“The end of the street, boss. We’re close. Let’s go!”
He gave me a hard shove. “You fool! We’d never outrun them. Dive for that doorway over there!”
I scrambled across the alley. The car wasn’t a prowl car because there was no siren.
Whoever was in the car had a gun. He started using it. It sounded like a bowling alley with all the alleys full of guys making strikes. A bullet yanked at my coat sleeve.
I hit concrete nearly head first, rolled into the doorway. I got Bessie out of my pocket. Bessie talked back to the birds in the car. But I’m better with my fists than a gun and all Bessie’s bullets missed.
A bullet hit the steel door behind me. I heard the boss get his Spanish going. Somebody in the car yelped. The door behind me took another slug. Bessie roared again and I had the fun of busting a window out of the car.
Then the car was gone and I got up. I had got a glimpse of the guy driving the car. I couldn’t be sure, but there isn’t two guys like that in this world. He was the guy me and the boss wanted to see — Al Newell.
Percival Smith had been behind a steel garbage can. He got up, blew smoke out of his gun. He met me in the middle of the alley.
I had lost my handkerchief. I had to wipe sweat on my coat sleeve. “Some fun, boss. Me getting over there was a good idea. It made a split target of us.”
“Which surprised and rattled them,” Smith said, “and which enabled us to converge our fire on them from both flanks.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said, quick-like. “It was okay.” Once he got started talking like that, he was hard to stop.
My ticker was just getting back down in my chest where it belonged. We took a few steps and the old heart started doing tricks again. But you couldn’t blame it. Not with that harness bull’s whistle going like it was. He was around the corner somewhere and he must have been blowing himself blue in the face.
The sound of the whistle got louder. I moaned, “They heard the shooting, boss.”
“Yes, and this alley will be swarming with cops in two minutes.”
He grabbed my arm, turned me around, and we started running back up the alley.
The cop kept blowing his whistle.
“That loading platform we passed,” the boss said. “We’ll shake them there.”
Another whistle began blasting at the other end of the alley.
“Oh, oh,” I said, “a cop at each end!”
We got to the platform. It was about waist high. We climbed up.
Those whistles were sure making a noise. Any second now the bulls would be coming in the alley — one from each end.
I didn’t feel so hot. I remembered everything I had ever heard about the electric chair. It was like being in the ring with the other guy and the referee both punching you.
I unlimbered Bessie. The boss made a nasty sound in his throat. He grabbed my wrist, squeezed, and I nearly yelled.
“Aberstein, some day I’m going to fire you! Put that damn gun up!”
I did what he said, but I couldn’t see any way out of this jam but to maybe kill a cop.
Percival Smith shook my shoulder. “Get a move on, Willie!” He didn’t sound like any elegant guy now. He sounded tough.
He talked fast, in a whisper. “There’s no chance of fighting our way out of this. There’s nothing we can do but hide. Quick, get under this paper.”
He lifted a big sheet of the old wrapping paper that had been around some of the crates or boxes.
I got it then. I dropped down, scooted up under the paper. I lay against the wall. The boss got in beside me. The paper covered us. I hoped he had fixed it to look like somebody had just thrown the paper there.
The alley got quiet. That meant the coppers were sneaking along in the dark.
It took a long time for the cops to meet down in front of the platform.
It was ink black and hot under the paper. Somebody stepped up on the platform. He turned on a flashlight and light passed across the paper. I set my teeth to keep them from chattering.
“Maybe they were all in the car,” one of the cops said.
The other one didn’t answer. I heard him turn a crate over. He walked toward the paper that covered us. I reached slowly for the old equalizer. Smith felt my movement. He got his fingers around my wrist.
Somebody else out in the alley said, “What’s up, Kelley?” The alley sounded full of cops.
The bull on the platform said, “We’re not sure. There was a lot of shooting here in the alley a few minutes ago, but we don’t find anything now. Must have all been in the car that came tearing out the alley.”
Smith and me lay like two store dummies, right where Kelley could have reached out and touched us. Then after awhile Kelley got off the platform. Lady Luck was riding with us for a few seconds.
The boss wouldn’t let me move for a long time after they left. Just when I thought it was move or go crazy, the boss said, “All right, Willie. Take a look.”
I pushed the paper back, raised my head. I sounded like I was choking on something. “They’re gone, boss.”
We pushed the paper back and got up. Smith dusted himself off with his hands, wiped his hands on a handkerchief. He straightened his tie and we were ready to push off.
We took it easy getting out of the alley. We came to the street, and Smith hailed a cab.
He said, “Willie, this lark is becoming a bit too grim.”
“You’re telling me!”
“It will be most gratifying to meet the gentleman who is causing us this discomfiture.”
He wasn’t kidding. It would be nice to get our hands on the gent who had put the corpse in the closet and us behind the old black ball.
The cab turned a corner. Droyster’s house wasn’t far away.
Chapter III
We didn’t use the front entrance this time. We sneaked across the lawn. It was a little after eleven, but there was a light on in the front corner room. We went toward the light.
We had to be careful getting close to the window. There was some dry shrubbery growing under the window and you could make a lot of noise walking in it.
We got to where we could see into the room. There was a good-looking doll in the room — Alicia Droyster.
She had on a fancy evening gown cut low in back. There was a guy with her I didn’t recognize. He was young, slim, and had a small mustache.
They must have just come in from someplace. Alicia Droyster was mixing drinks. She handed the guy a glass that made my mouth water.
They touched glasses, downed the drinks. Then this guy put his arms around her and they started getting mushy. My knees got weak just watching. I could have looked at that for awhile, but Smith had seen enough. He pulled me away by the arm.
Out on the lawn, he said under his breath, “How very interesting!”
“You mean them two?”
“Yes, that was Alicia Droyster and Doctor Lawrence Jordan.”
“Jordan! Boss, I told you—”
“Not so loud!”
“That sawbones, boss, I’ll give you eight to three—”
“For heaven’s sake, Willie, stop the deducting.”
I didn’t say nothing more. But it would sure be a laugh, I thought, if I was right.
We didn’t have no trouble at all getting into the little storage house. The boss has a fine ring of keys.
He swung the door open. He shielded his pencil flash with his hand so nobody in the big house up front could see it.
There was some old furniture and books in the front room, piled all around.
The boss eased the door shut behind us.
“What are we looking for, boss?”
“I don’t know.”
“You what—? You mean we get shot at by Newell, hide from the cops...”