“Red!” I bawled into the silence. “This way, Red!”
Faces spun to me—every face in the joint—millions of them.
“Come on, Red!” Jack Counihan yelped, taking a step forward, his gun out.
Bluepoint Vance’s hand flashed to the V of his coat. Jack’s gun snapped at him. Bluepoint had thrown himself down before the boy’s trigger was yanked. The bullet went wide, but Vance’s draw was gummed.
Red scooped the girl up with his left arm. A big automatic blossomed in his right fist. I didn’t pay much attention to him after that. I was busy.
Larrouy’s home was pregnant with weapons—guns, knives, saps, knucks, club-swung chairs and bottles, miscellaneous implements of destruction. Men brought their weapons over to mingle with me. The game was to nudge me away from my door. O’Leary would have liked it. But I was no fire-haired young rowdy. I was pushing forty, and I was twenty pounds overweight. I had the liking for ease that goes with that age and weight. Little ease I got.
A squint-eyed Portuguese slashed at my neck with a knife that spoiled my necktie. I caught him over the ear with the side of my gun before he could get away, saw the ear tear loose. A grinning kid of twenty went down for my legs—football stuff. I felt his teeth in the knee I pumped up, and felt them break. A pockmarked mulatto pushed a gun-barrel over the shoulder of the man in front of him. My blackjack crunched the arm of the man in front. He winced sidewise as the mulatto pulled the trigger—and had the side of his face blown away.
I fired twice—once when a gun was leveled within a foot of my middle, once when I discovered a man standing on a table not far off taking careful aim at my head. For the rest I trusted to my arms and legs, and saved bullets. The night was young and I had only a dozen pills—six in the gun, six my pocket.
It was a swell bag of nails. Swing right, swing left, kick, swing right, swing left, kick. Don’t hesitate, don’t look for targets. God will see that there’s always a mug there for your gun or blackjack to sock, a belly for your foot.
A bottle came through and found my forehead. My hat saved me some, but the crack didn’t do me any good. I swayed and broke a nose where I should have smashed a skull. The room seemed stuffy, poorly ventilated. Somebody ought to tell Larrouy about it. How do you like that lead-and-leather pat on the temple, blondy? This rat on my left is getting too close. I’ll draw him in by bending to the right to poke the mulatto, and then I’ll lean back into him and let him have it. Not bad! But I can’t keep this up all night. Where are Red and Jack? Standing off watching me?
Somebody socked me in the shoulder with something—a piano from the feel of it. A bleary-eyed Greek put his face where I couldn’t miss it. Another thrown bottle took my hat and part of my scalp. Red O’Leary and Jack Counihan smashed through, dragging the girl between them.
X
While Jack put the girl through the door, Red and I cleared a little space in front of us. He was good at that. When he chucked them back they went back. I didn’t dog it on him, but I did let him get all the exercise he wanted.
“All right!” Jack called.
Red and I went through the door, slammed it shut. It wouldn’t hold even if locked. O’Leary sent three slugs through it to give the boys something to think about, and our retreat got under way.
We were in a narrow passageway lighted by a fairly bright light. At the other end was a closed door. Halfway down, to the right, steps led up.
“Straight ahead?” asked Jack, who was in front.
O’Leary said, “Yes.” And I said, “No. Vance will have that blocked by now if the bulls haven’t. Upstairs—the roof.”
We reached the stairs. The door behind us burst open. The light went out. The door at the other end of the passage slammed open. No light came through either door. Vance would want light. Larrouy must have pulled the switch, trying to keep his dump from being torn to toothpicks.
Tumult boiled in the dark passage as we climbed the stairs by the touch system. Whoever had come through the back door was mixing it with those who had followed us—mixing it with blows, curses and an occasional shot. More power to them! We climbed, Jack leading, the girl next, then me, and last of all, O’Leary.
Jack was gallantly reading road-signs to the girl: “Careful of the landing, half a turn to the left now, put your right hand on the wall and—”
“Shut up!” I growled at him. “It’s better to have her falling down than to have everybody in the drum fall on us.”
We reached the second floor. It was black as black. There were three stories to the building.
“I’ve mislaid the blooming stairs,” Jack complained.
We poked around in the dark, hunting for the flight that should lead up toward our roof. We didn’t find it. The riot downstairs was quieting. Vance’s voice was telling his push that they were mixing it with each other, asking where we had gone. Nobody seemed to know. We didn’t know, either.
“Come on,” I grumbled, leading the way down the dark hall toward the back of the building. “We’ve got to go somewhere.”
There was still
