by Hank Janson
It was a tricky situation. A sudden movement by Jenks might easily cause Manton to fire. I had only to look at Frisk’s face to realize he knew that better than anybody. He was worth looking at. If you wanted a study in sheer blue funk, a photograph of Frisk would have made a perfect specimen.
I’ve seen guys scared before. I’ve seen brave guys scared and I’ve seen cowards scared. But never have I seen anybody as scared as Frisk in that moment. His face was dead-white, his forehead gleaming with cold sweat, his lips trembling and sheer, stark panic in his eyes.
Manton saw his fear, rejoiced in his own, new-found power. He jabbed with the gun, got more menace into his voice. ‘I’m giving you one more chance, Frisk,’ he gritted. ‘Tell me where my daughter is. Just one more chance.’ But he wasn’t convincing, and the muzzle of the gun was lowered, pointing at the floor.
It was a tense situation. Yet what happened next was so smooth and so easy. Frisk raised the revolver he was holding and fired; one shot, two shots, swiftly and easily, just like that!
The door was shut and the walls closed us in. The crash of the shots was muffled and condensed. We stared with singing ears as Manton hung in mid-air, his mouth open like he was gasping in astonishment, and his eyes bulging. Then his gun dropped from his hand and he fell backwards abruptly, fell in a sitting position. He opened his mouth, tried to say something, but a gush of blood choked his words. He reached out with his left hand as though feeling for support, and then quite suddenly fell backwards so his head banged loudly on the floor.
I got to him first. I kneeled over him, opened up his jacket. He wasn’t bleeding much. I opened up his shirt, and there was one jagged hole below the centre of the breastbone and another higher up, which was close enough to have at least grazed his heart.
Manton’s eyes were closed now. But his mouth kept moving like he was trying to swallow, and dribbles of fresh blood kept bubbling from the corners of his mouth. I put my fingers on the pulse in his throat. At the same time, I snapped: ‘Get a doctor.’
Flashy-smile was right behind me. He grabbed my collar, jerked me backwards so I sprawled on the floor. ‘Look after this guy,’ he rapped.
‘What the hell?’ I yelled, but as I scrambled to my feet, the battered features of Jenks thrust close to mine. There was a hard, uncompromising ring of steel poking at my belly. ‘Easy, pal,’ he advised. ‘Back up against the wall. You don’t wanna get yourself in trouble.’
I backed up against the wall. Everything had happened so quickly I was bewildered. I glanced at Frisk, hoping maybe he’d be giving some orders. He was standing behind his desk, his face still white and terrified. He was staring at the gun, which he’d dropped on his desk like it was a poisonous snake.
Flashy-smile crossed swiftly to the office door. Jenks called after him, warningly: ‘Say, you ain’t gettin’ a doctor?’
Flashy-smile carefully locked the door; put the key in his pocket. He said, meaningfully: ‘A doctor ain’t needed.’
Frisk’s panic-stricken eyes climbed slowly from the desk towards flashy-smile. His lips trembled. They trembled so much I could hardly hear his words. ‘He isn’t … isn’t … dead!’
Flashy-smile showed his teeth in a wide grin. ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘What d’ya expect? Two slugs in the chest are liable to kill a guy.’
Frisk stood like stone for several seconds. Then he dropped into his chair, buried his face in his hands and moaned aloud: ‘I’ve killed him. I’ve killed him!’
I licked my lips. I didn’t like any of this. The door was locked and I had the uneasy feeling I’d seen too much.
‘Look, fellas,’ I said. ‘Better call the cops.’
‘Shuddup,’ snarled Jenks.
‘It’s your duty,’ I told him. ‘You’ve gotta call the cops. Nobody’s gonna beef any. It was self-defence, wasn’t it?’
‘Not the way the cops will build it up,’ said flashy-smile.
‘But that’s the way it was,’ I protested. ‘I’ll be a witness it was self-defence.’ I was telling myself that if I ever got outta there, I was gonna tell it just the way it was: cold-blooded murder. Although Manton had pointed a gun, it was by no means certain he was gonna use it.
Frisk lifted his head from his hands, stared at me levelly. He’d got himself under control now. ‘That won’t be any good,’ he said. ‘The cops would try to hang it on me. Even if they couldn’t hang it on me, they’d get me a stretch for manslaughter.’
Flashy-smile shook his head admonishingly. ‘You shouldn’t have done it, boss,’ he said. ‘You shouldn’t have done it.’
Frisk sighed. ‘All this time, I’ve kept my hands clean,’ he almost moaned. ‘They’ve never had anything on me. And now … this!’
This reaction was typical of him. Not one thought for the poor devil whose life he had taken. Just selfish regret his action had got him in a jam.
Jenks said, meaningfully: ‘There was one guy too many who saw everything.’
That was when Frisk really became aware of my presence. His eyes widened, became hunted. ‘That’s what I mean,’ he said. ‘It’s not just Manton. Now it’s him.’ For the first time, he realized the full impact of my menace to him. His voice was scared. ‘Don’t let him go, Jenks,’ he ordered. ‘Don’t let him out of this room.’
Jenks grinned easily, ground the gun barrel into my belly. ‘You ain’t goin’ anywhere?’ he mocked.
Frisk said, fluttering a nervous hand: ‘We’ve gotta watch out for him. He’s gonna be dangerous. I’ve gotta think.’ He muttered beneath his breath, talking to himself. ‘Always kept my hands clean until now. What a helluva thing to happen!’
I hadn’t any wrong ideas about Frisk. He was yella all the way through. Too yella to execute his own killings. He paid other guys to do it. That’s how he kept himself free from the cops.
Flashy-smile said, pointedly: ‘We’ve gotta act quick, boss. This ain’t the kinda thing you can sleep on.’
Frisk agreed nervously. ‘Yeah. We’ve gotta act quick.’ His fingers drummed on his desk. ‘We’ve gotta get the body out of here somehow. Can’t have it around the place. That’s what you’d better do, Gunn. Get him outta here. Drop him in a ditch somewhere.’
Flashy-smile, or Gunn, as I now learnt his name to be, took out a cigarette, lit it casually. He was cool for a guy who’d had the disposal of a murdered man dumped in his lap. ‘I figure we can be smart, boss,’ he drawled. ‘We can fix two guys with one murder. We can get rid of Manton, and we can clear you, too!’
There was a kinda stony silence. With a flutter of apprehension, I realized all three of them were staring at me with new and sudden interest.
CHAPTER FIVE
Everything had happened so quickly – the killing of Manton and the smooth acceptance of it by Frisk’s bodyguard – that I was bewildered, my mental processes dulled and not working so quickly as theirs.
As those three pairs of eyes stared at me, I stared back, uncomprehendingly. Then slowly, very slowly, I did begin to understand dimly.
‘Get your hands up, Bud,’ rasped Jenks. He jabbed with the gun barrel. Reluctantly I raised my hands. There was a queer, hollow feeling inside me. I looked at Frisk and demanded: ‘What’s the meaning of this?’
The colour had come back to his cheeks now. He was rapidly gaining control of himself. ‘Better get outside, Gunn. See if anyone heard those shots.’
Gunn moved swiftly and smoothly, reappeared within a few moments, locking the door behind him with a grin of satisfaction on his face. ‘Everything’s fine,’ he said. ‘They couldn’t even hear a bomb. Their own hearts are beating too loudly!’
Frisk nodded with satisfaction. Then he looked at Jenks meaningfully. I tried to analyse that silent message, but once again my thinking processes were way behind theirs. The gun barrel jabbed into my belly: this time, so mercilessly that it drove the air out of my lungs, caused me to double over in agony.
Jenks worked like a machine. My bowed head was a defenceless and perfect target.
He smashed the gun butt on the nape of my neck at the base of the skull. It wasn’t very painful. It kinda paralysed me with a red-hot tingling sensation. In a red haze, I realized I was lying on the floor, the room expanding and contracting and hot pins and needles jabbing me all over. There was no resistance in me when they pulled my hands behind me, lashed them securely with electric flex from the table lamp.
I wasn’t very sure about anything that was happening. I could see only their blurred faces as they turned me on my back. Jenks’s face loomed close as he knelt over me. He was lifting my head, holding it. I couldn’t understand why he should be doing that. And by this time my thinking processes were almost at a standstill. Because there was but a split second of understanding when a blurred fist began its journey. It finished its journey somewhere inside my head amidst agonized blackness.
I don’t know how long I was unconscious. When I opened my eyes, blinked around hazily, Frisk was leaning against the cocktail cabinet, smoking a cigarette through a long holder. Gunn was lifting something shiny from a small polished box. I shook my head to clear it, blinked my eyes. Gunn was quick to notice, raised his crafty eyes to mine and smiled his toothy smile. ‘Have a nice little kip?’ he mocked.
I moved uncomfortably, felt burning pain around my wrists. I was wedged in Frisk’s chair, my hands tied behind me and secured to the chair so I couldn’t move. Something else was wrong, too. Jenks wasn’t there!
My head was aching intolerably. I bleared towards Frisk. ‘What are you guys up to?’ I demanded.
Frisk was completely self-composed now. He smiled, kindly and indulgently. ‘Need I say I regret this, Mr Martin?’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Just a whim of fate. If you’d not thought to change a cheque. this would never have occurred.’ He shrugged his shoulders again. ‘As it is ... I can only offer my regrets.’
My head ached so bad it made me angry. ‘What the hell I are you talking about?’ I demanded. ‘Just let me go, or I’ll raise all hell.’
He smiled tolerantly. ‘We shall let you go ... eventually!’ The way he spoke indicated release was gonna mean a lotta grief for me. I was in some tough kinda jam. The hell of it was, I didn’t know what kinda jam.
‘What are you playing at?’ I demanded. ‘What d’you reckon you can pull?’
Gunn was still toying with that box. I could see more clearly now, see what he was handling. It was a long, glittering hypodermic. He was busy charging it with transparent liquid from gelatine capsules. He paused momentarily to look at me with malicious satisfaction. ‘You did it wrong, fella,’ he mocked. ‘You shouldn’t have put a coupla slugs in that guy.’ His eyes indicated Manton, who was lying the other side of the desk. I could only see his feet.
‘You’re crazy,’ I burst out. ‘You can’t pin this on me. I saw it all.’ I licked my lips and told a white lie. ‘Frisk killed him in self-defence. There isn’t a jury could hang it on him if they wanted.’
Frisk chuckled. But there was no humour in his chuckle. ‘You don’t understand,’ he said gently. ‘You killed him. There isn’t the slightest question of it.’
I got that fluttery feeling in my belly again. I knew false accusations wouldn’t get them anywhere. Manton had been killed in Frisk’s office, and a searching examination of witnesses would bring out the true facts. But, just the same, I was scared. I was scared because they were so confident.
I put a brave face on it. ‘That suits me fine,’ I said. ‘You can’t get the cops here soon enough for me.’
Frisk tut-tutted. ‘Why should the cops come here? Why should we be involved?’
I stared at him with startled eyes. Gunn gave a grunt of satisfaction, straightened up, holding the hypodermic firmly, thumb poised, ready to press home the plunger. He held it ominously, pointed it towards me. I stared at the long needle with its fine, penetrating point. There was a sudden dryness in my throat. ‘What are you gonna do?’ I croaked.
‘We’re gonna fix you, pal,’ he said. It was probably his idea, and he was proud of it. He couldn’t resist telling me. He gestured with the hypodermic. ‘You’re gonna take a long nap, pal,’ he said. ‘A real long nap. You won’t wake up until after the cops find you. You’ll be drunk, and with a stiff in the back of your car. You’ll have the murder gun in your hand smothered with your fingerprints. You’ll never be smart enough to talk yourself out of that.’
My head was whirling. ‘You won’t get away …’
There was a swift succession of raps on the door. Frisk unlocked the door, opened up for Jenks.
Frisk barked at him: ‘Did you get it?’
‘Sure, boss. I got an old, worn-out heap. Won’t attract so much attention.’
‘Are you sure nobody saw you?’
Jenks looked at him indignantly. ‘D’you think I’m nutty?’
Gunn said, grimly: ‘You’re just in time. Give me a hand with this guy, will ya?’
I started struggling then. I almost overturned the chair. Jenks got around back of me, locked his arm around my neck, straining my head back and threatening to snap my spinal cord. His arm was across my windpipe, cutting off my breath so I could only whisper a protest.
I felt Gunn unbuttoning my vest, removing my tie and unbuttoning my shirt. Suddenly everything was so unbearably unfair and unbelievable.
For fifteen years I’d been planning revenge, waiting for my opportunity. Now, with everything prepared, there was this boomerang.
Gunn was baring my shoulder now, and I couldn’t move a muscle. I felt his fingers pulling my clothing off my shoulder. Then came the hot stab of the needle, probing ever deeper so that I writhed with the agony of it. Hot, bitter shame rolled over me in a flood of despair. After all my careful planning for revenge, it was galling to have this happening to me. Find myself being framed for murder. And by Frisk, of all people!
The plunger was being forced home slowly. I could feel the colourless liquid spurting into my blood stream. It was ice-cold, numbing and rapidly spreading. As a dull leadenness began to possess my mind, I made one last, superhuman effort to break away, risking a broken neck and strangulation. With a wild, upwards heave, I tried to fling myself sideways from the chair. It caught Jenks by surprise, and I almost succeeded. The chair half-toppled on its side, and there was a burning, searing wrench in my arm. Gunn swore viciously, and Jenks applied an even stronger lock on my neck.
Gunn snarled angrily: ‘I told you to hold him. Look what you’ve done now.’
‘He won’t move no more,’ promised Jenks grimly.
Frisk’s cool, confident voice ordered: ‘Give him the rest of the jolt.’
‘The needle’s snapped,’ growled Gunn.
There was a kinda paralysis overcoming me now. That cold dullness had entered my veins, was pulsing through my body, paralysing every nerve centre it encountered. It was flowing upwards towards my head, very soon would be numbing my thoughts and brain.
‘How much did you give him?’ asked Frisk. But his voice sounded loud and booming, as though through a long tunnel.
‘Half a jolt,’ said Gunn. He added, thoughtfully: ‘Maybe it’s better that way. Too much might make the cops suspicious.’
Jenks let my head go. I had lost control of it. My chin flopped forward on my chest. With a tremendous effort of will-power, I was able to raise my eyes. They were all three standing and watching me solemnly.
‘How long does it take?’ asked Frisk.
‘Just a moment now,’ said Gunn. ‘Takes a little time to work around to the brain. It’ll be any moment now.’
He was right. I never knew when it happened. It was like going to sleep when you didn’t know you were going to sleep.
CHAPTER SIX
It was like waking after a tremendous binge the night before. Only ten times more so. I musta been hunched with my arms on the steering wheel and my eyes open for maybe half-an-hour or more without realizing I was conscious.
Then, very dimly, I became aware I was sitting in a car, cold and dazed and enveloped in the sme
ll of raw whisky. My mind was sluggish, operating like a car with the handbrake on. I knew it was sluggish, but couldn’t make it work any faster.
Little by little, I snatched at pieces of understanding, fitted them together. I was in a car. I was out in the country and dawn was just breaking. My head ached intolerably, my wrists and arms were painful and my mouth was full of cotton wool. Also, I was enveloped in the stink of whisky. My clothes were soaked in it. There was an empty bottle lying on the seat beside me. I stared at it a long while. None of this made any sense.
I couldn’t understand why I was here, who I was or where I had been going. I tried to spit the cotton wool from my mouth, found it was my tongue I was trying to spit out. Suddenly I wanted a drink. I wanted it awfully badly. I opened the door of the car, climbed outside. All my movements were weak and unreal.
The sharp morning air did something for me. I stood beside the car, leaning on the front wing and gulping at it. I drew in deep breaths, exhaled until my lungs were empty. It was like drawing in fresh, life-giving air and breathing out sour, tainted fumes. I breathed deeply that way for maybe ten minutes, feeling stronger and stronger every minute. Then, from far away, I heard the loud roar of a high-powered car, heard it before I could see it. A speeding flash of ivory swooping out of sight and then reappearing on the crest of the next hill.
I watched it approaching, wondered about it. I took my hand off the front wing and walked a couple of paces, was surprised to find I was swaying. I stepped back, fumbled for the wing to support myself. The car swept towards me. I watched it with screwed up eyes, feeling stupefied and vaguely wondering if I could get a drink of water.
It roared towards me, speeding like some avenging monster. Then it was swerving into the side of the road, tyres squealing protestingly as brakes were applied. It jolted to a halt just opposite me, a long, ivory-cream coupe that musta cost a fortune.