If the boys went ahead with their planned caper tonight, I knew Artie would pick up Tinkle and Cannon and they’d go from here to whatever spot they’d cased — and I couldn’t think of anything else which would keep Cannon away from a repentant Lois. But they’d know what I’d been doing today, and they’d be even more jumpy than usual. A close tail was out; damn near any kind of tail was out. If they didn’t find that squawk box, though, there was one tail that could work. The little cigar box on the axle of Miller’s car was no more than a small and simple radio sending set which would put out a steady howl that I could pick up on the receiver beside me, locating the car’s direction from me with the loop antenna.
I waited. The moon was barely past the crescent stage tonight, and it was cold. Fog had just started to drift in from the beaches a few miles away, mixing with the smog, dimming the street lights around me. I waited, smoking one cigarette after another.
I was wondering if the boys had been scared off, when I picked up a squeal while I was turning the loop antenna. It was eleven o’clock and The Professor was on his way.
The howl got louder in the radio receiver and I started the Cad’s motor. In a minute I saw the fog-dimmed headlights of a car pull into the curb and stop four blocks away. At Cannon’s Hotel. Two minutes later by my watch the car started up again and took a right at the corner. Immediately the howl in my radio receiver stopped. I threw my old cigarette away and lit another.
They wouldn’t take a chance on a ticket the night of a job, so I estimated their top speed at thirty and gave them a full minute, then put the Cad in gear and swung left off National Boulevard at Sepulveda, where they’d turned. I figured they shouldn’t be more than half a mile ahead of me. I pointed the loop antenna ahead, but there wasn’t any squeal so I turned it around ninety degrees and kept going straight down Sepulveda, past Rose Avenue and Ocean Park Avenue and Charnock Road, and there wasn’t a peep out of the radio. But at Venice Boulevard the howl came in strong and I swung left; it stayed steady so I knew they weren’t going in the opposite direction. I gave the Cad more gas, closed the distance between us.
From there it was easy enough. They made only two more turns, a left at Cochran and a right at Twelfth. On Twelfth they stopped, and eight blocks after I made the last turn, I passed Artie’s car, parked. Now it was going to start getting a little precarious.
I knew they wouldn’t park in front of the house they’d cased, and maybe not even on the same street, but they wouldn’t work too far from the car, and I at least knew where the Chrysler was. I could get them there if it came to that, but I wanted to catch them cold, right on the job. Right here was where I found out if I’d figured how they worked correctly; I didn’t know for sure, but it was more than a hunch. I put on the red-lensed glasses and drove slowly ahead looking at the houses on both sides of the street. Nothing. After four blocks I went right a block then and headed back. There on Dockweiler Street, less than two blocks from where their car was parked, I passed a big two-story Georgian-type mansion dark except for a faint light showing at one upstairs window. When I took the goggles off, the house was completely dark; not a glimmer of illumination came from any part of the house. But with the glasses on again, the light was there. I’d found them.
I parked around the corner and cut the headlights and motor. Even now that I’d found them, it still seemed like magic to me. I’d worked with infra-red light before; I knew that New York Harbor boats were equipped with infra-red spotlights and binoculars, and that Army snipers picked off the enemy outlined in infra-red from scopes mounted on their rifles — but it still seemed like a trick of Merlin.
I knew my gun was ready, but I took it out of the holster and checked it again anyway, then slipped it back. My heartbeat speeded up involuntarily; my throat dried; I could feel a slight, cold shiver brush over my skin. I picked up the heavy light, shoved the goggles up on my forehead and got out of the car. Fog was damp against my face.
Near the house I slipped the glasses down over my eyes again and saw the light still visible above. I was damned careful getting to the house and walking to its front, my body pressed against the wall, but I made it without trouble to the front door. I switched the light on and in its glow I could see the door was slightly cracked. Tinkle, the ex-locksmith, wouldn’t lock it again till they left; there was always a chance the boys might want to leave in a hurry. The boys were pretty positive about this job. They didn’t bother to leave a lookout. I loved them for it.
Before I went through the door I slid out the .38 and held it in my right hand, the burning flash in my left. I went inside, swung the flash around till I spotted a stairway leading above, then started walking up it. I couldn’t see as well as I’d have liked, but I wouldn’t bump into any chairs or walls — and Cannon, Artie, and Tinkle, working in infra-red above me, wouldn’t be able to see any better. For a moment I thought of the attorney these bastards had killed, wondered if he’d walked into a darkened room, unable to see a thing, while the three men above me now could watch his every movement, see to beat him, to kill him.
I followed a hall at the head of the stairs till I could see a glow from the room in which I knew they were, then I turned off my light. If I could see their light, they could also see mine. The door was ajar. I heard their soft movements, but I couldn’t yet see them. I kept moving forward, slowly, my hand sweaty and slippery on the butt of my .38.
A yard from the door I pulled the Colt’s hammer back on full cock and took the last step, spotted them inside the room, and then I moved through the doorway. For that first second none of them saw me. Cannon stood at the window, his back toward me; Artie was at a safe in the right wall, Tinkle holding a bulky light similar to mine, bathing Artie and the safe in infra-red light.
My heart had suddenly started racing and I could feel the blood tingling clear down in the tips of my fingers. It was as though the blood were hot inside me, warming my skin, my entire body. I could feel perspiration on my face and chest, in my armpits. I tightened my finger on the Colt’s trigger and snapped on the beam of my flash just as Artie glanced over his shoulder, eyes behind the goggles like round black holes in a skull’s head, and spotted me.
I saw his mouth open and I shouted, “Freeze, you sons, don’t—” but that was all I had time for because a lot of hell broke loose in that instant. Artie veiled at the top of his lungs and leaped to the side as Tinkle spun around and the light he’d held thudded to the carpet, still burning. Cannon’s huge bulk dropped to the floor. I flipped my gun over at Cannon, rolling now toward the wall, but flame jumped at me from Tinkle’s hand and the room exploded with sound. I dropped to one knee, snapped a shot at Tinkle as I saw his gun leveling at me; I pulled the trigger once more and saw him stagger, but his gun boomed again and I felt the slap of a bullet against my left hand; the impact of that heavy slug spun me halfway around, the light tumbling to the floor and going out. I went down on both knees, forcing my gun hand back toward Tinkle, twisting my body and snapping a wild shot at him, then getting the gun barrel centered on his chest and firing twice so fast the shots blurred into one sound.
He started falling as I saw Artie’s hand digging under his coat, coming out with a snub-nosed revolver, but Artie never got the gun an inch away from his chest because I shot him in the head. Dimly I saw his body go limp, but like a crazy man I fired at him again, and heard the hammer fall on an empty cartridge. It was suddenly dark, but I triggered the gun still again, not even realizing the chambers were empty, not comprehending the darkness. I was like a man in a trance, sweat drenching my body and the taste of blood on my lips where I’d bitten them, the smell of cordite in my nostrils, and the drumming of blood in my brain.