by Jerry eBooks
O’Bannion returned to the car, and then he felt the tension. Excitement ran like water along the street. People were talking in small groups and a knot of men swept down the sidewalk, yelling and arguing. O’Bannion halted them.
“Guy by the name of Dorcas made a break from the hospital,” said a guy excitedly.
“Pulled a gun on Lem Gayer, he did,” another said, “and got away.”
Still another added: “It was Lem’s own gun.”
The men dashed off. This cut it. Now he had no way of finding out where the Raymer kid was being held.
Another group of men charged past him. One of them said: “Maybe he went this way.” They passed O’Bannion without a glance.
O’Bannion came to the hospital, started to pass, and then ran swiftly around behind. Here was tall grass and weeds. Leonard Dorcas was smart and there was the bare chance that he might figure the best escape would be to hide close to the hospital itself until pursuit was past.
It was dark and the path was full of stones. Footing was none too secure. O’Bannion stumbled. Flame and noise laced out at him, and as he fell to his knees a slug whined past his ear.
In that moment of falling he whipped out his own gun and snapped a shot in the direction of the flash. Something clattered to the ground. O’Bannion climbed dizzily to his feet and shook the cobwebs out of his brain.
Searching the ground, he found what the guy had dropped. It was a huge .45 revolver. He thrust it into his pocket and then headed for the jail.
Lem Gayer was sitting with his feet on the desk. He yawned as O’Bannion entered.
“How’d Dorcas escape?” O’Bannion demanded.
“My fault.” The deputy spat out a quid of tobacco. “He grabbed my gun out of my pocket when I was bending over him and threw down on me. Weren’t nothin’ I could do but let him out. I ain’t aimin’ to start pluckin’ a harp so young.”
“And the sheriff?”
The deputy shrugged. “Out some’ere. Ain’t seen him for a couple of hours.”
O’Bannion wondered where the sheriff had gone. At least the sheriff had been around a few minutes before—long enough to try to pot him. Funny, O’Bannion thought.
“What’re you doing here?” he asked the deputy.
“Wouldn’t do no good to look for Dorcas,” the deputy said. “The mob will’ve scared him away.”
That had been O’Bannion’s idea. He said: “Want to give me some help?”
The deputy squinted his eyes. “What do I do?”
“I’ve got a hunch where the Raymer kid is being held,” said O’Bannion swiftly. “Maybe it’s sour, but I haven’t time to explain now. How about tagging along?”
“Dorcas one of ’em?”
“Yeah.”
The deputy shook his head. “Them boys are tough. The town don’t pay me much fer bein’ depitty. I figger that tanglin’ with a slick gang of city crooks don’t come under the headin’ of duty.”
O’Bannion said softly: “Maybe you forget. G-Men aren’t allowed to accept rewards.”
The deputy squinted his eyes again. He chewed on his tongue for a moment, and then he opened his eyes wide.
“I get it,” he said. “For that five thousand dollar reward, mister, I’d follow you to hell and back. What should I do?”
“Find me a rowboat,” O’Bannion said.
The bay was smooth with only a light swell. The deputy rowed and O’Bannion sat in the stern of the skiff. The skiff was small and it had been pulled up dry on the beach and seams had opened in the sun. Water gurgled in the bottom now.
“Why we goin’ out to them old ships?” asked the deputy, resting on the oars. “They ain’t been nobody aboard ’em for years.”
“Keep rowing,” O’Bannion said.
It was cool on the water. O’Bannion hunched his shoulders inside his coat. The moon in its quarter was riding low in the sky behind a cloud.
Suddenly O’Bannion leaned forward and touched Lem Gayer’s knee. “Hold it, Lem.”
The deputy squinted and held the oars motionless, beads of water dripping off them into the bay. From some distance away came the chunk-chunk of rowlocks. O’Bannion sat forward, listening. The rowlocks sounded nearer.
“I guessed as much,” O’Bannion muttered, and he held his gun ready in his hand.
“Can you swim?” whispered the deputy.
“No,” O’Bannion lied.
The other boat came closer. Clouds drifted northward and the moon painted a silvery path across the water. The other boat was a dim outline with two men in it. O’Bannion knelt in the bottom of the skiff, only vaguely conscious of the water wetting his knees.
“Let ’em get past us,” whispered O’Bannion. “They’ve probably left the kid and the girl all alone or with only one man guarding them.”
The deputy nodded shortly. He shifted a little in the seat. One of the oars was unshipped and its blade hit the water with a splash.
Under his breath O’Bannion cursed.
There was a split second of silence. Then somebody in the other boat muttered an oath. A gun hammered and the slug skipped flatly over the gentle swell.
Secrecy was useless now. O’Bannion fired, but his target was elusive. The deputy yelled and let go of both oars. He stood up and began pawing for his own gun.
“Sit down!” O’Bannion snarled.
The deputy was startled. He craned his neck around to stare at O’Bannion. One foot slipped clumsily and he floundered to the side. The skiff tilted, hung there uncertainly for a moment and then went over.
O’Bannion went down a long way. He got some water up his nose and steel bands constricted around his lungs. He pushed upward with hands and feet and after what seemed a long time his head broke water.
He could hear the deputy thrashing around, but when he called out there was no answer. The skiff was bobbing on the surface, upside down. The other boat was very close now. Flame laced out from it and the ricocheting slug made an ugly sound. O’Bannion pushed himself under water and came up under the overturned skiff.
For a moment he clung to the seat and caught up with his breathing. Then with one hand he reached down and began unlacing his shoes. There was enough air imprisoned under the skiff to last for a little while.
He heard splashes and muffled voices. Then he heard something which sounded like a man being dragged out of the water.
That would be the deputy being hauled aboard.
The other boat circled for what seemed a long time. Silently O’Bannion shrugged out of his coat and shirt. He could hear voices but he couldn’t distinguish the words. The air under the skiff began getting foul. Then at length the sounds from the other boat went away.
O’Bannion relaxed. Probably they’d decided he had drowned. He shoved himself under the water and came up several feet away. For a moment he floated on his back, resting. Then he abandoned the skiff and swam slowly toward the dark row of windjammers anchored a few hundred yards away.
“Cripes!” O’Bannion muttered softly to himself. He felt very much alone out here on the water.
The windjammers squatted ghostlike, their spars and shattered rigging looking like vague caricatures of human skeletons. Waves slapped at the weathered sides with a hollow booming sound.
At each vessel he paused to scan the tall sides, and then paddled silently on. He passed half a dozen before he saw the faint flicker of light for which he was searching. A dinghy was tied at the trailing end of a Jacob’s-ladder. That would be the boat from which the men had shot at him. After the encounter they had returned here.
For a moment O’Bannion clung to the ladder, then he climbed up. Crouching against the rail, he listened. From below deck came the faint thread of voices.
O’Bannion padded toward the sound. The light he had seen had come from the fo’c’sle. On the way he found a couple of rusty old belaying pins. Maybe they’d come in handy since he’d lost both his guns.
At the companionway housing he paused and began chewing
on his lip. The voices were louder here. Somehow the odds had to be whittled down.
Then he grinned without humor and tossed one of the belaying pins over the side. It made a satisfactory splash.
Momentary silence. Then two feet thudded up the companionway.
O’Bannion ducked into the shadows of the deck housing. A short fat man with a very white face appeared and ran toward the rail. O’Bannion crept up behind him.
Some slight noise made the fat man turn. He gave a strangled cry and pawed for a gun. The belaying pin made a sickening sound on his skull and he fell straight forward on his face.
Somebody called out from below and O’Bannion leaped toward the companionway. More feet made soft sounds below. O’Bannion took the companionway in a flying leap, aiming with both feet at the chest of a man who was just starting up. The guy was Leonard Dorcas, a white bandage wound turban-wise around his head.
But Dorcas was fast. He swung off the companionway and O’Bannion sailed past him and landed at full length on the deck. Dorcas tried to kick him in the head, and O’Bannion grabbed a foot and jerked. The little guy fell down on top of him.
The kerosene lamp on a table painted a shifting pattern of the fight on the bulkheads. O’Bannion flung the little guy aside, but Dorcas was back again. They rolled over and over on the deck, smashing into the table. The lamp teetered.
Dorcas hit O’Bannion a glancing blow on the jaw, then kicked out at him again. Then O’Bannion’s looping left smashed into the side of the little guy’s head. Dorcas stumbled back against the table and then collapsed.
The lamp fell over, rolling across the table and smashing on the floor. It left a thin trail of kerosene that caught fire and burned, twisting and turning like little red snakes.
A muffled voice came from one of the bunks.
The boy was the first one O’Bannion saw, a tow-headed youngster bound and gagged. He was breathing heavily, sound asleep. Then he saw the outline of a man struggling against his bonds. It was the sheriff.
“How’d you catch on they were using this old ship as a hideout?” asked the sheriff.
O’Bannion worked rapidly on the knots. “Same way you did, I guess. It seemed the most likely place around.”
The sheriff said ruefully: “I didn’t dope it out. Somebody cold-cocked me and lugged me here feet first.”
Smoke was rolling up in dense clouds now, carrying with it the smell of burning kerosene. The sky was no longer visible through the companionway opening. Only smoke and writhing shooting flames.
O’Bannion scooped up the sleeping youngster in his arms. “Come on!” he yelled to the sheriff.
They pressed forward. The fo’c’sle was a blazing inferno now. O’Bannion stumbled over the body of Leonard Dorcas. Passing the boy to the sheriff, he grabbed Dorcas by the back of the collar.
The sheriff threw a tarpaulin over the boy and then they fought free of the flames to the deck. O’Bannion dropped his limp burden, took a deep breath.
Two figures were trying to get over the side into the skiff tied below. O’Bannion yelled, and one of the figures turned and fired. The slug caught O’Bannion high in the shoulder and sent him crashing backward.
O’Bannion crawled to the side of Leonard Dorcas and found a gun. Rolling over, he fired from a prone position. The figure dropped his gun and then pulled the other figure around in front of him.
It was Lem Gayer and nurse Janet Sayre.
Snarled the deputy: “You shoot at me again and you’ll kill the girl.”
O’Bannion got to his feet. The flames had seared his legs and chest, and the wound in his shoulder was bleeding. Flames were hot beneath him. Slowly he lifted his gun.
He said bitterly: “I’d just as soon shoot her. She was in on the whole thing. She arranged to take the kid walking so you could snatch him. You let her go with the ransom note. She had to pretend to be working along with us.
“Before we left to pay the ransom—with me in the trunk—she went back into the hotel. Later on the desk clerk told me she’d phoned the jail. At the time I didn’t know whether she was calling the sheriff or you.
“And when we reached the place where the ransom was to be paid off she pretended to save my life. It was all just an act. And when I first saw her I wondered why the hem of her skirt was wet. Well, that was from coming out here before coming to my room.”
O’Bannion paused, raised his gun. “Sure, I’d just as soon shoot her. Why not?”
Nurse Janet Sayre yelled at the deputy: “You told me he wouldn’t shoot. I’m not going to let you hold me here while I take the slug meant for you!”
She lurched back, upsetting the deputy. He stumbled and fell to one knee. Wildly he tried to reach his gun on the deck. O’Bannion shot him twice, in the arm and in the leg.
O’Bannion turned to the sheriff. “For a while I thought you were in with the gang. Your leather jacket, the shot taken at me from my room, the shot from behind the hospital. But it was Lem Gayer trying to hang a frame on you. He even dropped your gun so I’d be sure to find it.
“He was the one who shot at me both times. He was the one riding in the kidnap car—he wore your coat, probably with a couple of sweaters under it to make him look huskier. And he let Leonard Dorcas escape from the hospital.
“He carried his gun in his hip pocket and it would be hard for Dorcas to reach around and get it. Like the girl, he had to be pretending to be helping me.”
The sheriff cleared his throat.
“Dorcas wanted to kill me and so did the deputy,” O’Bannion continued. “But the fat guy didn’t like the idea of shooting me—maybe he couldn’t forget the heat that killing a G-man is bound to turn on. Probably it was his idea to lock me in the trunk.”
O’Bannion took a look at Frankie Raymer. The youngster’s face was streaked with dirt and tears, his eyes were closed and he was breathing heavily.
“Doped,” O’Bannion said. “He’ll be all right.”
Again the sheriff cleared his throat.
“Maybe I sort of talked out of turn back at the jail,” he muttered. “I guess maybe you government boys got plenty on the ball after all. I guess maybe I’ll just stick to running in drunks on Saturday night for disturbing the peace. You can kill the rats.”
MURDER BREEDER
Mark Harper
CHAPTER I.
WANTED FOR COUNSEL.
Larry Clinton turned the corner toward his office building and swung big shoulders into the lobby. Steve, the cigar man, eyed them enviously.
“You shoulda gone pro, Mr. Clinton,” he said. “More money in football these days than in law, I’m bettin’ you.”
Larry shook his head at the truth in that statement and glanced down at a glaring headline on the latest newspaper.
RECLUSE MYSTERIOUSLY
MURDERED
Nothing in that for him.
Three persons were standing just beyond the counter. His glance took them in casually; two well-dressed men, one with round face, clipped mustache; the other, taller, dark, and a girl who stood a little apart.
Larry had the impression that the tall man was just turning from speaking to the girl as he looked up. He wasn’t sure of it, then or afterward; and it was important. But the girl was stepping out to head him off.
“I know you’re Larry Clinton,” she said, and her smile was nice.
Larry’s grin told he was. “Won’t you come up?”
“I’ve just come from your office and must hurry. I am Vivian Knapp. I want to engage your entire time for the next few days. I’ll explain later, but if I can get your promise, now, that will be enough.”
“I’ll have to check my engagements,” he told her, trying to look that important. “Will you come back later, or phone?”
She nodded. “But you’ll try”—the smile was working again with a hint of concern back deep in her dark eyes—“to hold your time for me and not take anything new?”
“Lord love me, yes,” Larry said fervently.
/> She turned. He liked her walk, too, as she hurried to the street. Larry thought nothing of the two men. Why should he? He thought of nothing at all except the promise of a break in the drought. Steve had said a mouthful.
He burst into the cubbyhole that made his outer office and started slightly at sight of a girl cleaning the accumulated dust from his typewriter. She turned bright eyes up at him. He strode forward and leaned over her.
“You’re hired.” He brought down a fist with the index finger pointed at her.
“No—really?”
“Well, tentatively, Miss Garland—again.”
“Is it the she person who was in here?”
“Yes. Exclusive time job.”
“Anything on the line?”
Larry groaned. Outside, the elevator door clanged open. The girl turned an attentive ear.
“More customers,” she whispered. “Inside!”
Larry closed the inner door softly. There was only a board partition separating the two offices, but his own had the advantage of size. Just now, it looked to him too large with most of his first equipment gone, one by one. Well, he could buy some more—if and when.
Elsie Garland opened the door and left it ajar. She winked; then one eyebrow went up in a sign of uncertainty.
“Can I interrupt you, Mr. Clinton?” Her clear voice carried well. “Two gentlemen calling—Mr. Pellini and Mr. Krantz.”
“All right. Let them come in.” Larry used his gruff voice.
He glanced up from some papers with the frown of a busy man when the men were well into the room; then his eyes narrowed slightly as he recognized the two he had seen at the cigar stand downstairs. Besides his own chair behind the flat desk, there were only two others. Larry waved his hands, and the tall, dark man he guessed was Pellini took the one at his right.
“Well?” he asked briskly, and when he got no immediate response: “I don’t want to hurry you, but my time is pretty well taken.”
Pellini gave him a long, sarcastic stare.
“We don’t want your time, feller. We just came to save you money.”
“Kind of you, but I’m not buying anything.”