When he came out, he had swelled up to fit his coat, and someone had telephoned for a cab for him, because a cab swung around the corner and into the curb about the time “Willie The Weeper” reached the sidewalk.
I wasn’t interested further in “Willie The Weeper.” He had discharged his function.
I sat and watched the door of the speake. I figured that if any of the known crooks had come out, I would have spotted them. I sat and waited for them to come out.
No one came.
I waited an hour; two hours, wondering if I could have been wrong, puzzling over what my next move would be.
Then I saw Carl Rankin, one of the torpedoes of the gem stick-up game; but Carl Rankin wasn’t going out; he was coming in, and he looked as though he was going some place with a very definite mission.
I stuck around.
People came and went from the speake. Once or twice I spotted faces that I knew as being on the shady side of the borderland, but they were not the faces of gem men.
Twenty minutes after Rankin had gone in, Sam Stillwell showed up.
Sam Stillwell was one of the men who kept pretty much in the background on underworld activities. He was one of the spotters who would get the lay of the land and figure out a job. Then he would get some gang to back the job, collect the most minute information about the whole lay, and be a hundred miles away when the job was actually pulled.
Things commenced to look interesting.
Five minutes later, three men came out and stood waiting at the curb. There was Carl Rankin, Sam Stillwell, and “Frank The Fixer.”
“Frank The Fixer” had been a fixer in a law office. He knew almost all of the big shots in town, and knew the best way of approaching them. It was said that he had been one of the best in the business. Then he got tired of working for other people, and decided to branch out for himself. His activities were shrouded in a veil of mystery, but I had heard rumors of big gem jobs that had been cooked up between “Frank The Fixer” and Sam Stillwell. Carl Rankin was the torpedo who had pulled the jobs.
The men stood at the curb for less than thirty seconds, when a big Buick sedan swung around the corner and to the curb. A garage attendant jumped out, saluted “Frank The Fixer,” received a tip, touched his hat, and walked away.
I got the roadster warmed up.
Carl Rankin climbed in behind the steering wheel of the Buick. “Frank The Fixer” and Sam Stillwell got in back. The Buick snorted away from the curb and started going places in a hurry. I tailed along behind.
I’ll say this for Carl Rankin—the boy could drive.
And it took more than mere ability as a driver to go the places they went in the time they went. It took a supreme contempt for traffic regulations; a certain knowledge that anything they did could be squared somewhere along the line.
I kept along within sight, but momentarily listened for the wail of a siren pulling me over to the curb. As it happened, we were all lucky.
I knew where they were going by the time they had turned into Seventh Street, and I lagged a little bit behind and let them turn down Porter, without making any attempt to follow, giving them a few minutes before I rounded the corner.
The Buick was parked in front of 659, but across the street from it. Carl Rankin was at the steering wheel, and the motor was running. I could see little puffs of smoke coming from the exhaust. But only “Frank The Fixer” sat in back. Sam Stillwell had gone up.
I couldn’t exactly get the sketch. I’d figured that “Willie The Weeper” would go to someone; that the someone would go to someone else, and somewhere in between the two I’d have an opportunity to learn more than I knew at the start. This business of getting a convention of crooks, and waiting until everyone could be in attendance, didn’t sound just right, but I’d started the play and the only thing to do was to stick around.
Sam Stillwell came out of the apartment house and shook his head. He walked across the street and stood by the side of the running-board of the sedan, chatting for a few minutes. Then he got in, and someone pulled curtains down in the back and on the sides, which suited me all right. The little spurts of smoke continued to come from the exhaust, keeping the motor warm for a quick getaway.
I waited.
The afternoon shadows became dusk; the dusk deepened into twilight. Then a taxicab went past me, going fast. I saw the red brake-light flare into angry brilliance as the cab swung in to the curb. The door nearest the apartment house opened, and a man stepped out and tossed the cab driver a bill.
The man was tall, rather slender, carried an overcoat over his arm, and walked with a quick, nervous manner.
The taxi started to draw away from the curb.
I knew then, but it was too late.
Little spurts of ruddy flame flashed from the side of the sedan. I heard the explosion of firearms, the spatter of bullets against the pavement and the front of the apartment house, and I heard, also, that peculiar, unmistakable thunk; the sound which is known to sportsmen and crooks the world over; the sound that a high-powered, steel-jacketed bullet makes when it impacts flesh.
The tall man staggered, his left arm straightened, and the overcoat dropped to the pavement. He went down on one knee, lurched forward, caught himself with his left elbow on the cement, and tugged a gun from a shoulder-holster.
The little spurts of flame came with mechanical regularity from the parked sedan.
The man on the curb fired twice. One bullet struck the glass on the window of the Buick. I saw chips of glass fly, and heard the tinkle of glass particles striking the running-board and fenders. The second shot went high in the air as the man slumped forward, flat on his face, and the gun slid from his nerveless fingers.
The sedan crawled into motion.
Here and there a head was thrust out of windows. A woman was screaming somewhere, but the sidewalk was deserted, so far as pedestrians were concerned.
I had my car in motion before the shooting had died away, and swung it in to the curb just as the tail-light of the Buick was skidding around the corner.
I jumped from behind the wheel and went to the man.
It was Howard Cove, and he was still alive. He felt something like jelly as I picked him up.
I saw his eyes open and stare at me in puzzled bewilderment, then his head drooped.
I loaded him into the roadster and stepped on the throttle.
I was around the corner before any pedestrians hit the street. I’d left his overcoat and his automatic behind. Those things couldn’t be helped.
He slumped down on the seat, an inert mass, and blood seeped through his clothing and welled in little pools along the leather cushions.
“
Two-pair” Kinney had told me there was always a big packing box and a hand-truck parked in the rear of the building where Doctor Krueg had his office. I swung the car into the parking place and found the big packing box and the hand-truck.
It was a messy job, getting Cove out of the car and into the packing box, but I did it, and covered him over. The packing box went on the hand-truck, and I rang the bell at the rear entrance. I thought possibly I might have trouble with the janitor, but he was in on the play.
“Special package of medicine for Doctor Krueg,” I said. “It’s got to go right up.”
“Okey,” he said, “let’s go.”
From the way in which he handled the box, I knew I didn’t have anything to fear from him. The freight elevator rumbled upward. When we came to the floor, the janitor, himself, took the box on the truck and trundled it down the hallway. We met no one. There was a light in Doctor Krueg’s office. I pushed open the door.