would be looking for me.
Who would hide me from the police? I thought of fat Zoe Eisner who ran the Liberty Inn
on Bay Street. If I could reach her I might buy a hide-out.
I headed for Bay Street.
Half-way down Lincoln Avenue that runs parallel with Lincoln Beach’s main street, I
spotted a cop ahead, looking towards me from the sidewalk. He began waving at me. I shoved
down the accelerator and the Packard surged forward.
204
The cop ran out into the street. He had a gun in one hand and a night-stick in the other. The
people on the sidewalk stopped to stare. He was a pretty brave cop, but at the very last second
he jumped aside. His night-stick came hurtling at me, and instinctively I ducked my head.
The stick smashed a jagged hole in the windshield, I heard shooting behind me and felt the
thumps of slugs as they made holes in the back panel of the car.
I kept on, switched the car around the corner and came out on to the wide boulevard that
runs the length of the promenade and terminates at the gates of the casino.
I wouldn’t get far now with a smashed windshield. Already people on the sidewalks were
staring at the car as I shot it towards the big underground car-park.
I pulled up behind a line of parked cars at the bottom of a brilliantly lighted ramp. I was out
of the car and opening the boot when a white-coated attendant came up. I saw his eyes go to
the smashed windshield.
“What happened to that?” he asked
“Hit a bird,” I said, hauling out the suitcase. “I’ll be back …”
I saw his eyes light on the bullet holes in the back panel. I closed my fist and smashed it at
his jaw. He went down, his head bouncing off the fender.
I looked to right and left. At the far end of the park three white-coated attendants stood
around a car, talking. They didn’t look my way. There was no one else in the park to pay me
any attention. I walked rapidly up the ramp. The suitcase weighed a ton. I wouldn’t be able to
travel far with this burden hanging at the end of my arm. But I wasn’t going to ditch it. With
all that money I might still buy my life: without it I was done for.
As I reached the top of the ramp I spotted two prowl cars coasting along the boulevard, and
heading in my direction. Across the way a cop stood on the edge of the sidewalk. On the
corner, fifty yards farther on, was another cop.
I had to get under cover, and at once. There was no hope now of reaching liberty Inn.
Within ten yards of the cop opposite me was the imposing entrance of the Lincoln Hotel, a
forty-storeyed skyscraper that dominated the promenade.
I crossed the street with a crowd of sun-worshippers as the traffic lights turned red. I kept in
the middle of them, rubbing shoulders with a fat man in a beach wrap and on the other side a
blonde in halter and shorts. She looked curiously at me.
205
The bulk of the crowd were headed for the hotel. I went with them. As I was pushing
through the revolving doors I looked back over my shoulder: a mistake. The cop on the sidewalk caught my eye. He stiffened, stared, then started towards me.
I kept pace across the lobby with the blonde in the halter and shorts. She and a couple of
tanned lounge lizards got into the elevator. I got in with them.
The starter looked sharply at me.
“Tenth,” I said curtly, before he could open his mouth.
The cop came through the revolving doors like a jet-propelled rocket. He was charging
towards the elevator as the doors swished to. No one in the elevator had noticed him, except
of course, me.
Not so good. In a few minutes the hotel would be teeming with police.
