I stared down at him. My forefinger tightened on the trigger of the .45. I had to shake my head to clear it of murder. Mike’s bloody, battered face kept looking at me from the slab down at headquarters.
I heard the phone ringing suddenly. A jangling, jarring tingle of sound that brought me back to the present and where I was. Enemy territory.
It rang again. I scooped it to my ear, keeping an eye on the door, wondering how long it would take for Big Nick’s cavalry to show up.
“Yeah?” I made my voice gruff and careless like Big Nick’s. On a hunch.
“Nickie! I’m so glad you’re in. It’s me, Dolly. Nickie, I’m scared.” It was a girl’s voice, soft yet hard with fear. I thought fast. Dolly. Dolly Warren. The featured blues singer at the club. Nick’s club, the Blue Grotto. The lovely face on the show case display outside.
“Keep talking,” I said. “I’m busy.”
“Oh, Nickie. I’m just getting ready to come down to the club for my number when I happen to look out the window and, Nickie, there’s a man watchin’ my place! I noticed him this mornin’ too.” She was wailing like a sick kid.
She was scared all right. I had heard fear before and she sounded like she had a solid dose.
“Stay put,” I barked into the transmitter. “I’ll send somebody over.”
“Oh, Nickie.” She was moaning again. “I’m scared.”
“Shut up,” I said.
“Do you think it has anything to do with that cop you had to get rid of?”
“You crazy canary, don’t talk no more.”
That’s the way Big Nick would have shut her up. I never knew how I managed to keep the elation out of my voice. Right in my lap. She hadn’t said it all but she had said enough. Later, I’d make her sing her head off in front of the police.
Dolly Warren started to mumble apologies but I cut her off. “Stay where you are. Be right over.”
My fingers were trembling when I put the phone down. I bolstered the .45 before I blasted Torrento right where he sat. Mike Peters’ murder had hit me harder than I thought. But I needed more proof before I delivered the bullet to Big Nick.
I got out of the office, leaving him inert in the chair behind me. I carefully checked the long, low-ceilinged corridor. The hall was empty. The landing that led into the environs of the club showed no trouble.
Velvet was exactly where I had left him. Manacled to the railing, midway from Big Nick’s private office. The strongarm man’s eyes glared at me above the handkerchief wadded firmly in his jaws.
I retrieved the cuffs. Velvet tore at the gag and I let him have it again with the butt end of the .45. He collapsed without a whimper.
But my luck had changed. Coming over the landing on the dead run were a trio of shiny-haired men who must have spotted the scene from above. One quick look was enough. They were Big Nick’s boys and loaded for bear.
I raced back the way I had come as a hoarse shout went up and gunfire ripped the confines of the corridor. I snapped a shot over my shoulder to discourage pursuit. It did. There was a mad scramble of dress suits for sections of safety.
There was a large frame window at the alley side of the end of the hall. I’d come in that way. It could serve as an exit, too. The alley was about six feet down.
I had one leg over the sill, ready to snap off another shot, when a noisy, searing poker buried itself somewhere in my left shoulder. The impact of the bullet sent me flying through the wide opening and I fell the rest of the way. The alley bottom crunched like conch shells beneath me. Knives of agony shot up my legs, reached the burning shoulder and the poker throbbed like a pneumatic drill. Behind me, more guns crashed.
I jerked another shot upward and lurched down the alley toward the street. Hugging the wall, I half ran, half dragged myself to my car.
I had finally stopped one. After years in the war and one police battle after the other, I had finally caught my bullet.
But all that was really unimportant; the only thing that counted was the bullet for Big Nick Torrento.
Dolly Warren was going to help me deliver that one.
She was gorgeous. Very gorgeous.
Milk skin, red mouth and dazzling blond hair that had to be her own. But she was stupid too. I could see it in the off-color eyes when she swung the door back and peered suspiciously at me over a span of chain lock.
“Who are you? What do you want? I don’t know you.”
“Nick sent me, Dolly. About that call and the party outside your window.” I had to fight to keep the agony out of my voice. The shoulder had become a throbbing fire. The bullet had gone right on through without hitting a bone but it had cost me more blood than a handkerchief could stop.
“You must be a new one. Come on in. I got the creeps I guess.” The door swung inward as she drew the chain with a clank of sound. She had been obviously drinking and was still too frightened to make the effort at thinking.
I followed her through a tiny hallway into one of the most expensively furnished apartments I’d ever been in on Central Park South. There were rich, deep rugs scattered all over the floor, fancy objets d’art cluttering every inch of the place. Nothing matched. The extreme decor of a built-in bar in the living room wasn’t lost on me in spite of my condition.
Dolly Warren plumped down on a mountainous divan of fluffy cushions and poured herself a stiff drink from a chrome decanter. She looked at me as she swallowed her drink.
“Where’s Nickie?” she snapped peevishly. “Why didn’t he come? After all, I’m his girl.”
I managed a weak smile. “Cops paid him a visit. Routine stuff. So Nick had to hang around to answer some questions. After all, he isn’t running a civic center, lady.”
She sneered and her beautiful face suddenly wasn’t beautiful. “Funny man.” A cloud shadowed her sneer. “You don’t think their comin’ had anythin’ to do with— Say! What did you say your name was?”
I sat down with a short laugh, keeping my left side away from her so she couldn’t see the stiff hang of the shoulder.
“Williams. Ted Williams. How about a drink, hon?”
I tapped the decanter so that it rang like a bell. She shrugged her bared shoulders and for the first time I was conscious of what she was wearing. A low-cut evening gown with a sash arrangement that accented her tigerish hips. I concluded it was the outfit she wore when she did her stuff at the Blue Grotto. She didn’t have to sing in an outfit like that. I also concluded that she didn’t know anything about baseball, the Washington Senators, or anything. The sky might be the limit, she was so stupid. Names meant nothing to her.
“I signed on with Nick last week,” I explained as I might to a child. “I like a big operator. And Nick’s plenty big enough for me. I go for a guy who’s not afraid of the cops.”
“Nick’s not scared of anything.” She nodded so hard her golden curls seemed to dance. “When one of those guys get too close, he swats them down like flies.”
“Just like this Peters copper, huh?”
“Just like that—” She stiffened and for a moment a flash of reasoning came into her blank light blue eyes. It was gone just as quickly. Her fright had come back.
“Never mind about that now. What about that guy beneath my window? Ain’t you goin’ to go down and see who he is?”
I shrugged my good shoulder at her. “What guy? Listen, I cased this place before coming in. If there was anybody hanging around before, he’s gone now.”
She flounced to the window and peered through dotted Swiss curtains. She whirled in disbelief. “He’s gone! How do you like that? He’s not there anymore.” She clamped her hands to her forehead.