“Where is she now?”
“She’s safe. Where I can get hold of her when the time comes.”
I sat down and began laughing at her. “When you go out of this room, it’ll be with handcuffs on. You’re headed for the same cell you so conveniently got me out of.”
Her lower jaw sagged in dazed uncomprehension. I went on in words of one syllable:
“Your joint is being raided tonight. I’ve been gathering dope for the Bugle for weeks. A dictograph picked up everything you spilled tonight. If it’s not enough to hang you, I don’t know the temper of a Florida jury.”
She didn’t have anything to say. She sat in the middle of the bed and looked at me. Stripped of all her front, she was just another frightened floosie on a one way trip to the jailhouse.
I called into the dictograph: “All right, Pete. The session is over. Bring a cop and unlock my door with the key you’ll find outside the door.”
I waited a minute, trying not to think what a hell of a jam I’d be in if Pete weren’t there.
But he was. I might have known he wouldn’t have missed a bet. His voice came over the transom: “Keep your hell-cat in hand until I can get a couple of flatfeet to make the pinch official.”
“Go on,” I told him. “But don’t be long. There’s a raid coming off that I don’t want to miss.”
I was standing near the door, facing away from Sandra. I caught a movement in the corner of my eye. I got to her just as she smashed through the window and was halfway out.
She was bleeding from a dozen cuts and scratches as I dragged her back. “No you don’t. Other women have gotten out of it easier than you’re going to.”
The fight was all gone out of her. She collapsed on the bed and began moaning. I sat down beside her and said brisky:
“Where’s Cherry? I don’t want to miss her in the dragnet tonight.”
“She’s...” Sandra began. Then clapped her hand over her mouth and rolled her eyes. “My God! She’s clear if you don’t get her. As soon as they hear of the raid they’ll all clear out.”
“Who’s they, and where are they?”
Sandra grabbed my arm with fingers like claws. “You won’t have the guts to bring her in. You’ll let her go.”
“Try me.”
“You’re nuts about her. She made a sap out of you once, and you’ll go sappy again the next time she shakes her finger at you.”
“Try me. I’m not forgetting that she turned me in for assault after trying to knife me twice.”
Sandra’s fingers were tearing at my arm. Her eyes glittered. “She’s in as deep as any of them.”
“I thought you didn’t know her.”
“Stormy’s been telling me what a go-getter she is. If she gets away now, she’ll bob up with an organization of her own in another city.”
“She won’t get away if you’ll tell me where to find her.”
I made Sandra believe me. She gave me the address of a house in the Northwest district.
“Two men have got her there. They took her away after I persuaded her to sign the affidavit.”
There were voices outside the door. The key grated in the lock and Pete barged in with his eyes shining. A couple of uniformed cops were behind him. Sandra snarled at them as I brushed past Pete and said to him:
“You make the charge against her and write up the story.”
“Where are you going?” Pete yelled after me.
“I’m on my way to gather up the odds and ends.”
I was on my way, all right. Hell-bent to pick up Cherry before she had a chance to make a getaway.
Chapter 26
It was a secluded stucco house on Forty-eighth Street. I drove past slowly. Lights shone from the two front windows of the single story. I parked half a block away and started walking back the grass-grown sidewalk. A bleared street lamp two blocks away did little to dispel the blackness of the night.
I went through the fifty feet of palmetto and briars as quietly as I could without wasting any time.
Everything was quiet. I slithered onto the stone porch and took time out to look through the uncurtained windows.
There wasn’t anyone in the front room. I tried the door and found it locked.
I waded through palmettos to a window in the rear with the shade pulled down to within an inch of the sill. A dim glow came under the shade. A muffled laugh came from inside the room. I went through the window with my arms protecting my face, carrying the shade with me and landing in the middle of a mess.
There were two men and Cherry in the room.
I kicked one man in the jaw as he dragged out a gun. He went to the floor with a thud and stayed there. The other fellow was a big bruiser and I didn’t have time to do any dodging.
He got a couple of ape-like arms around me in a rib-crushing hold, and my face was jammed up against his bristly chin. He had been drinking rotgut and eating garlic. That’s probably what saved my life. The stench of his breath gave an added impetus to my efforts.
I got in a kick on his shin and we went round and round the room. I got an arm loose and began punching his beefy face with mechanical, short-arm blows. I felt his hold loosen, and squirmed enough to bring my knee up between his legs where it would do the most good. He grunted with pain and let go of me.
I dropped to the floor and he reeled about the room, clutching his crotch with his hands. The other man’s gun was lying on the floor. I picked it up and bounced the butt of it off the reeling guy’s head. He fell on top of his pal and they lay there as though clasping each other in brotherly affection.
Cherry was crouched on the sagging mattress of a slat bed. She showed signs of a terrific beating, and her hair was down. She looked as though she’d bite if I ventured near. She panted:
“So it’s you again.”
I cracked at her, “Don’t I get any words of thanks for my rescue stunt?”
“I don’t know that I’m any better off.” She was still glaring at me like a wild animal.
I sat down in an unbroken wooden chair and wiped the blood out of my eyes from some shallow gashes cut by the window.
“You needn’t look at me like that,” I told her. “I’m not in any mood to argue with you.”
“Why did you come here?” she flared at me.
“To get you.”
“How did you know I was here?”
“Sandra.”
“Sandra?”
I nodded. “She spilled everything when I gave her the works. She’s in jail and the police are raiding the gambling joint. You’re the only loose end.”
Cherry sank back on the bed and gasped:
“Sandra... in jail!”
I told her all about it, keeping my voice level and unconcerned. “...so I came out to bring you in and finish the job,” I ended.
Cherry shivered and her belly muscles went taut. She said between her teeth: “I knew you were a phony. I knew it all the time. Getting a story for your lousy scandal sheet.” There was a sneer in her voice.
“Don’t try to put me on the defensive. My hands are clean.”
“A nasty, sneaking reporter!” Her voice got shrill. “Playing up to me just to get your filthy story.”
“It’s a filthy one, all right. No one knows that better than you.”
“Not as filthy as your maggoty mind will make it. It makes me sick to think that I almost fell for your line.” Her voice was shaken and reedy. There was real pain in her voice. Hurt dismay. It cut right through to my soul or what-have-you. Her eyes looked as though they’d never trust a man again.
I stood up and said: “Listen, Baby. You know that isn’t so.”
“What isn’t so?” Tears began dripping down her bruised cheeks.
“That it was all a line. That I just went for you for the story I could get.” My voice sounded unfamiliar in my own ears. Husky and sort of pleading.