“Take it easy,” I hissed at him.
“All right, hold it!” one of the Wops with the Thompson said. His voice cut through the silent room like a bullet through a ton of ice-cream. “Sit still, and keep your yaps shut or we’ll put the blast on the lot of you!”
Everyone sat or stood as still as death. The scene looked like a stage set in a waxworks show. There was a bartender with his hand frozen on the soda pump, his eyes goggling. One of the elderly men’s fingers rested on his Queen as he was moving it to checkmate his friend. His face was tight with horror. The thin, pinched-looking girl sat with her eyes tight closed and her hands across her mouth. The Bobbysoxer leaned forward, her pretty, painted mouth hanging open and a shrill scream in her eyes.
As the Wop passed her, the scream popped out of her mouth. It made a shrill, jarring sound in the silent room, and cursing, the Wop hit her savagely with his gun barrel across her cute, silly little hat. He hit very hard, and the barrel made an ugly sound as it thudded on the straw of the hat, crushing it into her skull. She fell out of the chair, and blood began to run from her ears, making a puddle on the floor. The kid with her turned the colour of a fish’s belly and began to retch.
“Quiet, everybody!” the guy with the Thompson said, raising his voice.
I could see by the look of these Wops that if anyone made a move they would start shooting. They were ruthless, murderous and trigger-happy. All they wanted was an excuse. There was nothing I could do about it. Even if I had a gun I wouldn’t have started anything. A gun against two Thompsons is as useless as a toothpick against a foil, and I wouldn’t have been the only one to have got shot up.
The two Wops arrived at my table.
I sat like a stone man, my hands on the table, looking up at them. I could hear Stevens breathing painfully at my side: the breath snored through his nostrils as if he were going to have a stroke.
The Wop with the dirty cuffs grinned evilly at me.
“Make a move, you son-of-a-bitch, and I’ll drop your guts on the floor,” he said.
Both of them were careful to keep out of the line of fire of the Thompsons.
The Wop reached out and grabbed Stevens by his arm.
“Come on, you. You’re going for a little ride.”
“Leave him alone,” I said through tight lips.
The Wop smacked me across the face with the gun barrel. Not too hard, but hard enough to hurt.
“Shut your yap!” he said.
The other Wop had rammed his gun into Stevens’ side and was dragging him out of his chair.
“Don’t touch me,” Stevens gasped, and feebly tried to break the Wop’s hold. Snarling; the Wop clubbed him with his fist, caught him by his collar and hauled him away from the table.
My pal with the dirty cuffs stepped away from me and the guy with the Thompson came a little closer, the gun sight centred on my chest. I sat still, holding the side of my face, feeling blood, hot and sticky, against my fingers.
Stevens fell down.
“Come on; hurry,” the Wop with the dirty cuffs said furiously. “Get this dumb old punk out of here.” He bent and grabbed hold of one of Stevens’ ankles. The other Wop caught hold of the other ankle, and they ran across the room dragging Stevens along on his back with them, upsetting tables and chairs in their progress to the door.
They kicked open the double doors, dragged the old man across the sidewalk to a waiting car. Two other Wops were standing outside with machine-guns, threatening a gaping crowd lined up on either side of the cafe entrance.
It was the coolest, nerviest, most cold-blooded thing I have ever seen.
The two Wops with the Thompsons backed out of the cafe and scrambled into the car. One of the Wops in the street swung round and started firing through the plate-glass window at me. I was expecting that, and even as he swung round I threw myself out of my chair and lay flat under the table, squeezing myself into the floor. Slugs chewed up the wall just above me and brought plaster down on my head and neck. One slug took the heel of my shoe off. Then the firing stopped and I peered around the table in time to see the Wop spring on to the running- board of the car as it shot away from the kerb and went tearing down the street.
I scrambled to my feet and made a dive for the telephone.
IV
The voice sounded like an echo in a tunnel. It crept into the corners of my room: the subdued whisper of a turned-down radio. For the past half-hour I had been waiting for that voice. The jig-saw puzzle spread out on the table before me interested me as much as the dead mouse I had found in the trap this morning: probably a little less. The shaded reading-lamp made a pool of lonely light on the carpet. A bottle and glass stood on the floor within easy reach. Already I had had a drink or perhaps even two or three. After an evening like this a drink one way or other doesn’t make a great deal of difference.
I was still a little jumpy. No one likes to have a whole magazine of a sub-machine-gun fired at him, and I was no exception. The way those two Wops had dragged that old man out of the cafe haunted me. I felt I should have done something about it. After all, it was my fault he was there.
“At nine o’clock this evening,” the announcer said, breaking into my thoughts, “six men, believed to be Italians, armed with machine-guns and automatics, entered the Blue Bird Cafe at the corner of Jefferson and Felman. While two of the gunmen guarded the entrance, and two more terrorized the people in the cafe, the remaining two seized John Stevens and dragged him from the cafe to a waiting car.
“Stevens, who will be remembered by the city’s socialities as butler to Mr. Gregory Wainwright, the steel millionaire, was later found dead by the side of the Los Angeles and San Francisco Highway. It is believed he died of a stroke, brought on by the rough handling he received from the kidnappers, and when he was found to be dead, the kidnappers brutally threw his body from the speeding car.”
The announcer’s voice was as unemotional and as cold as if he were reading the fat stock prices. I should have liked to have been behind him with a machine-gun and livened him up with a burst above his head.
“The police are anxious for any information that will lead to the arrest of the criminals,” the announcer went on. “These six men have been described as short, stockily built, dark-skinned, and all wearing blue suits and black hats. “The police are also anxious to question an unknown man who was with John Stevens when the kidnappers arrived. After telephoning Police Headquarters, giving a description of the criminals and the number of their car, he disappeared. Eye-witnesses have described him as tall, powerfully built, dark hair, sallow complexion and sharp- featured. He has a wound on the right side of his face from a blow from one of the kidnappers. Anyone recognizing this man should communicate immediately to Captain of Police Brandon, Police Headquarters, Graham 3444…”
I leaned forward and snapped down the switch.
“Sallow and sharp-featured, but not handsome. No one said he was handsome.”
I turned slowly in my chair.
Sergeant MacGraw stood in the open french windows, and behind him lurked Sergeant Hartsell. I didn’t jump more than a foot. It was one of those reflex actions over which I had no control.
“Who told you to blow in?” I asked, getting to my feet.
“He wants to know who told us to blow in,” MacGraw said, speaking out of the side of his mouth. “Shall we tell him?”
Hartsell came into the room. There was a cold, bleak look on his thin face, his deep-set eyes were stony.
“Yeah, tell him.”
MacGraw closed the french windows without taking his eyes off me.
“A little bird told us,” he said, and winked. “There’s always a little bird to tell us the things we want to know. And the little bird also told us you were with Stevens tonight.”
I sweated gently. Maybe it was because it was a hot night. Maybe I didn’t like the look of these two. Maybe I was remembering what Brandon had said about a beating up in a dark alley.
“That’s right,” I said. “I was with him.”
“Now that’s what I call being smart,” MacGraw said, and beamed. “Wonder Boy tells the truth for a change.”
