but the need to get away from 274 was more pressing. Already I could hear the distant sound of a police siren. I sent the car shooting towards Beach Road.
I had never heard of Coral Row, but it would be somewhere in Coral Gables. I headed that way because I was curious. Right at this moment I had a lot on my mind. I was wondering if the old waiter would remember me, and if he had noticed the number of my car. I was particularly anxious not to get tied up with Mifflin at this time. He could work out the problem of Gracie’s murder without my help. I had other more pressing things to do. But if he began asking questions and got around to the waiter, he might get a description of me. I knew he wouldn’t be pleased I had left before he arrived.
At the bottom of Beach Road I turned left on to the waterfront, and parked in a vacant space hedged in on either side by coils of rope and oil drums.
Coral Gables is no place to wander around in unless you have an escort or carry a gun. Even the cops go around in pairs and scarcely a month passes without someone is found up an alley with a knife in his back.
As I got out of the Buick and looked up and down the long harbour, crammed with small boats and fishing trawlers, I was aware that I was being stared at by groups of men who lounged in the sun, picturesque enough in their soiled canvas trousers and various coloured sweat-shirts, their shifty, dark eyes weighing me up.
I picked on one who was on his own, aimlessly whittling a piece of wood into the shape of a boat.
‘Can you put me on to Coral Row?’
He eyed me over, leaned away from me to spit into the oily water of the harbour and jerked his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the coffee-shops, the sea-food stalls and the like that faced the waterfront.
‘Behind Yate’s Bar,’ he said curtly.
Yate’s Bar is a two-storey wooden building where, if you aren’t fussy who you eat with, you can get a good clam-chowder and a ten-year-old ale that sneaks up on you if you don’t watch out. I had been in there once or twice with Kerman. It’s the kind of place where anything can happen, and very often does.
‘Thanks,’ I said, and crossed the broad water-front road to the bar.
Alongside the wooden building was an alley. High up on the wall was a notice that read:
I paused to light a cigarette while I regarded the alley with a certain amount of caution and no enthusiasm. The high walls blocked out the sunlight. The far end of the alley was a black patch of smelly air and suspicious silence.
I slid my hand inside my coat to reassure myself I could get the .38 out fast in case of an emergency, then I walked quietly towards the darkness.
At the end of the alley, and at a sharp right-angle to it, was Coral Row: a dismal, dark courtyard flanked on three sides by derelict-looking buildings that had at one time or another served as marine storehouses. By the look of them now they were nothing better than ratinfested ruins.
High above me I could see the stark, black roofs of the buildings sharply outlined against a patch of blue sky.
I stood in the opening of the alley, looking at the buildings, wondering if I was about to walk into a trap.
Opposite, a worm-eaten door sagged on one hinge. A dirty brass number, a 2, was screwed to the central panel.
There it was: 2 Coral Row. It now depended on myself whether I’d go in there or not. I took a drag at my cigarette while I looked the place over. It would probably be as dark as a Homburg hat inside, and I hadn’t a flashlight. The boards would be rotten, and it would be impossible to move silently.
I decided to go ahead and see what happened.
Throwing my cigarette away, I walked across the courtyard to the sagging door. I wasn’t any calmer than a hen chased by a motor car, and my heart was banging against my ribs but I went ahead because I’m a sucker for discipline, and I feel, every now and then, it is good for one’s morale to do things like this.
I gum-shoed up the stone steps and peered into a long, dark passage. Facing me was a flight of stairs, several of them crushed flat as if some heavy foot had been too much for the wormrotten timber. There were no banisters, and the stains looked unpleasantly suicidal. I decided to leave them alone, and investigate the passage.
The floor creaked and groaned under my feet as I walked slowly and cautiously into the stalesmelling darkness. Ahead of me I heard a sudden rustle and a scamper of rats. The sound brought me to a standstill, and the hair at the back of my neck stiffened. To be on the safe side, and probably to bolster up my courage, I eased out my gun.
There was an open door at the end of the passage. I paused before it and peered in. There wasn’t much to see except dark- ness. I was in no hurry to go in, and after a few seconds I made out tiny chinks of light coming in through the boarded walls. Even at that, it was much, much too dark in there.
I took a couple of very cautious steps forward, and paused just inside the doorway. There seemed no point in going far- ther, and no point in staying longer. If someone was hiding in there, I couldn’t see him, and I doubted if he could see me, but in this I was wrong.
A board creaked suddenly close to me. The swish of a descending sap churned the air. I threw myself forward and sideways.
Something very hard and that hurt hit my shoulder, driving the gun out of my hand: a blow aimed at my head, and which would have sent me to sleep for a long, long time if it had landed.
I fell on my hands and knees. Legs brushed against my side, fingers groped up my arm, touched my face and shifted to my throat: lean, strong fingers, damp against my skin, and cold.
I shoved my chin into my collar so he couldn’t get a prom grip, straightened, groped in my turn for a hold. My hand touched a coat, went up a powerful bicep. That gave me an idea where his face was. I slammed in a short, hard punch that connected with what felt like an ear.
There was a grunt, then a weight that could have been around fourteen stone dropped on top of me, driving me flat on to the floor. The fingers dug into my neck; hot, hurried breathing fanned my face.
But this time he wasn’t dealing with a girl. Probably he hadn’t had a great deal of trouble in handling Gracie, but he was going to have some trouble handling me.
I caught hold of his thumbs and bent them back. I heard him catch his breath in a gasp of pain. He jerked his thumbs out of my grip only because I let him, and as he straightened up I clouted him on the side of the head with a round-house swing that sent him away from me with a grunt of anguish.
I was half up, with my fingers touching the floor, as he launched himself at me again. I could just make out his dim form in the darkness as he came, and I lurched towards him. We met with a crash like a couple of charging bulls. He reeled back, and I socked him in the belly: a goingaway punch that hadn’t the beef to put him down, but that brought the wind out of him like the hiss of a punctured tyre.
At the back of my mind I could see that screwed-up figure in the soiled blue nightdress hanging on the back of the bathroom door, and it made me mad. I kept moving in, belting him with right and left punches, not always landing, but taking good care when they did land they’d hurt. I took one bang on the side of the jaw that sent my head back, but it wasn’t hard enough to stop me.
He was gasping for breath now, and backing away as fast as he could. I had to stop throwing punches, because I lost sight of him. I could only hear his heavy breathing, and guess he was somewhere just ahead of me. For a moment or so we stood in the darkness, trying to see each other, listening and watching for any sudden move.
I thought I could just make out a shadow in the darkness about a yard to my left, but I wasn’t sure. I stamped my foot, and the shadow swerved away like a scared cat. Before he could cover his balance, I jumped in, and my fist caught him on the side of his neck. The impact sounded like a cleaver driving into a hunk of beef.
He gave a wheezing gasp, fell over on his back, scrambled up and backed away. He now seemed very anxious to break up the meeting and go home. I dived forward to finish him, in- stead, my foot landed on a rotten plank that gave under me and I came down with a crash that shook the breath out of me.
He had me cold then, but he wasn’t interested. All he could think of was getting home.
He bolted for the door.
I struggled to get up, but my foot was firmly held in the rotten flooring. I caught a glimpse of a tall, broad- shouldered figure outlined in the dimness of the doorway; then it vanish-ed.
