As I started to push the still-dazed Stub on toward the stairs, the boy twisted on the floor and screamed, “Don’t let that cop out of here! Kill them both!”
Up to that moment I’d had the rest of the mob pretty well cowed, none of them wanting to make the first move against me. But the muscular boy’s enraged scream acted as a trigger.
Abruptly the crowd stopped opening a reluctant lane before us and we were suddenly walled in. A dozen clicks sounded as switch knives appeared.
I told myself that probably a third of the crowd was full of heroin, and even though they were a bunch of kids, some as young as fourteen and none of them over eighteen, it was time for shock tactics if either Stub or I expected to get out alive.
Keeping my hold on Stub’s arm, I said with a weariness I was far from feeling, “You kids are beginning to bore the hell out of me.”
Then I dipped my hand under my arm, flicked the safety off my P-38 and smashed a bullet into the light bulb immediately over our heads.
Instinctively every kid around us recoiled. Somebody yelled unnecessarily, “He’s got a gun!”
I took careful aim and shot out the other light twenty feet away.
Pandemonium set in as the room plunged into pitch darkness. I reholstered my gun before some kid could bump into me in the dark and accidentally set it off again.
All around us there were shouts, curses and the noise of people stumbling over each other. I made directly for the stairs, moving ahead of Stub and dragging him along behind me. Whenever we ran into anyone in the dark, I put my right hand under his chin, if I could find it, or against his chest if I couldn’t, and pushed, a maneuver which was invariably followed by the sound of several boys falling and thrashing around on the floor in an attempt to untangle themselves from each other.
We had made the foot of the stairs before anyone thought to flick on a lighter.
At the first flash of light every boy in the room got the idea, however. Within seconds matches and lighter flames sprang to life all over the club room.
I pushed Stub up the first two steps and said, “Move!”
In the flickering light I could see the entire horde surge toward us.
At the top of the stairs, I unlatched the door, put my hand in the middle of Stub’s back and shoved. Not waiting to see if he retained his feet, I turned my back on him, gripped either side of the door jamb and raised my right knee to my chest.
When the first boy reached the top of the stairs, I planted my aluminum foot in the center of his chest and shoved. His mouth popped open and he spread his arms wide in a sort of backward swan dive.
The flickering lights on the stairway winked out as milling bodies rolled down the stairs amid thumps and roars of anger and yells of pain.
When I slammed the door shut, I found Stub dazedly resting on his hands and knees where he had fallen after my shove. Jerking him erect, I hustled him out to the street.
Outside Dave O’Brien peered at us frightenedly.
“What were those shots?”
“Ask me later,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”
I started to trot toward my car at the corner, dragging Stub Carlson along. Recognizing that something was wrong with Stub, the redheaded O’Brien grabbed his other arm. Between us we managed to work him up to a fair burst of speed.
When we reached the car, I left Stub for Dave to manage and raced around to the driver’s side. While I was getting the engine started, Dave helped Stub into the front seat and slid in next to him.
Since Stub’s home was only a block from the basement club room, I decided that wouldn’t be the safest place in the world to take him with sixty out-of-control youngsters after our hides. While I doubted that even with a third of them hopped up they’d go so far as trying to beat down his door, I saw no point in taking the chance. Anyway, in their present mood, they’d almost certainly strip my car and possibly wreck it completely, if they found it parked in front of Stub’s place.
I drove right on past and headed for the El Patio, Fausta Moreni’s place.
When we had traveled a couple of blocks Stub groaned and inched his back away from the seat.
Dave O’Brien asked, “What’s the matter with him?”
I gave him a brief rundown of what had happened in the club room.
“My God!” the redhead said in an awed voice. “Have the guys gone crazy?”
“Just temporarily,” I said. “They’re full of H and they’ve been whipped into a mob. And I’d guess on Buzz Thurmond’s orders.”
After a moment I added reflectively, “I think I’m going to enjoy meeting the Purple Pelicans’ friend and advisor.”
10
I took Stub to El Patio for two reasons. The first was that, except for jail, I couldn’t think of a safer place in town to take him, both because of its structure and because of its personnel. The second reason was that I knew he’d be welcome.
It was typical of its proprietress, Fausta Moreni, that she didn’t question the advisability of harboring a kid who was sought by gangsters. She helped put Stub on a cot and made him comfortable while I called a doctor to see him. The doctor was Tom Mason, a tall and skinny man in his early forties, who told me that Stub was in mild shock and would have to rest for a few days. When I let him know that Inspector Warren Day was interested in the whole incident which caused Stub’s beating, since it concerned a murder he was interested in, and that I’d tell Warren about the beating, he let it go at that and didn’t report it to the police. I told him I thought an adult put the kids up to the beating, and if a lot of cops descended on the neighborhood where it took place, he’d probably take to cover. I wanted him out in the open where I could get at him.
Once Stub was taken care of, I put Dave O’Brien in a taxi and sent him home. When I went home myself I knew Stub was in good hands. Prior to being taken over by its present owner, Fausta Moreni, the El Patio had been a gambling casino, and it had been constructed with the idea of making it invulnerable to both hijackers and raiding cops. It was like a medium-sized gray prison, even to ornamental but burglar-proof bars on the lower windows, and it was isolated in the center of a three-acre patch of ground at the extreme south edge of town.
On the off-chance that Buzz Thurmond or one of his pals managed to break into the building anyway, or the more likely chance that an attack might be made during the time the club was open for business, I talked to my old friend Mouldy Greene, Fausta’s bouncer and formerly a basic in the company where I was first sergeant during my army days. He still called me “Sarge,” and I’d given up trying to break him of the habit for fear he’d coin me an even more picturesque nickname.
Mouldy, a nickname he’d acquired from army buddies because of a mild case of acne, wasn’t long on brains, but he could follow orders to the letter. I told him to refuse to allow Stub to leave El Patio under any circumstances until I countermanded the order.
“Sure, Sarge,” he said. “Want me to lock him in my room daytime?”
“Of course not. He’s not a prisoner. He’s just here for his own protection.”
“He’ll get it,” Mouldy promised.
He would, too, I knew. Since I’d given Mouldy such strict orders, there was the risk that if I dropped dead Stub would remain a prisoner for life. But at least I was reasonably certain he’d be safe. I was tempted to give Mouldy contingent instructions in case I did drop dead, but decided cluttering his mind with anything more would only confuse him. With Mouldy it’s best to keep things as simple as possible. “I don’t think there’s a chance in a hundred any of the Purple Pelicans would make a try for him here,” I told him, “even when they’re full of heroin. But keep on the lookout for purple jackets anyway.”