hire one of 'em?'
'Not quite. Who are the pros?'
'Remember Coo-Coo Weist?'
'Damn, Meyer, he must be eighty years old.'
'Still working, though. Made a mistake when he tried it on an off-duty detective.'
'Who else?'
'A kid named Johnny Baines. A Philly punk who came here about three years ago. Good nimble fingers on that guy. The last time he was busted he was carrying over ten grand. This time he only had a couple hundred on him but it wasn't his fault.'
'Why not?'
Meyer let out a sour laugh. 'Because he was only three hours out of the clink where he spent ninety days on a D and D rap. He never really had a chance to get operating right. You going bail for somebody, Mike?'
'Not this time, Meyer. Thanks.'
'Anytime, Mike.'
I hung up and went back to the window again.
I called downstairs, had a sandwich, coffee and the evening papers sent up. The hunt was getting heavier for Schneider's killers and the reporters were hitting every detail with relish. Another time it would have been funny, because contract killers who blasted one of their own kind seldom got that kind of attention. Right now they'd be running scared, not only from the cops, but from the guy who gave them the job. Their business days were over. Two National Guard units were being called out on a security maneuver, detailed upstate. The same thing was happening in five other states. In. view of the tense international situation the military deemed it smart policy to stay prepared. It made for lots of space, dozens of pictures and if somebody was lucky they might come up with something. Somehow I didn?t feel very excited about sitting on the edge of annihilation.
At twelve fifteen the phone went off beside my ear and I rolled off the old leather couch and grabbed it. My voice still sounded husky from being asleep and I said, 'Yeah?'
'Mike?' Her voice sounded guarded. 'Where the hell have you been, Velda?'
'Shut up and listen. I rented one of those fleabag apartments across the street from Lippy's rooming house, downstairs in the front. If you called Sammy Brent then you have it spotted .. . the tickets and all?'
'Loud and clear. Lippy had somebody staying with him.'
'That's what it looks like, but he was never seen going in or out and nobody seems to know a thing about it. Apparently he was a pretty cagy character to get away with that, but I know how he did it. In this neighborhood at the right hours he wouldn't be noticed at all.'
'All right kid, get with it.'
'Somebody's in Lippy's old room right now. I spotted the beam of a pencil flash under the window shade.'
'Damn!'
'I can move in ...'
'You stay put, you hear? I'll be there in ten minutes.'
'That can be too late.'
'Let it. Just watch for me. I'll get off at the corner and walk on up. Cover the outside and keep your ass down.'
I grabbed an extra clip for the .45 out of the desk drawer, slammed the door shut behind me and used the stairs instead of waiting for the elevator. A cab was ahead of me, waiting for a red light at the corner and I reached it as the signals changed and told him where to go. When the driver saw the five I threw on the seat beside him he made it across town and south to the corner I wanted in exactly six minutes and didn't bother to stick around to see what it was all about.
It was an old block, a hangover from a century of an orgy of progress, a four-storied chasm with feeble yellow eyes to show that there still was a pulse beat somewhere behind the crumbling brownstone facades. Halfway down the street a handful of kids were playing craps under an overhead light and on the other side a pair of drifters were shuffling toward Ninth. It wasn't the kind of street you bothered to sit around and watch at night. It was one you wanted to get away from.
I flashed a quick look at the rooftops and the areaways under the stoops when I reached Lippy's old place, found nothing and spotted Velda in the doorway across the street. I gave her the 'wait and see' signal, then took the sandstone steps two at a time, the .45 in my hand.
A 25-watt bulb hung from a dropcord in the ceiling of the vestibule and I reached up and unscrewed it, making sure I had my distance and direction to the right door clear in my mind. The darkness would have been complete except for the pale glow that seeped out from under the super's door, but it was enough. His TV was on loud enough to cover any sound my feet might make and I went past his apartment to Lippy's and tried the knob.
The door was locked.
I took one step back, planted myself and thumbed the hammer back on the rod. Then I took a running hop, smashed the door open with my foot and went rolling inside taking furniture with me that was briefly outlined in the white blast of a gunshot that sent a slug ripping into the floor beside my head.
My hand tightened on the butt of the .45 and blew the darkness apart while I was skittering in a different direction, the wild thunder of the shot echoing around the room. Glass crashed from the far end and a chair went over, then running legs hit me when I was halfway up, fell and I had my hands on his neck, wrenched him back and banged two fast rights into his ear and heard him let out a choked yell. Whoever he was, he was big and strong and wrenched out of my hands, his arms flailing. I swung with the gun, felt the sight rip into flesh and skull bone. It was almost enough and I would have had him the next time around, but the beam of a pencil flash hit me in the face and there was a dull, clicking sound against the top of my head and all the strength went out of me in one full gush.
A faraway voice said almost indistinctly, 'Get up so I can kill him!' But then there were two popping sounds, a muffled curse, and I lay there in the dreary state of semiconsciousness knowing something was happening without knowing or caring what until a hazy dawn of artificial light made everything finally come into misty focus that solidified into specific little objects I could recognize.
'Velda said, 'You stupid jerk.'
'Don't be redundant,' I told her. 'Where are they?'
'Out. Gone. The back window was open for a secondary exit and they used it. If I hadn't fired coming into the building you would have been dead by now.'
The yelling and screaming of the fun watchers on the street were coming closer and a siren was whining to a stop in front of the house. I pushed myself to a sitting position, saw the .45 on the floor and reached for it. I thumbed out the clip, ejected the live slug in the breech, caught it and slid it back into the clip, then reloaded the piece and stuck it back in the holster. 'You see them?' I asked.
'No.'
I took a quick look around the room before they all came in. The place was a shambles. Even the paper had been torn off the walls. 'Somebody else figured it out too,' I said.
'What were they after, Mike?'
'Something pretty easily hidden,' I told her.
CHAPTER 6
Pat came in while they were taking my statement, listened impassively as I detailed the events at Lippy's place and when I signed the sheets, walked over and threw a leg over the edge of the desk. 'You can't keep your nose clean, can you?'
'You ought to be happy about extra diversions from what I hear,' I said.
'Not your kind.' Pat glanced sidewise at Velda. 'Why didn't you call for a squad car?'
Velda threw him an amused smile. 'I wanted to be subtle about it. Besides, I wouldn't want to get fired.'
I said, 'Why the beef, Pat? We interrupted a simple break in and attempted robbery.'
