He wouldn’t kill Pope. He wasn’t a wanton killer. But he might have to shatter an ankle with a slug from the .32. Pope had to be put out of action before he could sweep up the .45 again.
Pope’s lunge surprised the detective. Instead of going for the .45, Pope had launched himself in a dive straight at the .32. His face was contorted, one ear was bloody. His yell was loud, and palms at the end of stiff arms loomed large. Shayne was too late with the .32. He triggered a shot but the slug sailed under the flying Pope.
Then Pope’s palms smashed the detective’s shoulders and Shayne went backward off-balance. He was out of control for just an instant. But that instant was long enough to be fatal. He knew he was going into the black gap. Somewhere he lost the .32. He clawed air reflexively.
And then he was going down, down, down.
XII
The free fall was a strange sensation, and Mike Shayne was surprised that he still had his wits, that thoughts tumbled one after another through his skull. He had thought a man plunging helplessly through black space with no chance for survival might blank out.
The clawing fingers of his right hand hooked into something. His body continued to plunge. And then suddenly there was a tremendous yank against his arm as his feet swung under him. The jerk strained his arm and the hooked fingers, but the realization that he somehow had briefly stopped the free fall flooded him with new strength from an unknown source. He kept the fingers hooked as he yelled against the shots of pain that splayed down the length of his arm and into his massive shoulder.
Abruptly, he was swaying in space. He clung desperately, continued to sway. He wanted to stop the motion of his body, but he had no control as he moved back and forth across the width of the dark shaft. He knew he was hanging by the one hand, that the strength of his arm and the hook of his fingers were his lone salvation.
His body weight pulled at his arm and fingers, and he knew that in another few seconds that weight was to win the tug-of-war with the arm and fingers. But he forced himself to remain calm, wait until the momentum of the swaying diminished.
The pain had moved from his shoulder into his spine now, dancing down his vertebrae like a child punishing stair-steps. He couldn’t hang on with the one hand much longer. The strain was too much.
The arc of his sway had lessened. He lifted his left hand, searching. The fingers found nothing. He ran the fingers along his strained right arm to the wrist, then stretched the fingers. They made contact with something. He tested the texture and knew he had found some kind of rope. He hooked his fingers through holes. Now he dangled from both hands. Guessing, he figured he was clutching heavy netting.
Netting dangling in an empty elevator shaft? He shook his head against the enormity of the probability of survival.
Tentatively, he loosed the fingers of his right hand, relieving the strain against that arm, shifting it to the left. The relief was brief. The fingers of his left hand seemed to be sliding, coming unhooked. It was as if they were greased.
Iris’ blood! It had made the fingers slick! He put all of the weight and strain back on his right arm as he freed his left hand and swiped it across the seat of his trousers. He re-gripped with both hands. The slickness was gone.
He glanced down. His eyes had become adjusted, and instead of blackness there was a shadowed dimness now. He could make out the walls of the shaft and down below there was a square patch of light on concrete. Sprawled in that patch was a body, a floppy hat off to the left.
It was at least three-and-a-half floors down to the dead Artist.
Shayne strained his neck and looked up. He saw another square of light to his right, maybe a half floor up. He knew it was the opening from the fourth floor of the building. He saw Pope framed in that opening.
Pope was on his hands and knees, unmoving, one of the guns gripped in his right hand. Two large, strange looking bulks dangled between the detective and Pope. They were just a few feet above Shayne and they swayed slightly.
He blinked hard against the bulks, his mind working, searching. A possibility flared, and he seemed to find new strength for his arms with the thought. He pulled himself up slightly, searched with his feet. Something dangled against his legs, but escaped his shoes.
He used his right shoe against the heel of his left. The left shoe dropped, clunked far below. He toed off the right shoe, again heard the clunk. He attempted to find a toehold, but couldn’t quite get the grip.
Dangling from his left hand, he used his right to peel off socks and drop them, then his toes hooked into netting and he transferred the tremendous strain from his arms to his powerful legs.
He swayed in the monkey position, remembering the morgue report on the death of the Caulkins boy to Gentry. Rope fibers on young Caulkins clothing. A fishy smell. He could be dangling from a fish net. Above him could be two kidnaped girls jailed in fish nets.
His mind worked. Kidnapings, the victims brought to an empty factory building where stolen fish nets had been rigged in an empty elevator shaft. Put the kids in the nets, shove them out into space where they’d dangle. Kids out of sight. No chance for escape.
Except among young Caulkins’ interests was gymnastics. And he could have been carrying a pocket knife. He could have sliced open the netting, turned to his prowess. He could have attempted to swing himself up into the opening above, missed and plunged to his death.
Shayne used his hands and toes to inch up the sliced netting. There were darker lumps inside the netting above him. One of the lumps did not stir. The other became the figure of a girl, hunched in a fetal position, feet free, but hands out of sight behind her and mouth taped. Shayne figured more tape held her wrists. The girl’s face took shape. He could see wide open, unblinking eyes above the slash of mouth tape, and the girl wiggled in the netting.
“Shayne!”
The shout from Pope made the detective freeze.
Pope was pointing the muzzle of the gun at a downward angle. Shayne waited for the splat of slug against his forehead. Then Pope laughed suddenly and stood. He looked huge in the gap of the opening.
“How much longer can you hang on, man?”
Pope laughed again and dug into the walls. He pulled the elevator doors together and shut off the light.
Shayne struggled upward for a few seconds while his eyes gradually re-adjusted to the new darkness. He risked a look down. The patch of light and the body were still down there.
Something bumped him lightly. He stared at the swaying lump. The girl in the fish net seemed to be attempting to tell him something with her eyes.
He croaked, “Hang easy, kid. The only way to go is up!”
Logic was his only salvation now. Down was certain death. And the sides of the shaft were closed. His single chance was up. The nets dangled. They had to dangle from something. From an old elevator housing. From I-beams. From hooks. From something. And maybe there was a door, an opening of some kind up there. Elevators had to be serviced from the top too…
He summoned strength and went up, fingers and toes working. He finally caught iron in his right hand, tested it. The iron was shaped into a hook and several strands of rope were bunched on the hook. He went on up, hand over hand, until he was able to plant his right foot in the hook.
He lengthened his body and sucked in a deep breath. The foot already was numbing. He looked up. There was a three-sided line of dim light. Maybe a trap door, hinged on the fourth side. He grasped the single thick strand of rope and hoisted his body. The top of his skull slammed against steel.
He dropped slightly, shook himself against the numbing sensation, then looped his right arm up over the I-beam. He slowly pulled the length of his body up and stretched out on the narrow surface of the beam, gasping for breath.