The big boy at the wheel seemed to enjoy his chosen occupation too. The sedan sprang like a trained dog in his hands. We were a robin’s egg blue blur shooting along West End Highway. Heading uptown. Afternoon traffic was heavy, but as far as the driver was concerned it was strictly a one-horse race. The sedan nosed ahead of everything in sight.
Helen Tucker moaned. The poor kid was scared. I didn’t feel like cheering either, but somebody has to take up the slack at a time like that. So I did.
“Is this trip really necessary?” I made my voice as sweet as possible because I had to find out the kind of customers I was dealing with.
They both laughed. The one sitting next to me laughed the hardest. That bothered me. Their laughing, I mean. Hard guys with a sense of humor can usually handle themselves and are hard to fool.
The .38 pressed into my side. I winced as it jarred a bone out of the way. I looked at my back-seat partner.
His smile was cold. “I see you are a comic, friend. We only like professional comedians. Try to remember that.”
“I’ll remember a lot of things, Shorty,” I said. “I’m not carrying this umbrella because I’m expecting it to rain, you know.”
The guy up front grunted.
“You’ll be sorry we muffed the first try. What’s coming will be a helluva lot worse.”
“What is coming?” He’d said it so matter-of-factly that the question just popped right out of me.
“We’re dumping you, Noon. And it’s going to look like an accident. You’ll have enough whiskey smeared all over you to convince the most skeptical cop. A poor drunk who stepped out on the highway and got run over. That’s what’s coming.”
“Doesn’t sound original at all. How about Miss Tucker?”
The guy next to me laughed. The one up front chimed in. They might have preferred professional funny men but I was killing them. A knot started to take shape in the pit of my stomach. I didn’t need an answer.
“Okay,” I said. “You’re in command here. But what’s the deal? Who paid you off? And why is it so important to get me out of the way? And why pick on her—”
The nose of the .38 slammed across my ribs hard. I cursed as the wind left me and the pain started.
Helen Tucker blurted in fear and the hulk beside her growled at her. She shut up so fast I thought he’d hit her. But it wasn’t that. The rigid set of her curved shoulders told me she was tongue-tied with fright.
The guy up front was charitable.
“Why the hell do you want to know? What’s the big difference? You think you’re going to come back from the grave or something to square the beef? Don’t make me laugh, Noon.”
“I’d like to do a lot more than make you laugh, Mr.——”
“Smith,” the guy next to me said. “His name is Smith. John Smith. And I’m Jones. John Jones.”
“Pleased to meet you both and insanity does run in my family.”
They both laughed at that, Smith and Jones. Even the hard guys admire a guy who can crack wise when he’s under a gun.
The Hudson River lay beautiful and smooth in the late afternoon and weak sunlight was trickling from the West. And the sedan was cruising along like a high-flying bird. But I didn’t feel too good about anything. If I didn’t think of something pretty quick, I’d never have to worry where the rent money was coming from again. Ever. And the same went for Helen Tucker.
My hand tightened around the head of my umbrella cane. I tried to keep my face still because the brain behind it was buzzing furiously.
Suddenly, the smell of alcohol cut into my thinking like a knife. I came awake like a guy coming to out of a bad dream. Jones had taken a bottle out of somewhere and was eyeing me with a ghastly leer on his kisser. I looked at the bottle. It was uncapped. For the first time in my history, a whiskey bottle looked as terrible as a tarantula.
“Thanks, Jonesy. What a pleasant way to die.” The whiskey was Old Grandad. Which is only one hundred proof. And proof enough for what they had in mind.
Up front, John Smith chuckled. “Give it to him good.”
John Jones gave it to me all right. Gave it to me good. He jerked the bottle in my direction like a water pistol. Alcohol splattered my shirt collar, spread down my lapels, ran onto my lap. I really smelled like a brewery this time.
“Please don’t overdo it, Jonesy. I’ve never been that careless with the joy juice in my life. Don’t waste it all.”
He thrust the near-empty bottle at me. The .38 in his fist came up a bit higher and bored in on my head. Jones’s eyes weren’t funny anymore. They were two glitteringly cold diamonds.
“Take a drink. A good long pull. And don’t try anything. I’ve never missed a shot in my life.”
“I never have either.” I took the bottle from him with my free left hand which was on his side. “Not a bad idea at that. Both ways. I’ll have to have evidences of alcohol in me just in case they give me a close check in the morgue. And I need a shot right now. A good long pull like you said.”
The sedan slowed down a bit. I stared between John Smith and Helen Tucker. We were just hitting the end of the Highway before it curved up to the base of the George Washington Bridge. The highway sort of corkscrews at that point into a thin stretch of Manhattan island. Come to think of it, it was just the kind of place a really loaded drunk might step out onto a very busy highway and get run down before somebody could hit the brakes fast enough. And Helen Tucker was whimpering now like a frightened child, and something about the set of John Smith’s shoulders had given me a little warning. The Hit-and-Run death of one Ed Noon was just about getting underway.
John Jones was impatient too. “Come on. Quit stalling. Drink.” His eyes never left my face. My eyes came back to his and stayed there. Maybe my life or death depended on how well I read it.
“Sure, Jonesy,” I said. “Here’s to nothing.” I lifted the bottle in my left hand and swung around a little on the seat like a guy will to get his neck set for a good tilt. That was perfectly natural. I shifted my hand on the umbrella cane to set myself. That was perfectly natural too.
Only I didn’t lean on it. I kept the nose of it off the floor and put the round rim of the bottle neck to my lips. I swallowed, swallowed hard, keeping my eyes fastened on the very attentive John Jones.
Which was a good thing. I let the whiskey burn down and kept him looking. He was worried that I might try something with the bottle.
He should have worried about the umbrella.
I was turning my hand without moving my arm until the black umbrella was lifting off the floor until it was almost parallel with it. I angled it upward, my thumb silently unbuckling the tiny catch that belts the top of those things to keep the folds from flapping.
“Okay,” John Jones growled. “That’s enough. Don’t overdo it.”
I sucked noisily and waited for the impatient jerk of his head. It came. His eyes slipped with the one quarter turn of his head for the one one thousandth of a second. That helped. And so did two other things.
The window on my side was open and a strong breeze was whipping in. And the umbrella was the release type. You press a button near the handle and the folds suck outward into a flaring arc.
I pressed the button.
The umbrella shot open like a parachute into Mr. Jones’s surprised face. The .38 in his hands exploded through the fabric noisily and fifteen thousand bells were ringing in my ears. I slammed Old Grandad down at him in a plunging swoop, twisting like a snake. I couldn’t find him. The umbrella was in my way.
I had a bad two seconds before I did. The .38 banged and banged. More bells. I fell across his thrashing body, found his gunhand and neck and held on to both. He was cursing like a maniac.
Suddenly, the sedan swerved sharply, swung crazily off the highway and jarred to a lurching, sickening halt. Up front, John Smith cursed and bellowed. And Helen Tucker was shrieking like a banshee.
The .38 between me and John Jones went off again like the biggest firecracker on th
e Fourth of July.
TWENTY-FOUR
John Jones’s body relaxed all of a sudden and his .38 was free in my hand. I spun around facing the front seat, my ears ringing like a battery of telephones, my bum left knee on fire from all the activity.
The front seat of the sedan was practically a free-for-all. John Smith and Helen Tucker were grappling over a gun. Tucker’s back was to me, heaving and jerking. Suddenly, John Smith’s big hand snaked around her and yanked the .38 out of my surprised fingers. He didn’t want it. He just didn’t want anyone else to have it. The force of his yanking fingers sent the shiny-barreled beauty flying out of the open window.
They were both grunting and groaning like a pair of wrestlers on TV. I tried to close the umbrella so I could use it as a weapon. But I couldn’t. The scrap between me and John Jones had reduced it to a limp mess.
The scrap between Helen Tucker and John Smith came to a sudden halt. His big fist crashed against the side of her head, and she went over and down and out of sight. He kicked the car door open and fell out cursing.
I was a sitting duck in the back seat and I knew it. I jerked the door handle and tumbled out on the opposite side of the sedan. I left the umbrella and took the empty bottle of Old Grandad.
I could hear him going after the .38 which was lying out on the road somewhere. But he either had bad hearing or he’d been too busy with Tucker. The gun was empty. Me and Jonesy had killed all the life in it. The last slug had killed Jonesy. I ducked around the car feeling as fit as a busted fiddle and got ready to rush him. He wasn’t going to be easy.
He met me halfway. The leer on his ugly face was the first thing I saw. The second thing was the gun in his hand.
“Smart guy,” he spat out some blood. “Smart guy—” He tugged the trigger violently.
The clicks sounded heavenly. Even when you’re sure a gun is empty, it’s not exactly relaxing to have someone point it at you with murder in his eyes.
“Too bad, Smitty,” I said as I closed in warily. “You should have hung onto your own.”
The river was behind him and the highway was behind me. He had run the car out onto one of the many little gravelly stretches that butt off the highway. Where you could fix a flat and be off the main drag. It was a helluva place for a showdown, almost like the arena of a prize fight.
He lowered his head and charged, flailing with the empty gun. I brought the bottle up and slapped it across his face and got out of the way. He cursed and ducked.
A car horn blared behind me. Brakes slammed. But I kept my attention on John Smith. He closed in again, struck out with the .38 and suddenly the bottle in my fingers shattered into nothing. The jagged neck of the thing was all that was left jutting from my fingers. It was still a weapon, but only good for close-in fighting. I wasn’t.
John Smith knew I wasn’t. The grin on his face was sickening. I waited, the pain in my leg banging away like a pneumatic drill. Somehow he knew he had me. And I knew it too.
The .38 flew out of his fingers right for my head. I pulled it out of the way, but it caught the lobe of my ear in passing. I could feel it tear and rip and draw blood. The next thing I felt was his heavy breath in my face, his big arms smashing me.
I got my good knee up, buried it in his stomach. He fell off gasping. He growled in his throat like a big animal. And rushed again.
From the direction of the car, a gun coughed with a low spit of sound. It kept on coughing. It wasn’t a heavy noise either. But it was enough.
John Smith went down on one knee, shook his head like he was trying hard to clear it. Blood stained his white shirt. He gagged in his throat and his head spun questioningly toward the car.
The gun coughed again. His hands closed over his middle, bent in to hold the pain and the blood back. Then something in him gave up. He sagged to the gravelly ground, straightened out and died.
I flung a glance at the car. Helen Tucker was swaying out of the front seat, her lovely face as white as death, the smoking .22 in her fingers dangling like a kid’s toy.
Footsteps were pounding up to me but I hardly heard. I tried to get over to catch her in time, but she hit the deck before I could reach her. Out cold in a dead faint.
“Stand still and don’t move,” a tough male voice grated in my ear. I turned wearily. A Headquarters man had pounded up to me, gun out, handcuffs gleaming. His partner, a tall, statuesque blonde had rushed over to the car and was trying to revive Helen Tucker.
“The girl’s all right, Bob” she called over her shoulder. “Just passed out.”
“Sure took your time getting here,” I said. “I thought John Smith was a good driver. But I didn’t think he was good enough to shake a police tail.”
The dick grunted and put his cuffs away. He moved around me to look down at John Smith.
“Okay, Noon. We saw the whole thing. You probably saved the show again.” He bent to study John Smith. “You know this guy?”
I was shaking my head when the dame sang out again. “Another stiff in the back seat, Bob.”
“This was John Smith, Bob,” I said. “Only Helen Tucker didn’t make like Pocahontas for him. The guy in the car said his name was John Jones. They were a couple of hired pros, but I’ve never seen them before.”
Bob nodded and put his gun away. “New face to me too. Probably imported mugs. It’s happened before.”
We got over to the car. The blonde copper had worked miracles. Helen Tucker had revived. She was sitting behind the wheel, sighing evenly. Her blue eyes were dry and a large blue welt shone on her cheek. John Smith had played rough, but she had played even rougher.
I turned her head around where she could look at me.
“Okay, Tucker,” I said. “You killed a man. But you saved my life doing it. Which would you rather have?”
“Oh, Ed—” Her arms suddenly flung around me, closed me in. “When I saw him hitting you—everything crashed in my head. The gun in my bag—I had to stop him.”
The blonde and Bob exchanged glances. I smiled. I remembered the two of them necking on duty, enjoying their work. Funny world.
“Easy, Helen. You did what you had to do. And now we’re minus the company of two very unnecessary people. So what? We’re still here. That’s all that counts.”
Bob made a noise. I looked at him.
“It’s back to Headquarters, Noon. The Lieutenant will want the whole story on this.”
“By all means, Bob. I want to see Hadley too. You probably haven’t heard—I know you’ve been busy—but the Prentice kid has flown the coop. She left a letter admitting all. Well, I’ve got some ideas on that subject too. Let’s get moving.”
Bob and his blonde playmate exchanged glances again. I took Helen Tucker’s hand and eased her out of the sedan. Gratefully she let me lead her over to the police car.
Bob was starting to fire questions at me but I cut him short.
“What time is it?”
He glared but looked at his watch. “Close to five. Why?”
“Time is everything in life, Robert. And right now I think time is running out for somebody.”
“Somebody like a killer maybe?”
“You catch on fast, Robert.”
Helen Tucker stopped and stared up at me.
“Ed, you don’t think Wally would do all this, do you? And that note of Lucille’s—” Tears sprang to her lovely eyes. “Oh, I’m so confused—”
“That makes two of us, Tucker. But relax. It’s a long drive downtown. Try to catch some shut-eye.”
The dick, Bob, and the statuesque blonde were busy phoning their report in. Helen Tucker melted in my arms and put her mouth to mine. We kissed. Kissed like it was the most important thing in the world.
I don’t know. Maybe it was.
TWENTY-FIVE
Hadley’s office down at Headquarters was like a morgue. It was cold, and Helen Tucker and I were sitting around waiting for him to come back from some official police errand. Bob the plain-clothes man and his blonde ass
istant had turned us over to Sanderson and gone through their official paces on reporting the twin killing of the two Johns, Smith and Jones.
Sanderson had groaned mightily at my turning up again but had shunted us into Hadley’s sanctum sanctorum and disappeared on some nebulous police business. Though I could guess what it was. He was interested in the identities of the two dead gunmen far more than he let on. Plenty of New York murders are cracked wide open by leads that begin as far west as Chicago.
I’d nearly worn out my pack of Camels waiting for Hadley. Helen Tucker had been alternately weeping and smiling bravely at me. I kept Hadley’s desk between us. A police station is no place to neck anyway. Besides that, I wanted her to get all her marbles back again before we started talking seriously. Smith and Jones had scared hell out of her.
My leg was still bothering me. But I had made up my mind to ignore it. Which was a fine arrangement all around except that I forgot to tell my knee about it. The damn thing was vibrating like a shimmy dancer.
“Ed, I just can’t make myself believe that Lucille—” She’d been saying it for hours now and I couldn’t blame her. Kids killing their old ladies is something to keep you up nights. Her lovely blue eyes told me how silly the idea was. But her voice betrayed her. It trailed off into nothing.
“Take it easy, Tucker,” I said. “Wait’ll Hadley shows up. He’s probably out on it now.”
“I can’t help it, Ed. Just the thought of it—”
“I know. But you’re as close to this as anyone else, closer even. Lucille struck me as having her moments.” I remembered all too well her trying to blow my head off with the .45. “What does it add up to?”
She bit her lip. “I don’t know. ’Course, Lucille wasn’t really fond of Paula. She remembered her real mother too well. And Guy did change toward her. My fault as much as his, I suppose. But he was so miserable being married to—” Her voice had risen. She stopped, a little ashamed. “I’m sorry, Ed. But Paula wasn’t a wife that Guy Prentice could be happy with.”
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