Cops, Real cops.
The gun in Clinger’s pocket had never felt so heavy or so useless or so monstrous, like a boil on the back of the neck. Without the gun, at least it would be possible he could fast-talk himself out of this. Without the gun, at the very worst he could clam up and wait it out and eventually be given an opportunity to jump bail because they really didn’t have anything on him.
But with the gun, he was already breaking a law, concealed weapons; they had him as easy as pie.
Jail. He remembered it - gray and bleak and boring, impossible to survive in twice. No money, no soft furniture, no blonde.
He turned and ran, side stepping the man of the house, bursting through the doorway and into the hall again. Behind him, shouts and imprecations, thudding of heavy feet.
Running, he fumbled the gun out of his pocket, meaning to get rid of it somehow, somewhere. Down the elevator shaft, in the incinerator, out a window, just anywhere. If they didn’t catch him with the gun in his possession, actually in his possession, he still had a chance.
Behind him, the cops had already seen the gun in his waving hand and had misunderstood his purpose in holding it. They had their own guns out, and when they shouted to him to stop and to drop the gun and he did neither, they opened fire, the shots cracking out in the narrow hallway with a sound like mountains breaking.
Two bullets buzzed past Clinger’s head, and he kept running. The third thudded into his skull, hit him in the bald spot like it was a target, and he ran down.
The husk of Abe Clinger skidded to a stop along the hall floor.
Five
Little Bob Negli liked to drive, so he and Arnie bought a car with separately adjustable bucket seats. That way, Little Bob could sit far enough forward for his short legs to reach the controls, and Arnie could sit far enough back to be comfortable. Their life together was a lot of compromises and adjustments like that, and most of the time things ran smoothly.
Except for other people. If it had been just the two of them, no one else around at all, they’d never have had any trouble; they’d have worked everything out the way they worked out the seating arrangement in the car. But there were other people in the world, and now and again they caused trouble.
Like women. Sometimes Arnie got a hankering for a woman, and off he went to get one, and Little Bob had nothing to do but sit around and wait for Arnie to come back, with or without a dose. Arnie always chose the sloppiest, scabbiest, rottenest tramps in the world when he wanted a woman, so Little Bob always made Arnie go to a doctor for a checkup before letting him back.
And like men. Some men just irritated Little Bob, aggravated him like itching powder, and the first thing anybody knew he’d be starting a fight. With somebody like Parker, say, who’d kill you as quick as look at you. Arnie was always after Little Bob to watch his mouth, quit picking fights, quit acting like such a troublemaker.
So Little Bob was annoyed by the women Arnie picked to sleep with, and Arnie was annoyed by the men Little Bob picked to fight with, but these two gripes were just about the only problems in their life together. It struck them both as a small price to pay.
Little Bob now sat in the car parked by a fire hydrant, waiting for Arnie to come back from another interview. Little Bob himself was too chancy a character to be trusted, going around asking questions of strangers. He’d be in a brawl within an hour, and that usually meant bad trouble. Being so small, he figured it wasn’t up to him to fight fair. He kept a switchblade knife close to his left hand, and a .25 Beretta automatic close to his right.
That’s why Little Bob was doing just the driving and Arnie the questioning. Again it was a compromise that worked out fine for both of them. Little Bob liked to drive, and Arnie liked to talk with people.
It was about two in the afternoon. Arnie had questioned four guys last night and five more this morning and had gotten nowhere. Two so far hadn’t automatically eliminated themselves with the television gambit, and Arnie had passed their names on for Parker and Shelly to check, but apparently neither of them had been the guy they were after. So now they’d run out of the other names and were working at last on the original list the cop had given Parker. Arnie was in there talking to the first of them now.
Little Bob wasn’t pleased about it. It figured the law was watching this place - waiting for Parker to show up. Little Bob hadn’t been able to spot them yet, but they had to be somewhere around. And what if they decided to question Arnie? That would be just one more thing he’d have against Parker.
Waiting for Arnie, Little Bob took the time to nurse his grudge against Parker. Parker had manhandled him back at Vimorama, but that was nothing. The big gripe was that Parker lost the goods, caused all this trouble. Because of a woman, naturally. Shacked up with some woman he doesn’t know anything about, and naturally she’s got enemies, and the whole thing follows like the night the day. Why they’d trusted Parker with the nick in the first place he’d never know.
Looking out the windshield, thinking about Parker, Little Bob suddenly saw Arnie coming out of the apartment house ahead in the hands of the law.
It had to be law, two stocky types with fat faces and cheap topcoats. They flanked Arnie on either side, and the way his hands were behind his back had to mean they’d put the cuffs on him. The cops had been inside.
Damn Parker!
Little Bob shifted into drive, and the car inched forward close to the curb. He knew Arnie would have seen him coming, out of the corner of his eye, and it all depended now on timing.
There were parked cars up there. Little Bob angled out around them, glided forward, and leaned way over to his right to unlatch the passenger door and then, as he braked at the spot between two parked cars, and as Arnie made his move, Little Bob shoved the passenger door open and reached out to drag Arnie aboard.
Arnie had moved right, lunging backward at first to throw them off balance, then bumping both and crashing on through and between the parked cars where there was just enough room for him, running like an ice skater about to lose his balance because of the handcuffs holding his hands behind his back, and just as he dove for the open door of the car the booming started, and Arnie’s face, as he dove still in midair, turned suddenly gray, and he crash- landed half in and half out of the car, and Little Bob’s reaching hand, clawing across Arnie’s lace, felt the flesh pasty and soft.
Arnie was sliding backward out of the car, his cheek scraping back across the red upholstery of the bucket seat.
