I ducked behind the Dodge and watched. The second group ran across the parking lot. I recognized them as Casales, and then I saw Danile clamber drunkenly from the wrecked car and stand weaving, his hands out in supplication as he mouthed words that were drowned by all the rest of the noise in the world. Suddenly he fell to his knees, his hands still out and his mouth still moving, and toppled forward onto his face.
The Casales reached the car and dragged out the other two. One was a Wycza, and the other was our District Attorney, George Watkins, his round face white with shock.
Art nudged my arm. “What now, Mr. Smith?”
“Through that door,” I said. “That leads up to Reed’s suite.”
“Okay,” he said. “Come on.”
He ran for the doorway and I chugged after him, expecting any second a bullet from one of the windows to tear into me. But we reached the doorway, dashed into the building, and found ourselves in a stairwell by Jordan Reed’s private elevator. A distorted figure lay sprawled face-down on the stairs.
We moved up the stairs, quickly and cautiously. A fire door was closed on the second floor, and we could hear shooting from the other side of it. We kept on going, and ran into a barricade on the third floor. Office furniture was piled across the doorway from the stairwell to the hall. Four Wyczas were behind this barrier, firing spasmodically at someone we couldn’t see.
Art and I stood on the landing below, just out of sight of the defenders. Art whispered, “Are you going to use that gun, Mr. Smith?”
“Reed surprised me,” I said. “Don’t worry, I’ll use it.”
“You’d better. I won’t be able to get all four of them myself.”
“I’ll shoot, God damn it!”
“All right. I’ll take the two on the left.” He hesitated, said, “Now!” and jumped out on the landing.
It only took a second. We leaped out where we could see them, and we each fired twice, and they slumped down over their barricade.
It wasn’t real. I pointed, and made a noise, and they slumped, not breathing. It wasn’t real.
And then it was.
We ran up the stairs, past the barricade, and up the next two flights to the fifth floor. The door here led to Reed’s outer office. Art reached for the doorknob and I pulled him away. “Don’t be stupid.”
He looked at me, studying my face, and suddenly grinned. “You’re back, huh?”
“I’m back.” And I was. From the minute the three Casales had been gunned down, I’d been out of it, fuzzy and bewildered and afraid. Shooting the two at the barricade had to the back. I’d had to make a decision there, fast. If I wanted Harcum, I had to get by the men at the barricade. If I wanted him badly enough, all of this was justified and necessary.
I wanted him that badly.
“Get against the wall beside the door,” I told Art. “I’ll be on the other side. I’ll push the door open, but we don’t go in until I say so.”
“Right you are, Mr. Smith.”
We took our positions, and I reached out, turned the knob, and shoved the door open wide.
Shots rattled from inside, and four holes appeared in the wall opposite the doorway. The shots stopped, and I spun around into the doorway, firing before I saw what I was firing at. Pete and Gar Wycza, both still in their police uniforms, crumpled behind the secretary’s desk. Art rushed past me, around the desk, and fired once.
I moved across to the next door, glancing at the men on the floor. Gar Wycza’s mouth and eyes were open, and he looked as though he were grinning. I remembered passing him, day after day, up at the corner of State and DeWitt. I remembered him saying, “Good day for drinkin.”
The next door led to Reed’s office. We worked the same routine again, and this time Art moved first. There were no shots when I pushed the door open. Art hesitated, and then jumped into the doorway, snapping off one shot as he moved. He stopped, looking into the room, and cautiously crossed the threshold. Then he looked back at me, grinning in embarrassment. “Nobody here.”
We crossed Reed’s office to the next door. Art said, “Where does this one lead?”
“Conference room. We’ll change tactics this time. You keep to the side again, but this time you open the door.”
“Where you going to be?”
“Right here,” I said. I lay down on my stomach, facing the door, the.32 held up in front of me, my elbows on the floor.
Art got into position. “Say when.”
“Now.”
He pushed the door open, and a Wycza fired two shots over my head. The conference table was tipped on its side, and he was crouched behind it, only his head and one arm showing. He got the two shots off, both high, and then I fired, and he fell backward out of sight.
Art dashed into the room, vaulted over the table, and another defender appeared, scrabbling to his feet, unarmed, backing away, his face a study in pure terror. He managed to say, “Don’t,” before Art shot him.
I got up from the floor and ran into the room. There were two more doors here, one leading to the dining room and one to Reed’s living quarters. They would be in the living quarters. I turned that way just as the door opened and Jack Wycza started in. He stopped short, gaping at me, and then he saw Art. “You dirty louse!” he cried, and his hand came up with a pistol in it.
The three of us all fired at the same time. Jack crashed backward out of the doorway, landing heavily. He half-rolled over, trying to sit up, then fell back and lay still.
“Come on!” I shouted, and ran forward. At the doorway, I paused and looked back. Art was sprawled on the floor, behind the conference table, lying on his left side. Wycza’s shot had caught him in the face.
I turned away, stepped over Wycza’s body, and suddenly realized I only had two rounds left in my gun. I went back and scooped up Wycza’s, a.45 automatic, and checked the clip. The shot he’d fired at Art had been his first. There were seven bullets left. I pushed the clip back into the butt and went on.
I moved cautiously into the next room beyond, which was Jordan Reed’s smaller, private dining room. It was empty, and there was only one room beyond it, Reed’s bedroom. I started across the dining room, and then I noticed a door open to my right. It led to another flight of stairs. I turned that way, and a slight noise behind me made me spin around, to see Reed in the doorway of the room I’d just come from, a pistol in his hand.
We just stared at each other for a second, and then I said, “Hiya, governor.”
I saw his face tighten, the way Tarker’s had at the diner. He fired twice as I threw myself to the side and tried to bring Wycza’s.45 to bear on him. I hit the floor rolling, came to a stop on my back, and pulled the trigger three times before Reed was flung off his feet and slammed to the floor. A.45 has a lot more power than a.32.
I started to get to my feet, but my left arm wouldn’t take any weight. It crumpled under me, and I looked at it and saw the hole in my shirt where a bullet had gone through. The arm didn’t hurt at all, but it just wouldn’t work right.
I crawled to the wall, climbed up it until I was standing, and turned again to the stairway. Far below me, I could hear the sound of someone clattering down the stairs. I followed, three steps at a time.
This was Reed’s personal stairway, with exits only on the fifth floor and at street-level, where it led to the spot where he kept his Lincoln Continental.
I was at the third-floor landing when another explosion rocked the building, and I almost lost my balance and fell down the next flight. I crashed into the wall instead, driving my weight against the left arm. That hurt it.