Coming out of the elevator, the first thing they saw was a bellman coming right at them. Tunafish hung back, letting Virgil get ahead of him with the suitcase.
Reaching for it, the bellman said, “Can I get you a cab?”
“No, we got a car.” Virgil let him have the suitcase, the bellman almost dropping it as he took the grip.
“It’s a heavy one.”
“Full of money.” Virgil grinned.
The bellman laughed.
About the time Virgil got home to his apartment on Seward, on the near west side, and began going through the papers, wondering what he had, Ryan was trying to stay alive.
Raymond Gidre had said, “His place, huh?” And Mr. Perez had said, “No, her place.” Raymond had said, “How do you know he won’t go home?” Mr. Perez had said, “Take my word for it.” In the restaurant before Ryan had joined them.
Now Raymond was sitting in the Hertz car in front of the Leary woman’s apartment building in Rochester. There were lights in windows, but he wasn’t sure if any were hers or if she was home. Mr. Perez had said not to go to her apartment. It would be good to sit up there and wait for him, watch the look on the Leary woman’s face. It was cold in the Hertz car, sitting there with the motor and the lights turned off. “Wait there,” Mr. Perez had said. “He comes, you don’t have to say a word to him.”
Raymond was looking forward to it. He had a 9 mm. Mauser Parabellum, official eight-shot German Luger, under his coat and a twelve-gauge Weatherby pump gun leaning against the seat with the walnut stock on the floor.
But, damn, it was cold.
The vestibule of the apartment building, through the glass door, looked warm. Except it was lit up. He doubted he’d be able to take the Weatherby in there.
After a few minutes the idea of a warm place won out over the shotgun. Then don’t take it. What would he need it for if he’s standing there as Ryan walked in? He got out of the Hertz car, leaving the Weatherby inside with the door unlocked, and crossed the parking area to the front entrance of the apartment wing. Maybe there was a light switch.
There wasn’t, though. It was probably inside the door that had to be buzzed to let you in. Raymond turned around. He couldn’t see much outside through his reflection on the glass door, just the shapes of cars, some highlights in the darkness. He’d be seen from out there, though, for sure. He looked up at the light fixture. Hell, it was only about a foot out of reach. He got out his German Luger, pointed it up there at arm’s length, rose to his toes as he shoved the six-inch barrel through the opening in the fixture and poked it against the light bulb. Hardly made a sound as the vestibule went dark. There. Raymond leaned against the wall to wait. It was a little warmer in here, but not much.
Ryan was anxious to get to Denise’s. Careful, but in a hurry, waiting for traffic lights to change, going through an amber-turning-red in the middle of Rochester and finally coming to the street that climbed the rise to the apartment buildings, looking for a light in Denise’s window as he turned into the parking area in the middle of the complex. Ryan got out and angled through the rows of parked cars toward the entrance. It was here, coming to open pavement, he sensed something wrong, something different. If there had been only one apartment building here he might not have noticed the light out in the vestibule. But he looked around at the other entrances, five of them in the U-shaped complex, and there was a light in every entrance but this one.
Ryan had stopped before he saw the glass door swing into the darkness of the vestibule and the figure appear-somebody coming out, pointing at him, pointing something-and he was moving, running back to the protection of the car rows, as Raymond began firing the German Luger at him.
Son of a bitch, something had spooked him. Raymond came out to the pavement and paused, listening, before he crossed to the first row of cars. He’d fired three rounds, louder than hell in the closed-in area between the buildings. Now the only thing Raymond could hear, standing between two cars, was his own slow breathing, in and out of his nose. Some lights were going on in the building opposite him. Probably in all the buildings. He wondered if Ryan was going to run over to one of those lit-up entrances and start pushing buzzers. Raymond hoped he would. Get him in there banging at the inside door, screaming for help, and shoot him through the glass.
Raymond moved out into the open toward the next row of cars and that flushed him, hearing his quick running steps first, and there he was, going for daylight, running past the cars to the little street that led down the hill to the main road. Raymond held his German Luger straight out in front of him with both hands and squeezed off three rounds, shit, seeing Ryan still on his feet and hearing the glass pop in a car windshield.
He needed the Weatherby pump gun. He also needed to get the Hertz car the hell out of here, before the flashing lights appeared, or he might never get back to it. He’d be giving Ryan an extra half-minute start, but that was all right, he’d be in the open for a time, anyway, if he was running for town, spooked good now, in a panic, running to find a policeman or somebody to help him.
Raymond got on him in less than a half minute, more like twenty seconds, flying out of there in the Hertz car with the lights off, down the little street and squealing the tires in a hard left onto the main road and across the railroad tracks, heading for the streetlights and neon signs a block away, and there he was on the left-hand side, going past Morley’s Drugs. Raymond swung the Hertz car into a filling station that was closed for the night, switched the motor off, and got out with the Weatherby pump gun.
He kept to the right side of the street, hurrying to catch even with Ryan, seeing him now and again past the cars parked on the street. Ryan was moving at a fast walk, looking back over his shoulder, a dark figure over there, in and out of the glow of streetlights and illuminated signs. Raymond didn’t see any people on the street except for some way down, a block away, and a few cars going by. He had the pump gun out in plain sight, not caring if anybody saw him with it. What were they going to do, take it away from him? Near the middle of the block, approaching the center of town, Raymond was ready to make his move.
He waited for a car to come along going south, the direction he was headed, stepped out in the street, and ran along with the car maybe fifteen or twenty yards, using it for cover, then let the car go on and started across the street, timing it just right and seeing the dumb look of surprise on Ryan’s face-Raymond standing out there with a big goddamn Weatherby raised at him. Ryan was moving as Raymond fired. Then Raymond was moving, pumping the shotgun, throwing himself across the hood of a parked car. He fired again and blew the plate-glass window out of a place called Bright Ideas as Ryan kept going.
Within a block and a half, running in the street about a dozen strides behind Ryan on the sidewalk, pumping and throwing down on him with the twelve-gauge, Raymond shot out the windows of Bright Ideas, Mitzelfelds department store, the box office of the Hills movie theater, a couple of car windshields and a pair of headlights before Ryan got around the corner and was out of sight. The son of a bitch was quick, moving and ducking into doorways and behind cars. Maybe he’d grazed him, cut him up some. He’d run him down and find out. People were coming out on the street, standing in front of places now. Raymond stood still on the sidewalk, his back to the streetlight, as a white police car with a gold emblem wailed by north flashing blue lights, probably answering a call from the apartments. With the sound fading, Raymond ducked around the corner after Ryan, digging twelve-gauge shells out of his coat pocket.