“You wouldn’t dare,” he repeated, but he didn’t sound quite so sure the second time.
“Get in the car, Clemmie,” I said, without looking at her.
I took a couple of steps toward Pete and he stayed right where he was.
“You shoot me, it’d be murder!” he said thickly. “In front of two witnesses, buddy! You wouldn’t stand a chance!”
“I don’t need to kill you, Pete,” I said conversationally. “Smash a kneecap maybe, shatter a wrist.”
He was a one idea at a time man, and this was a new idea so he had to think about it. While he was thinking about it, I took another step and that brought me up real close to him.
“How about this for another idea, Pete?” I said. Then I slammed the gunbarrel hard into his stomach, into the softness just below the rib cage, and the air came out of his lungs faster than a dame who’s just realized it didn’t say ladies on the door after all.
He started to bend in the middle and I lifted the gun high, out of his way, then laid the barrel across the side of his head just above the ear. It made a kind of thunk-ing noise when it hit, and I would’ve felt sorry for Pete right then, except I never could feel sorry for a guy like Pete. I stepped back as he hit the ground with his face, and stayed there limp.
I saw Clemmie’s white face staring at me from inside the car and grinned encouragingly at her. Then I walked across to where Sylvia stood with a white face.
“He’ll be O.K.,” I told her. “A sore head for a couple of days, that’s all.”
“That was the most brutal thing I’ve ever seen!” she said in a low voice. “You’re nothing but an animal!” “I’m taking Clemmie' somewhere where she’ll be safe until after Tier mothers estate is cleaned up,” I said. “You can tell Old Man Hazelton that, and tell him she’ll be where he can’t find her.”
“You won’t get far!” she said icily. “I’ll call the police right away—now.”
“Sure,” I said. “And while you’re talking to them you might mention that new feed you’re giving Sweet William —now there’s something that is real nervous!”
“What are you talking about?” she said blankly.
“You mean you don’t know?” I shook my head dubiously. “Well—if you really don’t know—there’s one easy way to find out. Why don’t you go take a look?”
I turned around and walked back to the car. As I slid in behind the steering wheel, Clemmie looked at me with her eyes glittering.
“That was the most exciting moment of my life!” she said in a shaking voice. “Did you kill him, Danny? Did you? Is he dead!”
“Just knocked out,” I said. “Take it easy, will you?” I started the car rolling down the tracks toward the gates, and fumbled for a cigarette.
“I was worried,” she said breathlessly. “Pete’s awful strong and everything. But when I saw you had a gun I knew it was going to be all right.”
“I’m real glad you had faith,” I told her thankfully. “It made all the difference.”
I swung the car out onto the road with its nose pointing toward Manhattan and trod down hard on the gas pedal.
“Would you have shot him if you had to, Danny?” she asked in a muffled voice.
“I guess so,” I said absently.
“I knew you would!” Clemmie sounded almost ecstatic. “I knew you would—I kept saying it over and over to myself all the time—‘Danny will shoot him, Danny will kill him!’ I wish you had!”
“You what?”
“I wish you had killed him, Danny.” There was an urgent, demanding note in her voice. “I’ve never seen a man killed before.”
“You figure it’s something every growing girl should see?”
“It would have been like growing up all at once,” she said wistfully. “Like the moment of truth at the bull-, fights, but this would have been so much better, Danny,
' don’t you see? This would have been a man who was killed, not just an animal!”
She started to cry suddenly, starting out in a soft whimper and finishing with loud, dry sobs. Her fist pounded my shoulder in an unsteady rhythm as I drove.
“You should have killed him, Danny,” she wailed. “I | wanted so much for you to kill him!”
Thirty minutes later I stopped at a roadside diner and we went in for lunch. Since the hysterics, Clemmie had been quiet, almost sullen, but she brightened up at the thought of food. I ordered steak sandwiches and coffee, and tried hard to ignore the smell of crisping bacon that sneaked up on my nose.
“This is terribly exciting, Danny,” Clemmie whispered loudly in my ear. “I’ve never done anything like this before.”
“Hell!” I said. “People eat in diners all the time.”
“I mean I’ve never been kidnapped before, you idiot!”
Her whisper had got louder still and it seemed to bounce off the walls. A truck jockey, the other side of her, turned his head slowly and scowled at me. He must have been over two hundred pounds and it looked all muscle. I figured if he ever got a breakdown, he just lifted his truck in j one hand and carried it home.
“You don’t have to whisper,” I told Clemmie. “We’re going back to New York, for now anyway, to my apartment.”
“Your apartment!” she squealed excitedly. “Are you
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going to keep me there all the time, Danny, with the door locked and everything? Maybe take all my clothes away even, so I can’t escape?**
The truck jockey’s eyes bulged suddenly and then his head moved quickly until his face was just six inches away from mine.
“Listen, Mac!” he said explosively. “I got a good mind to bust—”
“Relax,” I told him hastily. “She’s my sister—and she’s just kidding.”
He thought it over for a couple of seconds, then looked at Clemmie. “That right, lady?’*
“Why, no!” She looked up at him with wide, innocent eyes. “That isn’t right at all—he’s just a friend of my brother’s. You see, my brother owes him a couple of hundred dollars and he couldn’t pay it back. So Danny here,” she smiled sweetly at me, “suggested that if I went to New York with him for a week and stayed at his apartment, he’d forget about the money my brother owes him.”
The truck jockey was breathing heavily through his nose by the time she’d finished. He put his right hand on my shoulder and five steel talons dug cruelly into my flesh.
“So that’s how it is, Mac?” he said softly. “You trade a sweet little kid like this for a lousy coupla hundred bucks! So I’m giving you a new face to go along with the deal!”
The talons let go my shoulder suddenly and rearranged themselves into a bunched fist the size of Sweet William’s snout.
“Get your gun, Danny!” Clemmie hissed in a choked voice. “Quick! Get your gun and kill him, Danny—he’ll kill you if you don’t!”
The fist remained poised in the air for a second, then it quivered a little.
Clemmie stood there, her eyes closed tight, her whole body shaking with excitement.
“Kill him, Danny,” she repeated stiffly through
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clenched teeth. “Shoot him in the stomach—he asked for it!”
The truck jockey dropped his arm back to his side | and took another look at her. A trickle of sweat ran [ down one side of his face and he wiped it away with I the back of his hand absently. Then he looked at me i again.
“Whatsa matter with this dame?” he asked hoarsely. “She lost her marbles or something?”
I loosened my coat so he could see the butt of the .38 protruding from the leather holster, then widened my | eyes so the whites showed.
“There’s nothing with the dame, Mac,” I said in a I grating voice. “Just figure you made yourself a lucky ! break and you’ve still got your marbles!”
The trickle of sweat down the side of his face rapidly changed into a steady stream. He backed off a pace 1 quickly, with his coordination not functioning a hundred ; per cent, so he bumped another guy on the way.
“I guess a guy can make a mistake,” he said in a jerky | voice. “Sorry.” Then he walked rapidly toward the door.