I laughed at him. “Take it off.”
He put on his hat.
“How far can you walk with two broken legs?” I asked.
He looked at me belligerently, then his expression turned uncertain. He glanced at his wife, started to swell his chest with bravado, looked back at me and suddenly deflated.
I said: “Take it off.”
He hung up his coat and hat again and sat down. Gloria watched placidly as I dialed the phone.
Instead of the sleepy answer I expected, a wide awake voice growled: “City police.”
“This is Moon,” I said.
“Moon? Manville Moon?”
“Yeah.”
“Been trying to get your apartment for two hours. Hang on.”
A half minute passed and then Warren Day’s voice complained: “Don’t you ever stay home?”
“Seldom. What got you up at two A.M.?”
“Work. We got the O’Conner thing solved.”
I said: “Yeah?”
“It was an accident. Gerald Foster, the other name on the bracelet, turned up twenty miles down the river. He drifted farther, you see.”
I said: “Obviously.”
“They were just a couple of kids out canoeing who upset and drowned. Reason we didn’t get it sooner, they lived on the Illinois side and the cops over there didn’t contact us till they saw our story in the papers.”
I asked: “So why are you looking for me?”
“Want to talk to you. This leaves Byron Wade wide open on the Bagnell thing again.”
“Forget him,” I said. “Wait till you see what I got. Send the wagon to 1418 Newberry, Apartment C.” I hung up before he could ask questions.
When I returned to the living room, Amos was beginning to sweat and the fuzz over his ears stood out with static electricity from his furious rubbing.
“Look,” he said. “I didn’t bump Bagnell. I can explain everything.”
I lifted my hat and coat from their peg. Amos started to talk rapidly, as though afraid I might cut him off before he got out the whole story.
“I got to thinking that night after I got to work, and I began to wonder if maybe Gloria might be out with Bagnell even after I warned her. So I phoned home and got no answer. That worried me more. I jumped in my car, drove here and sure enough, Gloria was gone. Naturally I got mad and decided to go yank her home. I knew where to look, but when I got near El Patio, I got cold feet and decided I’d just watch for her to come out instead of going in after her. So I parked half off the road where you found the tire tracks and just sat there. I didn’t even get out of the car. After a while a siren sounded and a police car pulled into the drive right behind me. I figured the joint was getting raided, so I scrammed.”
“Why the tire switch?”
“When Gloria didn’t come home, I figured she got caught in the raid and was probably in jail overnight. That didn’t worry me none. I figured it would serve her right.” He leered at his wife in the doorway. “But when you’re used to someone in the house, you don’t feel comfortable without her, even if she is a moron. I couldn’t sleep, so about four in the morning I turned on the radio for news. A flash about the murder came over and right away I thought about leaving tire marks and how unusual my tread was. I didn’t want to be tied up in no murder. First I thought about driving back to El Patio and rubbing out the tracks, but I was afraid I’d get caught and make it look even worse. Then I remembered the night station attendant where I buy gas offered me four synthetics about a week ago. So I climbed in my car, ran over to his place and made a deal for the switch. I had the tires changed right then, and beat it back home to bed.”
“Makes a nice story,” I said.
“It’s the honest truth.” He looked up at me earnestly.
A siren sounded in the distance and grew louder.
I said: “You can put on your hat and coat now.”
It had stopped raining by the time I got home at 8:00 A.M. Sleepily I pushed open my apartment door and switched on the light while still holding the key. The first thing I saw was Danny. He sat with his hat on facing me, his feet braced against the floor and both hands jammed in his coat pockets.
Even though I knew he was a coked-up psychopath and that hands-in-pockets was his melodramatic stance in preparation for a draw, he caught me off guard again. His screwball stance lulled you into a sense of security, because it looked so impossible for that obviously empty right hand to move clear to his armpit with any speed. Maybe that was the psychology.
So with my right arm straight out to the light switch, and with the key held between index finger and thumb. I stopped to ask questions instead of starting to draw.
I said: “How’d you get in?”
His right hand moved with incredible speed. It moved so fast, it was darting beneath his arm before I got around to dropping the key and starting my own hand inward.
I might as well have saved the effort. By the time my fingers touched the butt, I was looking into the narrow bore of his target pistol.
He said tauntingly: “I thought you were supposed to be fast, Mister Moon.”
“I probably don’t sniff enough coke,” I said.
His eyelids narrowed around widely dilated pupils. “That smart tongue gets you in trouble, Mister Moon. I’m surprised you’ve lived as long as you have. Turn around.”
I turned around, and Danny carefully relieved me of my P .38.
“Forward march,” he said.
We went down the stairs in single file, with me leading the column. After the rain the moon had come out huge and brilliant, and as Danny prodded me up the street I began to hope someone would see us. But the streets were deserted. A half-block from my apartment we stopped next to a brand new Oldsmobile.
“Get in,” Danny said.
I got in the right front seat.
“Under the wheel,” Danny said.
I moved over under the wheel and Danny slipped in next to me. “Head out highway 42.”
“Listen, Junior,” I said. “My right leg is only good for walking. I can’t drive a car.”
“Use your left. This job is hydromatic. All you got to push is a brake pedal.”
I said: “I haven’t got a license.”
“Do you want it right here?” Danny asked.
I started the car. I have driven cars with both a clutch and brake pedal and this was a snap, but I made it look difficult. I sat side-saddle with my left foot where my right should have been, and my right over in Danny’s territory. At every stop sign I tried killing the engine, but with that blamed hydromatic clutch the car practically drove itself, and I finally gave up and just drove.
When we reached the highway I asked: “This Wade’s idea, or your own?”
“My own,” Danny said. “Nobody pushes me around and lives to brag about it. Not even the tough Mister Moon.”
About a mile short of North Shore Club Danny ordered me to turn off on a dirt road. The road ended suddenly at the river bank. On the principle that when you’re in a spot any added confusion is a help, I pretended difficulty with the controls and kept on going for the bank. Danny spoiled my fun by cutting the ignition, and we stopped six feet short of the water.
“Get out,” he said.
I got out and stood waiting. Danny centered his little .22 between my eyes.
“Don’t feel put out,” he said. “You’re getting it from the best there is.”
“The best at what?”
“With one of these.” He moved the slim barrel of his gun slightly. “There isn’t anybody faster. Nobody at all. And I can light a match head at twenty yards.”
I said: “Remember how Houdini died? A kid hit him in the stomach when he wasn’t expecting it.”
In the moonlight his eyes were puzzled. “So what?”
“Any amateur can get the jump if the other guy has no warning. A ten-year-old kid could outdraw you if he just walked up and drew when you weren’t expecting it.”