I crashed five red lights on the way back but my luck was in and nobody pinched me. I parked more or less in front of my apartment house and more or less near the curb. I rode to my floor in the elevator, had a little trouble opening the doors and helped myself out with my bottle. I got the key into my door and unlocked it and stepped inside and found the light switch. I took a little more of my medicine before exhausting myself any further. Then I started for the kitchen to get some ice and ginger ale for a real drink.
I thought there was a funny smell in the apartment — nothing I could put a name to offhand — a sort of medicinal smell. I hadn’t put it there and it hadn’t been there when I went out. But I felt too well to argue about it. I started for the kitchen, got about halfway there.
They came out at me, almost side by side, from the dressing room beside the wall bed — two of them — with guns. The tall one was grinning. He had his hat low on his forehead and he had a wedge-shaped face that ended in a point, like the bottom half of the ace of diamonds. He had dark moist eyes and a nose so bloodless that it might have been made of white wax. His gun was a Colt Woodsman with a long barrel and the front sight filed off. That meant he thought he was good.
The other was a little terrierlike punk with bristly reddish hair and no hat and watery blank eyes and bat ears and small feet in dirty white sneakers. He had an automatic that looked too heavy for him to hold up, but he seemed to like holding it. He breathed open-mouthed and noisily and the smell I had noticed came from him in waves — menthol.
«Reach, you bastard,» he said.
I put my hands up. There was nothing else to do.
The little one circled around to the side and came at me from the side. «Tell us we can’t get away with it,» he sneered.
«You can’t get away with it,» I said.
The tall one kept on grinning loosely and his nose kept on looking as if it was made of white wax. The little one spat on my carpet. «Yah!» He came close to me, leering, and made a pass at my chin with the big gun.
I dodged. Ordinarily that would have been just something which, in the circumstances, I had to take and like. But I was feeling better than ordinary. I was a world-beater. I took them in sets, guns and all. I took the little man around the throat and jerked him hard against my stomach, put a hand over his little gun hand and knocked the gun to the floor. It was easy. Nothing was bad about it but his breath. Blobs of saliva came out on his lips. He spit curses.
The tall man stood and leered and didn’t shoot. He didn’t move. His eyes looked a little anxious, I thought, but I was too busy to make sure. I went down behind the little punk, still holding him, and got hold of his gun. That was wrong. I ought to have pulled my own.
I threw him away from me and he reeled against a chair and fell down and began to kick the chair savagely. The tall man laughed.
«It ain’t got any firing pin in it,» he said.
«Listen,» I told him earnestly, «I’m half full of good Scotch and ready to go places and get things done. Don’t waste much of my time. What do you boys want?»
«It still ain’t got any firing pin in it,» Waxnose said. «Try and see. I don’t never let Frisky carry a loaded rod. He’s too impulsive. You got a nice arm action there, pal. I will say that for you.»
Frisky sat up on the floor and spat on the carpet again and laughed. I pointed the muzzle of the big automatic at the floor and squeezed the trigger. It clicked dryly, but from the balance it felt as if it had cartridges in it.
«We don’t mean no harm,» Waxnose said. «Not this trip. Maybe next trip? Who knows? Maybe you’re a guy that will take a hint. Lay off the Jeeter kid is the word. See?»
«No.»
«You won’t do it?»
«No, I don’t see. Who’s the Jeeter kid?»
Waxnose was not amused. He waved his long .22 gently. «You oughta get your memory fixed, pal, about the same time you get your door fixed. A pushover that was. Frisky just blew it in with his breath.»
«I can understand that,» I said.
«Gimme my gat,» Frisky yelped. He was up off the floor again, but this time he rushed his partner instead of me.
«Lay off, dummy,» the tall one said. «We just got a message for a guy. We don’t blast him. Not today.»
«Says you!» Frisky snarled and tried to grab the .22 out of Waxnose’s hand. Waxnose threw him to one side without trouble but the interlude allowed me to switch the big automatic to my left hand and jerk out my Luger. I showed it to Waxnose. He nodded, but did not seem impressed.
«He ain’t got no parents,» he said sadly. «I just let him run around with me. Don’t pay him no attention unless he bites you. We’ll be on our way now. You get the idea. Lay off the Jeeter kid.»
«You’re looking at a Luger,» I said. «Who is the Jeeter kid? And maybe we’ll have some cops before you leave.»
He smiled wearily. «Mister, I pack this small-bore because I can shoot. If you think you can take me, go to it.»
«O.K.,» I said. «Do you know anybody named Arbogast?»
«I meet such a lot of people,» he said, with another weary smile. «Maybe yes, maybe no. So long, pal. Be pure.»
He strolled over to the door, moving a little sideways, so that he had me covered all the time, and I had him covered, and it was just a case of who shot first and straightest, or whether it was worthwhile to shoot at all, or whether I could hit anything with so much nice warm Scotch in me. I let him go. He didn’t look like a killer to me, but I could have been wrong.
The little man rushed me again while I wasn’t thinking about him. He clawed his big automatic out of my left hand, skipped over to the door, spat on the carpet again, and slipped out. Waxnose backed after him — long sharp face, white nose, pointed chin, weary expression. I wouldn’t forget him.
He closed the door softly and I stood there, foolish, holding my gun. I heard the elevator come up and go down again and stop. I still stood there. Marty Estel wouldn’t be very likely to hire a couple of comics like that to throw a scare into anybody. I thought about that, but thinking got me nowhere. I remembered the half-bottle of Scotch I had left and went into executive session with it.
An hour and a half later I felt fine, but I still didn’t have any ideas. I just felt sleepy.
The jarring of the telephone bell woke me. I had dozed off in the chair, which was a bad mistake, because I woke up with two flannel blankets in my mouth, a splitting headache, a bruise on the back of my head and another on my jaw, neither of them larger than a Yakima apple, but sore for all that. I felt terrible. I felt like an amputated leg.
I crawled over to the telephone and humped myself in a chair beside it and answered it. The voice dripped icicles.
«Mr. Marlowe? This is Mr. Jeeter. I believe we met this morning. I’m afraid I was a little stiff with you.»
«I’m a little stiff myself. Your son poked me in the jaw. I mean your stepson, or your adopted son — or whatever he is.»
«He is both my stepson and my adopted son. Indeed?» He sounded interested. «And where did you meet him?»
«In Miss Huntress’ apartment.»
«Oh I see.» There had been a sudden thaw. The icicles had melted. «Very interesting. What did Miss Huntress have to say?»
«She liked it. She liked him poking me in the jaw.»
«I see. And why did he do that?»
«She had him hid out. He overheard some of our talk. He didn’t like it.»
«I see. I have been thinking that perhaps some consideration — not large, of course — should be granted to her for her co-operation. That is, if we can secure it.»
«Fifty grand is the price.»