But it was a possible opening, and I didn't have so many I could ignore one, and the others were being covered. I watched the cab pull away. McConnell stood for a moment at the curb, at last putting on the jacket he'd carried around with him all night. He turned and walked straight at me.
There had been, of course, a certain probability that he'd proceed in my direction rather than moving away from me, or ducking into a nearby building, or darting across the street. There were only so many ways he could go. However, I saw from his manner that this had nothing to do with statistical probabilities. He knew where I was parked and he was coming to me, maybe to tell me something important, maybe just to give me hell for shadowing him, probably the latter.
Abruptly he stopped, looking beyond me. There were headlights in my mirrors, coming up fast. McConnell turned to run. I reached over, hit the door handle on the curb side, dove to the sidewalk, rolled, and came up with a gun in my hand, but it was too late.
There were two of them, in one of those fat-tired, souped-up, fast-back little sport coupes, complete with fake racing stripes, that are America's current answer to the true European sports car. You may like them or you may not-I don't, particularly-but you've got to admit that not much can beat them for sheer acceleration. Some of them even have pretty good brakes nowadays, a real innovation for Detroit.
The coupe shot past as I was picking myself off the sidewalk, and slowed sharply beyond me. I saw a short shotgun barrel thrust out the right-hand window. It flamed twice in the night and McConnell fell; then the rub-out men were getting out of there with shrieking tires and snarling exhausts, and I still hadn't had a clear shot at them.
Punching holes in automobiles isn't exactly what the standard short-barreled.38 Special does best. There's something to be said for the big guns after all, and I'd pulled out the.44 I was still lugging around since nobody else seemed to want it. The coupe was receding fast. I cocked the massive revolver as I thrust it out two-handed, and I let it fire when the front sight blade steadied on the left half of the slanting rear window.
Even with two hands gripping it hard, the cannon kicked so hard you wouldn't believe it. The coupe swerved violently across the street and plowed into the parked cars there. After a moment, the right-hand door opened and the shotgunner staggered out, still clutching his weapon, a semi-automatic job that would hold at least three shells, probably more. What I mean is, even if he hadn't managed to reload, he probably had ammunition left.
I saw no reason why he should get any breaks from me, and shotguns scare hell out of me anyway, so I didn't wait for him to swing the weapon towards me. I just knocked him over while he was still looking for a target. The heavy.44 slug chopped him down like a tree. I waited, but he didn't move, and neither did the driver of the car, as far as I could make out through the damaged rear glass.
My hands were tingling from the kick of the Magnum, and my ears were ringing from the noise, but part of my mind, aloof from the uproar and excitement, reminded me gently that people had been firing that gun, off and on, for a couple of days now, and there couldn't be much left in it-just one live round, if my count was correct. I drew out the fully loaded.38 as reserve artillery and moved up to McConnell, feeling stupid and frustrated standing there, with a pistol in each hand, and the man I was supposed to protect bleeding on the sidewalk at my feet.
The only excuse I could think of was that protection isn't really my racket, quite the contrary. Besides, I hadn't really believed protection would be required here, which only proved that when you tried to second-guess the opposition you generally wound up guessing wrong. I knelt beside the man on the sidewalk, putting my hand on his shoulder. He stirred almost imperceptibly.
"Easy there," he breathed, face down on the concrete. "Don't move me or I'll fall apart. Who…
"It's the honkie bastard," I said.
He was silent for a moment; then he whispered, "Jeez, a sensitive whitey! What do you want, apologies? Did I hear some more shooting? If you got them, I'll apologize."
"I got them. A little late, but I got them."
"In that case, I'm extremely sorry I used a bad word on you, Mr. Helm, sir. Can you ever forgive me?"
"Go to hell," I said. "I'm going to stick the gun in your hand, if you don't mind. Save me a lot of trouble with the police. Unless you have objections. Tell me if you have. They'll also pin the O'Leary murder on you when they check out the rifling in ballistics, but you don't mind that, since you've already put your brand on that one. Do you?"
"Hell, no. Any homicides you got lying around. Proud to take the credit, posthumously. Fine word, posthumously. Didn't know I knew words like that, did you?" After a moment, when I didn't speak, he went on chidingly: "You're supposed to tell me I'm going to be all right, man. Aren't you going to lie and tell me I'm going to be all right?"
I said, "If I thought you were going to be all right, I wouldn't leave you holding the baby."
He gave a little sound that was half a sigh, half a cautious chuckle. "Yeah, we both know buckshot, don't we? From the way it feels, he must have put almost the whole load of shot into me, both times… Okay, give it to me."
I wiped off the.44 Magnum and put it where he could grasp it. His hand closed on it, sprained thumb and all. We still had the sidewalk, and even the street, to ourselves. Shots had been fired, a car had crashed, but nobody in Los Angeles gave a damn. Well, that was all right with me.
"Do you know anything I ought to know, McConnell?" I asked.
"I don't know anything. That's what I was coming back to tell you, that you were wasting your time tailing me. You know how it is. You know how they are. You get mixed up with them, you do what they tell you. You don't ask questions."
"How did Warfel persuade you to take the rap for Annette O'Leary's murder?"
"Persuade!" he breathed. "Well, you can call it that. There's my wife, Lorraine. There are our two boys, four and six. Hostages to fortune, somebody once said. Fortune, hell. Hostages to Frank Warfel. Of course, he promised to have a good lawyer on the job, when I came to trial." There was a little silence; then McConnell said, "See what you can do for Lorraine and the kids, will you?"
"Where do I find them?" I memorized the address he gave me, and asked, "What about the girl, Beverly Blaine. What did he have on her?"
"Look at her left arm. Warfel gave her a little taste of acid, and I don't mean LSD. He told her, if a couple of drops will do that to your arm, just think what a pint of it will do to your pretty face…" McConnell's voice trailed off. He was silent, breathing shallowly. "You'd better beat it, Helm," he whispered at last. "Don't hang around on my account. Doesn't feel like I'll be around much longer, myself."
I looked down at him for a moment longer. It still seemed like a peculiar thing to do to your hair, for peculiar reasons. I mean, I've never felt any particular urge to assume the shoulder-length locks, horned helmet, chain mail shirt, and battle ax of my Viking ancestors. Well, it was his hair, and his business.
"Okay," I said. "Sorry I wasn't more help."
"So long, secret-agent-man. Don't forget about Lorraine and the boys."
"I won't forget."
There were sirens in the distance now. Apparently, some Los Angeleno had overcome his distaste for involvement long enough to pick up a telephone. Well, it saved me from having to call the police and ambulance, not that I thought an ambulance would do much good. Buckshot is generally for keeps.