if you do like dogs.»
The girl said suddenly, in a shrill, little-girl voice: «I don’t want to go home! I won’t go home!»
«A year from now you’ll thank me,» I snapped at her.
«He’s right, sugar,» Saint said. «Better beat it with him.»
«I won’t,» the girl shrilled angrily. «I just won’t. That’s all.»
Out of the silence on the deck something hard slammed the outside of the door. A grim voice shouted: «Open up! It’s the law!»
I backed swiftly to the door, keeping my eyes on Saint. I spoke back over my shoulder: «Fulwider there?»
«Yeah,» the chiefs fat voice growled. «Carmady?»
«Listen, Chief. Saint’s in here and he’s ready to surrender. There’s a girl here with him, the one I told you about. So come in easy, will you?»
«Right,» the chief said. «Open the door.»
I twisted the key, jumped across the cabin and put my back against the inner partition, beside the door behind which the dog was moving around now, growling a little.
The outer door whipped open. Two men I hadn’t seen before charged in with drawn guns. The fat chief was behind them. Briefly, before he shut the door, I caught a glimpse of ship’s uniforms.
The two dicks jumped on Saint, slammed him around, put cuffs on him. Then they stepped back beside the chief. Saint grinned at them, with blood trickling down his lower lip.
Fulwider looked at me reprovingly and moved a cigar around in his mouth. Nobody seemed to take an interest in the girl.
«You’re a hell of a guy, Carmady. You didn’t give me no idea where to come,» he growled.
«I didn’t know,» I said. «I thought it was outside your jurisdiction, too.»
«Hell with that. We tipped the Feds. They’ll be out.»
One of the dicks laughed. «But not too soon,» he said roughly. «Put the heater away, shamus.»
«Try and make me,» I told him.
He started forward, but the chief waved him back. The other dick watched Saint, looked at nothing else.
«How’d you find him then?» Fulwider wanted to know.
«Not by taking his money to hide him out,» I said.
Nothing changed in Fulwider’s face. His voice became almost lazy. «Oh, oh, you’ve been peekin’,» he said very gently.
I said disgustedly. «Just what kind of a sap did you and your gang take me for? Your clean little town stinks. It’s the wellknown whited sepulcher. A crook sanctuary where the hot rods can lie low — if they pay off nice and don’t pull any local capers — and where they can jump off for Mexico in a fast boat, if the finger waves towards them.»
The chief said very carefully: «Any more?»
«Yeah,» I shouted. «I’ve saved it for you too damn long. You had me doped until I was half goofy and stuck me in a private jail. When that didn’t hold me you worked a plant up with Galbraith and Duncan to have my gun kill Sundstrand, your helper, and then have me killed resisting some arrest. Saint spoiled that party for you and saved my life. Not intending to, perhaps, but he did it. You knew all along where the little Snare girl was. She was Saint’s wife and you were holding her yourself to make him stay in line. Hell, why do you suppose I tipped you he was out here? That was something you didn’t know!»
The dick who had tried to make me put up my gun said: «Now, Chief. We better make it fast. Those Feds —»
Fulwider’s jaw shook. His face was gray and his ears were far back in his head. The cigar twitched in his fat mouth.
«Wait a minute,» he said thickly, to the man beside. Then to me: «Well — why did you tip me?»
«To get you where you’re no more law than Billy the Kid,» I said, «and see if you have the guts to go through with murder on the high seas.»
Saint laughed. He shot a low, snarling whistle between his teeth. A tearing animal growl answered him. The door beside me crashed open as though a mule had kicked it. The big police dog came through the opening in a looping spring that carried him clear across the cabin. The gray body twisted in mid-air. A gun banged harmlessly.
«Eat ’em up, Voss!» Saint yelled. «Eat ’em alive, boy!»
The cabin filled with gunfire. The snarling of the dog blended with a thick, choked scream. Fulwider and one of the dicks were down on the floor and the dog was at Fulwider’s throat.
The girl screamed and plunged her face into a pillow. Saint slid softly down from the bunk and lay on the floor with blood running slowly down his neck in a thick wave.
The dick who hadn’t gone down jumped to one side, almost fell headlong on the girl’s berth, then caught his balance and pumped bullets into the dog’s long gray body — wildly without pretense of aim.
The dick on the floor pushed at the dog. The dog almost bit his hand off. The man yelled. Feet pounded on the deck. Yelling outside, Something was running down my face that tickled. My head felt funny, but I didn’t know what had hit me.
The gun in my hand felt large and hot. I shot the dog, hating to do it. The dog rolled off Fulwider and I saw where a stray bullet had drilled the chiefs forehead between the eyes, with the delicate exactness of pure chance.
The standing dick’s gun hammer clicked on a discharged shell. He cursed, started to reload frantically.
I touched the blood on my face and looked at it. It seemed very black. The light in the cabin seemed to be failing.
The bright corner of an axe blade suddenly split the cabin door, which was wedged shut by the chiefs body, and that of the groaning man beside him. I stared at the bright metal, watched it go away and reappear in another place.
Then all the lights went out very slowly, as in a theater just as the curtain goes up. Just as it got quite dark my head hurt me, but I didn’t know then that a bullet had fractured my skull.
I woke up two days later in the hospital. I was there three weeks. Saint didn’t live long enough to hang, but he lived long enough to tell his story. He must have told it well, because they let Mrs. Jerry (Farmer) Saint go home to her aunt.
By that time the County Grand Jury had indicted half the police force of the little beach city. There were a lot of new faces around the City Hall, I heard. One of them was a big redheaded detective-sergeant named Norgard who said he owed me twenty-five dollars but had had to use it to buy a new suit when he got his job back. He said he would pay me out of his first check. I said I would try to wait.