Bowman jerked out his .45 in a motion quicker than conscious thought. “Come on,” he snarled. “Who’s first? By God, I’ll nail the first one who plugs me—and if you don’t shoot straight, I’ll take out two or three of you before I go.”
The tableau held for perhaps three heartbeats. The elephant trumpeted again. The door to the warehouse opened. “Drop the guns!” Detective Roland Dwyer shouted. His own pistol covered the group impartially. Behind him came Henry Bock, and behind him two men in uniform. All were armed. “Drop ’em!” Dwyer repeated. “Hands high!”
Nicholas Alexandria let his little automatic fall. It clattered on the walkway. Then Hugo threw down his gun. So did Gina Tellini. At last, with a shrug, Gideon Schlechtman surrendered.
Bowman stepped back against the wall, the heavy pistol still in his hand. Captain Henry Bock might have had something to say about that. Before he could speak, Dwyer asked Bowman, “Just what the hell is going on here, Miles?”
Bowman pointed to Gina Tellini and said: “She’s the one who fingered Wellnhofer. Had to be: I visited the docks right after I saw her, and I had the list of ships I was going to check in my trouser pocket then.”
“How’d she have a chance to find out what was in your trouser pocket without you knowing it?” Bock demanded, leering.
“You said you loved me,” Gina Tellini hissed.
“Loved you?” Bowman shook his head. “You must have heard wrong, sweetheart. I’m a married man.” He went on talking to Detective Dwyer: “She may have fingered Tom for that Evan Thursday item, too. I don’t know that for a fact, but you knew Tom. He wouldn’t have been easy to take down, not unless somebody recognized him who wasn’t supposed to. Or she may have shot him herself. Tom would go after anything in a skirt.”
“Yeah, ” Dwyer said. One of the uniformed policemen behind him nodded.
“I figure laughing boy here probably canceled Wellnhofer’s stamp.” Bowman jerked a thumb at Hugo. “Gina and Schlechtman knew each other pretty well, and Hugo’s Schlechtman’s hired gun.”
“So who did Thursday?” Roland Dwyer asked.
“Could have been Hugo again,” Bowman answered, shrugging. “Or it could have been sweetheart here” —he grinned at Nicholas Alexandria, who returned a hate-filled glare— “on account of I’m not sure if Hugo was in town yet.”
Dwyer pointed to Gideon Schlechtman. “What about him?”
“The hell with it,” Captain Bock said. “He’s in it some kind of way. We’ll take ’em all in and sort it out later. ” He gestured to the uniformed policemen. They advanced with their handcuffs. The one who cuffed Gina Tellini shoved her lightly in the middle of the back. She stumbled out of the warehouse. The others glumly followed.
You almost got too cute for your own good, Miles,” Detective Dwyer said. “If that witness hadn’t heard Wellnhofer spill to you—and if he hadn’t decided to tell us about it—you wouldn’t have had yourself a whole lot of fun, didn’t look like.” He stared down at the elephant. It pulled hay from a bale with its trunk and stuffed it into his mouth. “What the devil were you doing here, anyway?”
“Who, me?” Bowman replaced his Colt in its holster. “I was just on a wild elephant chase, Rollie, that’s all.”
“Yeah?” Dwyer’s eyes swung to the door through which Gina Tellini had just gone. “You going to tell Eva all about it?”
“I’ll tell her what she needs to know: I got paid.”
Dwyer shook his head. “You’re a louse, Miles.”
“That’s what everybody tells me.” Miles Bowman laughed. “Thanks,” he said.