by Jerry eBooks
“Bob’s boss checked his books, and when he discovered that as desperate as Bob’s situation was he hadn’t taken any money, he said not to quit the job. He appreciated my brother’s honesty, gave him the money as a personal loan to pay Zeke Manners.”
I started to slow up to swing over toward State Street.
“Keep going straight ahead,” said the girl.
I looked at her.
“My brother’s not hiding on State Street,” she said.
“I’m still listening,” I declared. “You haven’t told me yet why he can’t go to the police if he’s innocent.”
“He is,” she insisted. “He phoned me. He said he saw Zeke Manners alone. He was just paying the money when the door opened behind him. Someone knocked him sprawling. He saw Manners reach into his desk drawer and get a gun. Then there were shots. Manners slumped forward with the gun in his hand!
“Then my brother got up again, and he was punched on the back of the head. As he lay dazed, he felt his fingers pressed about a gun, then heard someone running. He tried to give chase. People who worked for Manners saw my brother, and thought he had done the killing.
“He knew he had to get away, and he managed it somehow. Then he phoned me. I went to the hospital, hoping Manners would regain consciousness sufficiently to name his murderer. But when I heard Manners was dead, I realized I had to help my brother somehow. You believe me, don’t you? And you’ll help?”
I didn’t answer her. I kept the hack rolling while I thought it over. I wanted to help her, but I couldn’t forget Zeke Manners.
“What about those guys in the sedan?” I asked. “Who do you think they are?”
“I told you,” she replied. “Friends of the real murderer!”
“Hoods?”
“What?”
“Gangsters?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Nuts,” I snapped. “I knew Zeke Manners. He didn’t have an enemy in what you’d call the underworld. His enemies, if any, came from the upper crust. Supposedly nice guys, model citizens, who gambled on the sly like kids sneaking a smoke in the woodshed. They didn’t know how to be good losers or pay their debts without squawking and threatening Zeke.”
“I saw those men in the hospital.” Her voice rose. “They were watching me. They’re as—as ruthless as men can be. I saw their eyes. If you could have seen—”
The way her voice sounded I knew she was telling the truth then. After driving an ambulance hack for ten years I knew genuine near-hysteria when I heard it.
“All right,” I growled, frowning. “Where’s your brother?”
“You believe me? You’ll help us?”
“Where is he?” I demanded. “I want to hear the story from him. Maybe he can give me a lead.”
She didn’t answer. I got clear of a jam of taxies, then turned my head. She was studying me dubiously.
“If you don’t believe his story,” she suggested, “if he can’t give you a lead—”
“You’ve still got the gun.”
“And I’ll use it to protect my brother. He’s at Four-sixty Hillside Terrace. No one would think of looking for him there. It’s an apartment rented by a friend who is away on vacation. He gave Bob the key to keep an eye on the place.”
ON the way to 460 Hillside Terrace I watched the mirror carefully. That earful of hoods I’d ditched bothered me. I wondered if an out-of-town gang had been trying to move in on Zeke. I knew all the local boys, knew they wouldn’t have killed him, but out-of-towners . . . why, I might walk right into their arms sometime. They’d find me easily because of the ambulance. In fact, I might ride to the morgue sometime in my own hack, but I wouldn’t be driving.
I knew I was crazy to believe this girl. I should dump her somehow. Get to the cops and clear myself, put them on her trail and her brother’s.
But I wanted to get the real killer of Zeke Manners, whether it was this girl’s brother or someone else. Zeke had taken a chance on me once, and I had to take a chance now. And besides that, I had a strange sense of wanting to believe this girl. That’s why I played ball with her and got three strikes on myself. . . .
The usual crowd of gawkers began to sprout from nowhere when the hack pulled up silently in front of 460 Hillside Terrace. I followed the girl in, admiring her trimness as I walked behind her, and I thought of a fresh package of crisp cookies.
We rode up alone in the self-service elevator. She held the gun under her cape and looked at me. I looked down at her soft lips—then the elevator stopped.
I banged open the doors, mad at myself for being a chump over a dame. Dames always get a guy into some kind of a jam. If it ain’t with the law it’s with in-laws or O. B. wards and loan sharks. A guy’s a chump to fall for a pretty little package.
I held the door open for her and liked the smell of her as she passed me. I should have let the doors close, gone down, piled in the hack and gotten out of there. But this dame must have had a ring through my nose or something. I followed her down the hall and kidded myself that I was doing it just because of Zeke Manners.
At the apartment door she knocked, then whispered through the door before it opened.
Bob Galloway’s thin white face tightened when he saw me.
“It’s all right, Bob,” she whispered. “Close the door.”
He did, staring suspiciously at me through his horn-rimmed glasses.
“He’s a friend of Zeke Manners,” the girl nodded toward me. “He’s going to help us. He wants to hear your story.”
Galloway told it. It was the same as the one the girl had told me. There was nothing more to go on, and I knew then I’d been a chump.
Joan, that was her name, went to the kitchen and mixed some drinks. Galloway turned on the radio while I questioned him.
“No,” he said, almost irritably as though he’d been all over it in his own mind, “I have no clue to the identity of the killer. I didn’t see him, and he didn’t speak. All I saw was his shoe when he stepped on the scattered money beside me and pressed my fingers around the gun as I lay dazed on the floor. It looked like any other rubber-soled shoe.”
Joan appeared in the doorway with a tray of drinks. It was easy to imagine her like that—in a kitchen doorway with a tray, a neat dress, a dainty house-apron . . .
The radio interrupted my chump thoughts.
“. . . still seeking Robert Galloway, the alleged killer of Zeke Manners. And police are puzzled by a new turn in the murder case. Galloway’s sister was seen at the Atlanta Street Hospital. Now she has disappeared and a nurse’s outfit and doctor’s kit have been reported stolen. One of the ambulances, driven by Michael Dolan, a close friend of Zeke Manners, is also strangely missing. Police are seeking to locate it and are also wondering if there is any relation between the latter two incidents and the murder.”
“Well,” I said, “that finishes that.”
JOAN set the tray down. She reached for the pocket of her cape, and I started toward her. Bob Galloway grabbed me. We grappled until Joan got her gun and covered me.
“Okay,” I growled, “what now?”
“We’re going to take him in the ambulance,” she declared.
“Where?”
“That’s not important now.”
“Okay, you’re giving the orders,” I said. “I’m waiting. How are you going to get him out?”
She looked dismayed, angry with herself and me.
“You don’t believe me anymore, is that it?” she demanded.
“I haven’t any choice,” I said curtly, “when that gun is pointed at me every time something doubtful comes up.” Her eyes locked with mine after she slowly looked at her brother. Then she tossed the gun at my feet!
Her brother looked as startled as I felt. He rushed toward the gun.
“Bob!” she stopped him. Her eyes still held mine.
I stood there, the gun touching my shoe. I could almost feel it with my toes. Then I moved to the door.
“Wait here,” I said. “I
’ll get the stretcher dolly.”
I turned and looked at her, then stepped out and closed the door quickly so the gawkers in the hall couldn’t look into the apartment. I ignored their questions and started down in the elevator.
“Dames!” I snapped, thinking of Joan. “Chump.”
I brought up the stretcher dolly, had Galloway lie on it, covered him and pulled the sheet over his face. He pulled it down.
“What are we doing this for?” he demanded, sitting up. “Why can’t I stay here?”
“Because we came in an ambulance,” I snapped, “because people saw us come to this apartment, and because sooner or later the cops are going to put two and two together and it will add up to eight—eightball for all of us.”
I shoved him down hard and yanked the sheet over him again.
“Open the door,” I snapped to Joan.
There was something wrong about her. I knew it as we rode down in the elevator, but I couldn’t figure what it was. Each time I looked at her to figure it out, the grateful kissable look on her face made me start figuring the wrong things.
She couldn’t lift an end of the dolly alone to snake it into the hack. So I started to lift one end by myself and Galloway nearly slid off. That would have been swell—with a guy standing on the curb watching and holding a newspaper that had Galloway’s picture.
Two fellows gave me a hand to snake the dolly in. One of them grinned at me and spoke softly.
“A woman doc, huh?”
“Yeah,” I growled.
I helped Joan in, none too gently, slammed the doors and beat it around to the wheel. As we rolled I spotted a police car coming around the corner behind us. I turned the next corner and stepped on the gas.
IT WAS about five minutes later when I heard the report of the hack’s radio—I’d tuned it back to the police and ambulance wavelength.
“Attention all cars. Pick up Ambulance Number Ten, driven by Michael Dolan. This ambulance is carrying Robert Galloway, the murderer of Zeke Manners, and Galloway’s sister. Arrest all occupants of the ambulance, and be careful. They may be armed and are undoubtedly desperate. Galloway’s sister, assisted by Dolan, is posing as a woman interne and she—”
“That’s it,” I exclaimed. “Now I know what was wrong. You left your kit in the apartment. That’s how they’ve been able to tie this together.” She looked apologetic.
“You’ve got to help us now to save yourself,” she said.
I didn’t answer.
I was driving myself straight for the Big House all because of a dame. Me, the chump, dreaming of a dame. Yeah, we’d go to court together, to the pen together, and we’d be hitched all right. Hitched in a hangman’s noose.
Not me!
Dames are a dime a dozen. Why should I become a cellmate just because I think some dame is my soulmate? I had an out from this mess. She forced me into it at gunpoint, didn’t she?
I looked around, glared at her. She still looked apologetic.
“Well,” I snapped, “why don’t you point the gun at me again?”
She stared at me before she spoke, and then her voice was weak.
“I—I left that at the apartment too.”
I nearly ran the hack into a bus. My alibi was gone.
“That’s swell,” I said through my teeth. “We got a murderer we’re trying to keep from the cops and a carful of hoods, and you forget the rod we’d need to protect him.”
Her eyes were bright as she looked at me.
“Then you are going to help us?” she asked.
“I’m going to dump you,” I retorted.
We rode silently three blocks, then I asked:
“Galloway, where’s your boss live? I’ll dump you there, and he’ll probably help you. I’ll give you a half-hour after I leave you there. At least I’ll try to steer clear of the cops that long or stall them. That’s all I’ll promise you.”
“Well, I suppose it can’t be any other way, Dolan,” he spoke heavily. “Thanks for what you done.”
“Thanks, Mike,” Joan said softly.
Her voice could have done things to me if I’d let it.
“If the guy won’t help you in a getaway,” I growled, “at least he’ll be able to get you a good lawyer and—”
A prowl car growled its siren, shot from the curb after us. I swore, hit the gas hard, and the hack leaped ahead. The prowl car screamed. I snapped on the red spotlights.
Traffic was thick. The prowl car’s siren cleared the way a bit for me, but not enough. I had to use my own siren.
As we howled through the night traffic, I called back to Galloway.
“Where’s your boss live?”
He told me. The radio sounded off. The prowl car reporting to Telegraph they were chasing us. Telegraph came back on ordering cars ahead to close in and intercept us.
I snaked the hack desperately through traffic. I did it automatically, my mind studying the layout of the city streets I knew so well.
I swung right on Haines Avenue to avoid two cars I had spotted ahead and to the left across the lots, racing to trap me at the corner. My eyes watched the streets, my ears listened to the police calls, my mind blended the two and I got the picture of what was happening.
THE police were herding me into a pocket—into Gammontown Island, a section of the city almost surrounded by the river, and there was no bridge out of there but the railroad bridge.
There was a parade of police cars after me. More were closing in ahead. I couldn’t hope to avoid them. I cut hard right at the next corner.
Galloway shouted.
“You shouldn’t have turned. We’ll be trapped now in Gammontown Island.”
“Not if I can make it to the railroad bridge,” I said tensely. “It’s our only chance.”
I cut off the siren and the lights. Raced through the darkness of Gammontown. Twisted through streets. Shook off the police cars on my trail. Their radio reports showed they weren’t too disappointed over losing sight of me—they thought they had me trapped.
I raced on. Joan came beside me.
“You’ll need another pair of eyes, driving without lights,” she said. Her voice was filled with confidence.
I didn’t answer.
I swung onto the railroad tracks. Drove fast to keep the wheels from bouncing on the ties. Went across the trestle.
The police radio did not report our escape—not yet.
Joan looked gratefully at me, but I ignored the look.
“Tell your brother to be ready to pile out when we reach his boss’s place,” I told her curtly.
A few minutes later, still without lights or siren, I sped into a dark residential district. Joan suddenly stiffened beside me. I saw her looking back.
“Mike, there was a car in that side street. It looked like the car the gangsters—it’s coming after us!” She all but screamed.
I whipped the hack around the next corner, careened it into a tree-screened driveway and gunned it up the incline under the porte-cochere. Below us the sedan raced by on the street.
JOAN and her brother piled out of the hack, but not before Joan leaned suddenly toward me and gave me a warm little kiss.
“Thanks, Mike, for all you’ve done. You’d better hurry now. Save yourself.”
I sat there, staring after her as she ran up the steps with her brother. Before they reached the top a short heavy-set guy opened the door and came out.
“Galloway,” he exclaimed, “what are you doing—”
“I need your help, Mr. Madden,” Galloway said to his boss. “I hope you’ll listen to me, believe me, and—”
Madden came silently to the edge of the steps, his feet on a level with my eyes, and frowned down at me.
I swung the door of the hack open.
“You’ve got to believe him, Mr. Madden,” I said, mounting the steps. “He’s innocent.”
They all looked at me. Joan especially. Down on the street I heard the sedan racing back. Police sirens sounded in the distance.
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br /> Madden’s sharp brown eyes studied me.
“I can’t help him, much as I’d like to,” he said. “He’s wanted by the police. I can’t risk my reputation. If he’ll give himself up, of course I’ll do all I can then, legal counsel and—”
“But he won’t stand a chance if he gives himself up,” Joan protested.
I was listening to those sirens, and to the sedan turning around again down the street. The hoods knew we were hidden somewhere in that block.
Madden moved silently back to the door. I followed, my feet grating on the cement porch.
“Listen, Mr. Madden,” I said quickly, desperately, “you’ve got to hide Galloway, protect him, until it’s safe for him to make a getaway.”
“I can’t do that,” he retorted impatiently, “the police and everyone else believe him guilty of murder.”
“And embezzling the bank’s funds,” I stabbed in the dark.
Madden nodded. “Yes, and—”
He looked sharply at me. I smiled grimly.
“I thought you checked his records today and found nothing missing,” I rapped out.
MADDEN stared. Joan gasped, looked quickly from me to Madden. Galloway looked startled.
“Madden,” I snapped, “I think you’ve worked a neat little frame on Galloway.”
“Do you know what you’re saying?” he demanded angrily.
“Yeah. I think you murdered Zeke Manners. You knew Galloway was going there. You gave him the money. You probably owed Manners plenty yourself—bank money you’d gambled away. You’re one of these model citizens when you’re in the public eye.”
“This is slander!” Madden barked self-righteously. “I don’t know Zeke Manners.”
“You were there today,” I countered. “And how do I know? I was there myself to pick up the bullet-riddled body of the squarest guy I ever knew. I saw the dough scattered on the floor and one of the bills had been stepped on by a guy wearing rubber-soled shoes.
“Madden,” I snapped, “let’s see the pattern of those rubber soles you’re wearing!”
He jumped back and his hand plunged into his pocket. I hit him. He went back. I hit him again, grabbed his wrist. He rammed his knee to my groin and my muscles turned to butter.