“Well, that sort of makes me feel better.” Then I remembered those three eyes of Dance’s and had to get my head out of the window where the wind could hit it quick. It’s fine, the things cold air will do for you. It sort of knocked the grogginess out of my head.
The boss laughed. “Feel better?”
“I don’t know. I guess so. Wonder what we’ll find at Newell’s?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
Well, I guessed all the way down. I was sure we’d find plenty. But I was wrong. We didn’t find nothing. Newell’s apartment was as quiet as a graveyard. The boss kept buzzing the buzzer.
After awhile I said, “Nobody’s going to answer, boss.”
He looked at me kind of funny like. “That’s quite obvious,” he snapped. He tried the knob. The door was locked. “I wonder if the fire escape—”
He broke off when a door down the hall opened. We looked, and I could have hung around there awhile. The blonde standing in the doorway was some babe.
“I heard you ringing,” she said. “If you’re looking for Mr. Newell, you won’t find him.”
The boss gave her a million dollar smile. “Yes?” he said.
She smiled back. Then she frowned a little. “Mr. Newell is in jail.”
“Jail!” I said, and the boss gave me a dirty look.
The blonde nodded. “I can’t understand it. He hardly knew my name and he looked like such a nice fellow, yet he burst into my apartment this afternoon. He was so drunk he could hardly walk. He seemed to think I was some woman named Susan. I got him in the bedroom, locked him in, and called the police.” She giggled.
“What time was that?” the boss asked.
“About four o’clock. I—”
“Thanks very much, Susan.”
“But I’m not Susan, I tell you. I…” But me and the boss were already on our way.
* * * *
Down in the street again, the boss took a quick gander about. There was no bulls around, so we started walking.
I was sort of dizzy. I thought we’d come here and have a little fun choking the truth out of Newell about Joe Dance. But now…
The boss said, “It would be a nice alibi, being in jail.”
“Cripes, it would!”
“But I’m not so sure, Willie.”
“Well, I don’t know nothing, it seems like.” We walked on a little. There wasn’t many people out and we kept our eyes peeled for coppers.
Then an idea popped into my mind. “Listen, boss,” I said, “I got an angle. That sawbones, the one who went to the funeral with the Droyster dame. And, say: What about Alicia Droyster herself?”
“You mean Doctor Lawrence Jordan?”
“That’s right.”
“That’s too weak, Willie. Lack of motive. And I think Mrs. Droyster is out. It would be too risky for her to call us if she…”
“I’m not so sure, boss. People do the damndest things. Maybe she’s hoping we’ll pin it on somebody else. Maybe…”
“Stop it, Willie. I didn’t hire you to play Sherlock.”
“Aw, gee, boss. I was just trying to help.”
He slapped me on the shoulder.
“When I need you, I’ll whistle. Now come along, Willie, it suddenly occurs to me that I am a great lover of dogs.”
“You what…?” But he didn’t answer.
We walked a block, then turned into an alley that ran to the next street. It was a fairly wide alley and pretty dark.
We passed a platform that was used for loading I guessed. It was all messed up with old crates and boxes and big sheets of paper.
I knew we were headed for Droyster’s. It wasn’t far this way, taking short cuts. The boss didn’t want to use cabs much. Cops have a nasty habit of talking to cabbies.
Thinking about cops was bad. Hannrihan was chasing all over town by this time. I laid myself four to one that me and the boss was being talked about plenty on the police short wave.
I had to wipe my face with a handkerchief. What those cops would do if they caught us…
I never had the chance to put the handkerchief back in my pocket. A car had turned in the alley at our backs. Its headlights made a lot of light in that alley.
I turned around. The car was coming like a cannonball.
“The end of the street, boss. We’re close. Let’s go!”
He gave me a hard shove. “You fool! We’d never outrun them. Dive for that doorway over there!”
I scrambled across the alley. The car wasn’t a prowl car because there was no siren.
Whoever was in the car had a gun. He started using it. It sounded like a bowling alley with all the alleys full of guys making strikes. A bullet yanked at my coat sleeve.
I hit concrete nearly head first, rolled into the doorway. I got Bessie out of my pocket. Bessie talked back to the birds in the car. But I’m better with my fists than a gun and all Bessie’s bullets missed.
A bullet hit the steel door behind me. I heard the boss get his Spanish going. Somebody in the car yelped. The door behind me took another slug. Bessie roared again and I had the fun of busting a window out of the car.
Then the car was gone and I got up. I had got a glimpse of the guy driving the car. I couldn’t be sure, but there isn’t two guys like that in this world. He was the guy me and the boss wanted to see—Al Newell.
Percival Smith had been behind a steel garbage can. He got up, blew smoke out of his gun. He met me in the middle of the alley.
I had lost my handkerchief. I had to wipe sweat on my coat sleeve. “Some fun, boss. Me getting over there was a good idea. It made a split target of us.”
“Which surprised and rattled them,” Smith said, “and which enabled us to converge our fire on them from both flanks.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said, quick-like. “It was okay.” Once he got started talking like that, he
