When the chimes sounded Mortola went to the library doors and flung them open. He hesitated in the doorway a moment, then leaped back drawing the .45 from inside his coat. He fired it twice through the doorway, then crouched against the side of the wall as his shots were answered.
Ramero managed to get the gun halfway out of his coat before I jumped him. It exploded into my shoulder, almost deafening me, as his chair overturned and we fell to the floor grappling. We struggled fiercely to the loud cacophony of stacatto shots echoing and reechoing in the tall rooms. My right arm was useless and I couldn’t hold off Ramero. He hit me across the ear with the gun, kicked himself away and sprang to his feet like a cornered lynx. As I lunged up at him I knew he’d be able to fire the .38 before I made it, but his hand sagged miraculously and he slumped to the floor amid a burst of gunfire. I sprawled over his twitching body.
“It missed the bone,” Jack Holland diagnosed. We were sitting on the chesterfield and Jack was inspecting the wound in my arm. He looked very chic in a tight linen dress and a wide saucer hat with a red ribbon on it.
“Mrs. Holland, I know your son Jack. How is he?”
“He’s fine and dandy,” Jack said, “and he just saved your bloody life. When you didn’t show at the Green Slipper by eight o’clock, Hank Stroth left his men there and we tailed the hoods in the Buick up here. When they left again to pick up the girl we ran ’em in on the burglary charge. Our client lent me this rig. Hank and Sergeant Purdy switched clothes with Syd and Eddie, and escorted me here in the Buick.”
“Thank God for that.”
“I had an idea you’d be pleased. I was pretty sure you were inside.”
The library still smelled of gun smoke. The late Senor Ramero lay on his side on the floor, the 38 gripped tightly in his brown hand. Over by the door, Frankie Mortola sat against the wall with blood on his face and coat. Ashton Brubaker sat dreamily on the chesterfield, as if he had never moved. I said, “That leaves Benny Lufts.”
“He’s dead. Mortola hit him firing at us.” Jack looked regretfully at the gasping man in the doorway. “Mortola will live.”
“Good,” I said. “He’ll sing his head off when they cut his supply of hop.”
Hank Stroth, in pink shirt, gray suit and hat, entered the room. He had just met Robert Donaldson and Doris O’Rourke, and sent them home. “You take some chances, boy,” he growled at me. “What happens if these people come over here and there’s no police around?”
“I knew there’d be cops,” I explained, “since I told this whole story to you, a man of experience, keen powers of observation and a high degree of intelligence.”
Hank started to say something, but glanced at Brubaker and checked himself. Instead he said, “The whole coast has been alerted since you phoned me — police, sheriffs, state and government narcotics’ agencies. I just radioed the go ahead. Well swoop down on every mother’s son of them before morning.”
The ambulance crew came in and fussed with Mortola.
“The ambulance is outside,” Hank snapped at me. “Go on, get in it. I’ll have a long talk with you later about the way you’ve handled this case.” He stomped across the room and jerked the dazed Brubaker to his feet, clapped the cuffs on him in almost the same motion. Hank hit Brubaker across the face with his open hand and clipped, “Wake up, bigshot. Time to holler for a lawyer.”
I watched the attendants struggle to place the wounded Mortola on their stretcher. He had passed out, but even in repose his fat face scowled. Defense attorneys wouldn’t be heckling me much at this trial. Frankie Mortola was going to talk and talk and talk.
Bugged
by Bruno Fisher
We come up together from nothing. The three of us, me and Lew and Floyd. From nothing to the top. Then Lew gets bugged by this broad... a school teacher no less. I had to do something.
I know you’re in the room, bug. I think in the wall. You must’ve heard me and Floyd talking, so you know how we’re trapped.
Bug, do you hear me? You’re our one chance. Bring help.
A second car just pulled up behind the trees. Four guns now, but they’ll take their time on account they know how straight I can shoot. If I was running this from their side, I’d wait till dark before moving in. There’s time to save me, bug.
I don’t mean too much time. Could be there’s hardly any time.
This is all the thanks I get from Lew Angel. Did I wish him anything bad? All I did was for his own good. Sure, me and Floyd Finch were looking out for our own good too. What hurts Lew hurts us. Like they say in Washington, D.C., we’re a team.
I mean were.
We came up from nothing together, me and Lew and Floyd. It wasn’t easy. You take a city like this. It isn’t Chicago or even St. Louis, but it’s a city. Let a guy be five times as smart as Lew Angel, he doesn’t climb to the top of the rackets without he has help. My kind of help. Even Floyd’s kind.
Many a time I saved Lew’s life. And when somebody big needed cooling, who did Lew depend—
Well, never mind about that.
Fact is, I was a lot more to him than his muscle. More than his bodyguard I was his pal. All of a sudden, does this mean a thing to him? Nothing! On account of a dame.
Out there they’re not starting to make any move to close in. I’m at a window talking to you, bug, while I’m watching them among the trees. They look like they’re talking things over.
A school teacher. Those are the worst kind. A kindergarten teacher, no less.
There’s Lew Angel, so big in town he can get hot-looking dames by the dozen by reaching out for them. Who does he reach for? Who’s he been dating two, three times a week this last month? Esther Hunt.
I don’t mean she’s bad-looking. It’s just that if you stood on a street corner with nothing to do, you’d hardly bother giving her the double-o as she walked by. Kind of small and very quiet. And no idea of fun.
Tuesday night I found out what Esther Hunt was doing to Lew.
We picked her up at eight o’clock at her run-down, walk-up apartment house. Usually Lew liked to drive, but when she was with him they sat in back, leaving me sitting alone in front like I was nothing but a chauffeur. And they held hands like a couple of teenagers. This was all he was ever getting out of her, holding hands and a good-night kiss, and from the looks of her I didn’t think he’d ever get more. Go figure him. For this he had to become the big wheel in the rackets?
She dragged us to see Shakespeare, no less.
Lew’s dates used to be pleasure. Hot spots and parties. If we went to the theater you could see something you could laugh at or stacked dames with hardly any clothes on. With Esther Hunt, Shakespeare! And the time before a symphony concert. And one afternoon I got sore feet tagging after them in the municipal art gallery. What a guy will do for a dame!
But you know something? This Shakespeare isn’t as bad as he’s cracked up to be. The play was about a Scotchman name of Macbeth and how he and his missus knocked off the king so he could become king. Just like in real life. Like right here in our own town when Yank Sands was top man in the rackets and Lew was moving up and one night me and Lew—
Never mind.
I was talking about Tuesday night. The show was over and me and Lew and Esther Hunt were moving up the aisle when a guy in front turned around. It was Allen W. McGoldrich, the new D.A., who one of the reasons he got elected was he promised the voters he’d put Lew Angel in jail.
McGoldrich said sarcastic-like, “So it’s true what I hear about you, Angel, you’re on a culture kick.”