But I was on the far side of the Olds, in the darkness waiting for them. When they threw open the car door, the dome light flared, setting them up like animals in a shooting alley.
I took the driver first because he was nearest. I shot him as his feet struck the road. He dropped his gun and went sprawling forward on his face.
The second punk jerked his gun up to fire and I shot it out of his hand. I was already running around the Olds, going toward them as I fired.
The third goon yelled, voice high-pitched, “Don’t shoot. I’m throwing it away.”
I came around the front of the Olds and they were waiting for me.
“Where is he?” I said.
They didn’t fool around. They looked at two things, the gun in my hand and the blood-stained bandages on my head. They had pushed him off the side of the pit, and they had no objections to showing me where.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s go.”
It was dark at the rim of the old pit. The silence out there seemed to rise from the bowels of the earth. The moon was up and the stars laid a gray mist over the quarry.
I marched them to the brink of the pit, “You’re going down there to get him.”
“He’s there,” one of them said. “He landed on a shelf. Right there. We heard your car and decided to get out of here.”
They went over the side of the pit slowly. The boy I’d shot in the wrist tried to talk his way out of it because of the pain. But when I backhanded him across the face with the side of my gun, he changed his mind. In fact, he was the first one of them to reach the shelf where Ernie was sprawled.
“All right, bring him up,” I said. “And you’d better start praying he’s still alive. Because if he’s dead, you two are joining him right here.”
“We were only doing what we were told.” This from the one who had not been shot. The other boy was already lifting Ernie, pushing his limp body up the incline of the pit toward me.
I laid the gun on the rock beside me, caught Ernie under the arms and pulled him up.
When I got him over the lip of the pit, I laid him out on the ground and picked up the gun.
The two hoods were starting to climb up. I faced them with the gun in my hand.
“Where do you two guys think you’re going?”
They stopped, promising no trouble. They were under arrest. One of them even began to yell that he’d heard Ernie breathing when he lifted him.
“I hope you’re right,” I said. “Now, both of you. Turn around on that shelf. Jump.”
They began begging, at first not really believing that I meant what I said. And that just shows you how stupid Carmichael’s new-era goons were.
“You jump,” I said. “Or I put bullets in you.”
“Dammit, copper—have a heart—”
“Sure. I’m giving you a chance. It’s a long way to the bottom of this pit, but no farther for you than for Ernie. You might break both legs—even so, somebody may find you, maybe in less than a week. But if I put bullets in you, it won’t do you any good to be found.”
They were mewling down there on that shelf, but when I put a bullet into the rock between them, they stopped that. They stared up at me, shaking all over and then they went over the side.
I only waited long enough to see that both of them jumped. Then I knelt down and lifted Ernie in my arms. I listened, but could hear no sound of his breathing and there was no time to check. I moved as fast as I could in the darkness along the narrow road to the place where I’d left the Olds.
23
I stopped just once after I hit the Turnpike. I skidded the Olds into the first parking area where I saw a lighted telephone booth. I made four calls and then ran back to the Olds, jumped in. I thought Ernie moved slightly on the seat. But it might have been the movement of the car. I was doing sixty when I hit the Turnpike again.
Again I parked outside City Hall. A light was burning in Doc Yerrgsted’s office.
I got out of the car, lifted Ernie in my arms and carried him across the parking area and into the side entrance of the building. There was nobody around. It was almost eleven o’clock. I was conscious of nothing, not even Ernie’s sprawled dead-weight in my arms. He was weightless. There was nothing in me except this knot of nerves in the pit of my stomach—or maybe it was much simpler than that. It may have been cold fear.
I went along the silent corridors, pressed the elevator button. I stood waiting, watching the floor indicator above the doors, but wanting to wheel around and watch both ways along that corridor at once. One thing I knew I had put Getz and Rosson in cells. Carmichael knew that by now.
The elevator doors opened. I stepped inside and we moved upward with that terrible slowness that elevators have. I could barely feel us move.
Doc Yerrgsted opened the door of his office. I carried Ernie along the corridor, wondering what Doc would have done if some of Carmichael’s goons had stepped out into the dim hallway. Then I had the answer. Nothing mattered to Doc.
He had an examination table waiting and I placed Ernie on it. I was careful his feet and arms didn’t hang over the sides. What the hell difference did his comfort make now?
I slumped down in a chair and could feel the shaking start, like waves radiating out from that cold knot in my stomach. I clenched my teeth. Any second the shakes would have me trembling all over.
Doc didn’t speak for a long time. I sat, trying to keep that convulsive shivering under control, watching him work over Ernie.
“How is he, Doc? Is he dead?”
He glanced over his shoulder. “You didn’t find out before you brought him here?”
“I didn’t waste the time, Doc. I knew I had to get him here. The punks pushed him over the side of the pit. But they chickened out when they heard my car on the quarry turn-off.... Is he alive, Doc?”
“He has a pulse. He’s still breathing. However the bullet is lodged in the left bronchus of the trachea—”
“Come on, Doc.” My hands were shaking now.
“You should have taken him to the hospital. The left lung may be punctured.”
“I couldn’t take him to the hospital, Doc. You know that.”
“Why not?”
“If we’re going to save his life, there’s only one way we can do it. You know that. Here. On the quiet. In this office.”
“This man may die at any second. No one but an excellent surgeon could hope to—why, the tissue-thin lung alveoli may already be damaged and the least incision—”
“Doc. You got to do it.”
“Don’t be a fool. Why—I wouldn’t have attempted a thing like this twenty-five years ago when I was your age. You must be insane to think—”
I looked up at him and the shaking was in my arms now. “I’m not insane. It doesn’t matter, does it? He’s gone anyway, isn’t he? Isn’t that what you once told me? One way is as good as another—when you’re going to die, anyway.”
“My God, boy. I—I’d need assistance, an expert surgery nurse—”
“You’re gonna get help, Doc. It’s on its way. Now stop talking and get ready.”
He sagged against the examination table, his back to Ernie. “I bought you a plane ticket. You can’t do anything for this man. Nobody can—”
“You’re going to try. You talked big to me about what I could do in this town.”
“I was a fool to tell you that. If I help Ernie, will you get on that plane?’
I shook my head. “I guess not, Doc. I found out something tonight. I found out how far I could be pushed. I’m pushing back.”
My teeth were chattering. I had to stop talking. For a moment the room spun. I thought I was going to fall off the chair.
Doc moved toward me.
“Get away from me.” My voice was savage. “You do anything, you do it for that guy on the table.”
Doc paused. I don’t know what he was going to say, but his door opened, and Lupe Valdez hurried in. She was wearing her white nurse’s smock, her cape, cap and white crepe-soled shoes
and looking like an olive-tinted angel.
“Here’s your help, Doc. Now stop stalling. This girl has got more love and purpose than any nurse you ever saw. What you want done, she’ll do.”
Doc stood staring at his hands. They were trembling almost as badly as mine.
Lupe barely glanced at the man on Doc’s examination table. She came to me, her eyes wide. “Mike. What’s the matter? You look terrible.”
I had to bite off the words to keep my teeth from chattering. “I ain’t your patient, honey” Then, glancing past her, I saw the man in the doorway. I fought the gun from my holster, but Lupe caught my arm, pressing her soft, soothing hand against my face.
“Mike. Stop. Morgan wanted to come.”
I stared at young Carmichael. He was standing stoop-shouldered, face pale, just inside the door. “What are you doing here?”
“I thought maybe I could help, Mr. Ballard. I was with Lupe when you called.”
“Won’t leave her alone, huh?”
Morgan tried to smile. “No, sir. I’ve got some sense—maybe you battered it into my head that day. I knew if I didn’t have Lupe, I’d never have anything as long as I lived. I got rid of Naomi and I came back tonight—to stay, if Lupe will let me.”
My knees felt weak. I had to lean against the chair. “Sure,” I said. “Besides, she’s got seventy-five grand.”
For the first time Morgan laughed. “That’s right,” he said. “She’s rich. I want to marry her for her money.”
But we were just talking, young Carmichael and I. Lupe and Doc were already at work on Ernie.
There was no need for me to hang around. I was never a hand at moonlight and roses—with or without the fiddle. And before my night’s work was done, I would be out of these people’s picture.
I brushed past Morgan and went out the door.
24
The moon was lost behind the blackest bank of night clouds ever heaped in one pile, and its light silvered only the ragged edges. I drove slowly. I parked a block away from Fred Carmichael’s big house in Flamingo Estates and got out, leaving the keys in the ignition. If things failed to work out as I intended, anybody with a license and who could drive could have the Olds.
As I marched along the wide walks, I could hear my own footsteps as I put each foot down carefully. Lights were blazing in the Carmichael mansion. I think they were on even in the cellar. Maybe, suddenly, Fred Carmichael was afraid of the dark.
I crossed the darkened lawn slowly, guided by shafts of yellow light flooding out through tall windows. Beside the pool deck I paused, remembering for no good reason the afternoon I’d walked up on Tom Flynn’s pool and Naomi. I remembered with a sudden pointlessness that she was free. From here on she would be wearing less, as I had suggested that night in my apartment.
I drew a deep breath, thinking about her, the way she would look from now on. Was she waiting in my apartment with bourbon and ice and soft music tonight—while I was out here keeping a different, grimmer kind of date?
I circled the house. There was a man on guard outside, and I could see two other goons through the first-floor window
The punk outside was easy. He was leaning against a tall pillar on the front veranda, smoking a cigarette. The way I laid the side of my gun behind his ear was so according to the detective’s manual that I got a faint sense of lift out of it. Personally I might be a hell of a character. But one thing I knew was my job. He was not even bruised.
I caught him under the arms as he sagged. Then I dropped him.
A front door entrance was not indicated for what I had in mind. I went around to the side of the house, found an unoccupied room. Holding my folded handkerchief against the pane, I used the gun butt again and cracked a small opening in the glass. This time there was the small clatter of falling glass. I stood in the shadow and waited, counting slowly. Nothing happened.
I reached through the jagged break, unlocked the window. The place must be bugged with burglar alarms—none of which, I knew, registered to police headquarters. But an alarm of any forcible entry was given to Carmichael’s own people—probably the goons I had seen through the window.
I shoved the window up, went through it, landing on the floor on my knees. Waves of pain rolled upward through me and I wasted a moment shaking my head, trying to clear it, at the same time getting out my gun. As I came up on my knees, the door was thrown open and the two goons came through it
I had two things in my favor. One, I had been expecting them; two, I looked like a man from Mars who’d gotten caught in his own umbilical cord—my battered head had begun bleeding again, and the bandages Doc had wrapped around it were blood-stained and had jarred loose.
They stopped long enough to stare, open-mouthed, at the apparition I made, the bloodied gauze hanging loose around my swollen, purple face. It was the last mistake they ever made. I shot twice before either one of them recovered enough to fire the guns in their hands.
I came up off my knees as I fired and was running across the room before either one of them had hit the floor. One of them sagged against the wall beside the door, and I gave him a shove that toppled him over.
“Oscar! What the hell’s the matter?”
I paused in the foyer.
Carmichael’s voice came from the closed door at my left. I crossed the foyer, put my hand on the knob, thrust the door open.
I stood staring into a richly appointed, book-lined study.
Carmichael was standing behind his huge, polished desk, set well into the room. His face was twisted with contempt. “What do you want?” He let his gaze move over my battered face, the bloodied bandages. “Want some more, Ballard?” He pressed buttons on his desk top. “I thought you had learned your lesson.”
“I did. I’m here to teach you yours.”
We both waited, Carmichael with his finger on the buzzer. Nothing happened. He pressed it again. Something flickered in his eyes.
I stepped into the room, kicked the thick panel-oak door shut with my heel. I backed up against it, locked it. Then I leaned there because my knees were so weak they barely supported me.
“They’re not coming, Carmichael,” I said. “Nobody’s coming to do your dirty work for you. Not any more.”
He stared at me a moment, then that scarred brow tilted slightly and he smiled. “What’s the beef, Ballard? I got tough with you because you pushed me. I had to do it. You’ve still got your job and I like your guts. Play along with me and I’ll make you rich.”
I shook my head. “I’m sick of playing along. I’ve played along until nothing’s worth living for. Not money, women, friends or booze. I hope you feel the same way I do, Carmichael, because I got the word for you. This is it.”
When he moved his hand away from those buzzers and brought it up, he had a forty-five in it. I don’t know where he got it. My eyes were almost swollen shut. My reflexes were almost gone. Maybe his hand was always quicker than the eye—maybe that was how he made it to where he was. He was a big boy, all right, a tough man. And I was all that stood in his way.
He moved around the desk now, briskly, to take charge. He held the gun ready. “Don’t be a jackass, Ballard, I’ll kill you without thinking about it”
“Even if you pull the trigger first,” I said evenly. “I’m still going to get you and I don’t miss. Do you ever miss, Carmichael?”
“Get some sense, man. You know what a forty-five does to you? It’ll tear you open. You’ll spill all out—”
“It’s not my rug.”
He fired without telegraphing his movement in the least. The slug drove me back against the door as if somebody had nailed my hide there.
I remember thinking as the Police Positive began bucking in my hand that Fred Carmichael was tougher than any man I had ever met, and smarter, and faster—that I had to squeeze the trigger coldly, smoothly, the right way, the way you did when you were on the range and not shooting at a man at all. I kept pressing it seven times, not thinking about Fred at all, but thinking
about Tom Flynn, the Greek, Ernie, young Hogan and Ed Clemmons—and even Jerry Marlowe.
When the gun was empty, I realized I was face down on the deep carpeting and firing into the floor.
I raised my head slightly and saw Fred Carmichael slumped on the floor, his back against the desk. I knew he was dead, because his big forty-five was on the floor beside his leg and he made no try for it. Then I put my head down and shut my eyes. From some far distance I heard the wailing scream of an ambulance and I knew Doc Yerrgsted had ordered it sent out here because he had guessed that anywhere I went tonight an ambulance would be needed, and he had never been so right.
Doc used that airplane ticket to take himself a vacation and he came back swearing he would never touch booze again. This I learned much later, after they operated on my thick skull. The Greek survived, and so did Ernie. He is a great pal of Lupe’s and acts kind of like a grandfather to her kid—when he has time off from his duties as police commissioner, that is.
As for Naomi, I found out she was as good as she looked. We expect a baby of our own pretty soon.
THE END
About the Author
Harry “King of the Paperbacks” Whittington (1915-1989) — who was born in the north Florida town of Ocala — is today best known for the noir novels he wrote between 1950 and 1960, including classics such as A Night for Screaming, Fires That Destroy, You’ll Die Next!, Brute in Brass and Web of Murder. He served with the U.S. Navy during World War II, and worked as an editor and freelance writer before he continued to write full-time.
After selling his first short story to United Features in 1943, Whittington went on to write more than 170 noir, suspense, western and romance novels, using nearly 20 different names, over the next thirty years.
About the Publisher
280 Steps is a publisher of crime, noir and hardboiled fiction. Discover new writers and crime classics.
For more information about 280 Steps please visit 280steps.com
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