Edge of the Law

by Deming, Richard

  They drove for some blocks without conversation. Then Carroll said, “You must think a lot of Ginny to be willing to set yourself up this way. Doesn’t this Ault mean to kill you?”

  “He says Fallon wants me alive,” Sands said in a dry tone. “He mentioned an automobile trip back to Florida. It’s probably a lie to overcome my natural reluctance to walk into a setup where I haven’t got a chance.”

  “Then for all you know, he may start shooting the minute you walk into this Kit Kat place.”

  Sands shook his head. “Amatti is cooperating, but it isn’t likely that he’ll allow a killing in his own place just to do a favor. I haven’t much doubt that we’ll start on an automobile trip. How far Ault plans to drive is another matter.”

  Carroll studied him moodily. “Still, you’re planning to walk unarmed into a trap you may never walk out of again. It’s a pretty brave thing to do.”

  “Wouldn’t you, to save Ginny?”

  Carroll said quietly, “There isn’t any risk I wouldn’t take for Ginny. But I happen to be in love with her. Are you?”

  Sands glanced sidewise at him. “She means a lot to me. There are other people I’d stick my neck out just as far for. And I’m not in love with any of them.”

  “Then you’re braver than I am. There isn’t anybody but Ginny I’d risk my life for.”

  “That’s all that’s necessary this trip,” Sands told him.

  It was past ten thirty when they reached the area near the bus depot. This was the shank of the evening, and what taverns they could see into through plate-glass front windows all seemed to be crowded. The sidewalks were crowded by pedestrians too, as customers moved from bar to bar.

  Sands drove along the street where the Kit Kat Inn was located, pointing it out as they went by.

  “Looks packed,” Carroll said. “How can they expect to pull anything with so many people around?”

  “The closing hour is one,” Sands told him. “Tonight I suspect they’ll shoo the customers out on the stroke of the hour. Places that cheat on the closing law will lock customers in and draw their shades, so there shouldn’t be much of anyone on the street. They couldn’t have picked a better time than one fifteen.”

  At the corner he turned and drove down the alley behind the Kit Kat. A light over the back door illuminated a rear parking lot packed with cars. Turning into it, Sands backed the station wagon into a vacant slot, cut the engine and switched out the lights.

  “We going in?” Carroll asked in surprise.

  Sands shook his head. “Just looking things over.”

  He started to get out of the car, then sank back in the seat and pulled the door shut again when the Kit Kat’s rear door opened. A man and woman came out and got into one of the parked cars.

  Sands waited until the car had pulled out of the lot, then got out. Carroll got out the other side and puzzledly followed him over to the building’s rear wall.

  A few feet from the rear door some concrete steps led downward to a basement door. The light over the back door shone down into the stairwell, illuminating it enough to see clearly. Sands glanced about with a dissatisfied expression on his face.

  “What are we doing?” Carrol asked.

  “Looking for a place to hide you back here.”

  His gaze touched three trash barrels lined up against the building between the basement steps and the back door. One at a time he rolled them to the edge of the stairwell, lining them up in a row. The shadow they cast into the stairwell turned it into a murky hole in which the cellar door was barely visible.

  “Go down and stand against the door,” Sands said.

  Carroll looked at him curiously, then shrugged. Descending the steps, he placed his back to the door. Sands could make out his form easily enough, but it was sufficiently indistinct so that it was improbable he would be noticed by anyone walking past the stairwell.

  He was about to tell the blond man to come up again when the Kit Kat’s rear door started to swing open.

  Turning, Sands moved without hurry toward the station wagon. Three men came out and made for a Buick parked in the opposite row of cars. They glanced at him casually, without any indication of interest. As all three climbed into the Buick’s front seat, he slipped under the wheel of the station wagon. He started the engine and flicked on his lights as though intending to drive off the lot.

  The Buick, its engine running and its lights lit too, politely waited for him to pull out first. Without releasing his brake, Sands shifted into drive and tromped on the gas, deliberately killing his engine. Switching off the ignition, he ground the starter a few times.

  The Buick, tired of waiting, pulled out and drove away.

  Sands called softly, “All clear. Come on out.”

  Carroll came up the steps and over to the station wagon. As he climbed in, he said, “You’re way over my head, Sands. Mind explaining your plan?”

  Sands drove out of the alley, found a parking spot on a side street a block away and backed into it. He offered Carroll a cigarette and lit one himself.

  “According to my deal with Ault,” he said, “he’s supposed to drive me to where Ginny is being held as soon as I give myself up. He’s to turn her loose, then we’re to start driving toward Florida.”

  “You sure she’s still alive?” Carroll asked worriedly.

  “She is,” Sands assured him. “Even if he intends to kill her eventually, Ault won’t hurt her until he’s sure I’m in the net. She’s the only lever he has to make me coöperate.”

  Carroll said, “I don’t like the way you put that. You think he does intend to kill her after he has you in hand?”

  “I’m almost sure of it,” Sands said calmly. “It’s the reason I rang you in. Knowing Ault, I think he will drive me to wherever Ginny is. But instead of releasing her, he’ll kill her right in front of me. He enjoys little touches like that.”

  By the glow of a street light Sands could see Carroll turn pale.

  “I figure Ault’s car will be parked in back of the Kit Kat,” he went on. “He’s a cautious guy, and he wouldn’t want to walk me out the front way with a gun in my back if he could avoid it. He brought a helper along with him from Miami, who will probably do the chauffeuring while Ault holds me under a gun. I’ve never seen him, but he’s short and kind of plump according to somebody who has. Probably he’ll come out the back door first, I’ll be second, Ault last with a gun in my back.”

  Carroll said, “I’m beginning to get it. I’ll be hiding in that cellarway. When you’ve all gone past, I’ll put my gun in Ault’s back.”

  “You’re catching on. You up to pulling the trigger if you have to?”

  Carroll said quietly, “For Ginny I could blast a hole in anybody without losing sleep. The way I feel about this guy, my problem will be to keep from pulling the trigger even if he doesn’t make a move.”

  “If you burn them both, we may have a hell of a time ever finding Ginny,” Sands warned him. “But if Ault does make a move, don’t hesitate, or you may find yourself dead. He can move like a rattlesnake. The other guy probably won’t even have a gun in his hand, so you can let me handle him. You concentrate on Ault.”

  “All right,” Carroll agreed. “I’ll try not to shoot Ault either, if he behaves himself. After we’ve turned the tables and have taken them prisoner, what do we do?”

  “We have them guide us to Ginny.”

  “What if they don’t coöperate?”

  Sands gave him a gentle smile. “They will.”

  After examining his face, Carroll nodded. “I guess they will. You wouldn’t be above pulling out fingernails, would you?”

  “I wouldn’t be above removing Henny Ault’s skin a square inch at a time,” Sands told him. “And Henny knows it. He’ll be glad to coöperate.”

  He had a momentary twinge of conscience at using Carroll to save himself, when the bartender thought he was acting solely in Ginny’s behalf. It wasn’t much of a twinge, though, because he felt his slight distortion
of the truth was justified. Saving Ginny was, in a sense, doing a favor for Carroll, since the man was in love with her. He saw no reason for letting the bartender blithely walk off and leave him holding the bag after Ginny was safely out of danger. And he wasn’t at all sure he could count on the man’s coöperation if he told him his real arrangement with Ault.

  Sands pitched his cigarette out the window and checked his watch. It was five after eleven.

  “We have a couple of hours,” he said. “There’s no point in your taking your position until just before I go in the front way. How do you want to pass the time?”

  Carroll flipped his cigarette out the other window. “Let’s go back to my place,” he suggested. “I could use a good stiff drink.”

  CHAPTER XXIV

  IT WAS a twenty-minute drive back to Carroll’s apartment. The bartender had a plainly furnished two-room place on the second floor.

  While Carroll was mixing drinks, Sands phoned the Hotel Centner. When the night-clerk-janitor George answered, Sands told him to ring Bridget’s apartment.

  She said, “Hello,” in a dull voice that sounded as though she had been crying.

  “You don’t sound very cheerful,” he said.

  There was a quick indrawing of breath. “Oh, Jud, I’m so scared.”

  “That’s why I called,” he told her. “I think I have things set up so that the odds lean my way. I’ve set a little countertrap for Henny to walk into. So stop worrying.”

  She let out a long sigh. “Honestly, Jud? You’re not just saying that to make me feel better?”

  “Honestly,” he assured her. “There isn’t a thing to worry about. How’d you handle Mr. Evington?”

  “I told him he was mistaken, that the man he saw in the lobby looked something like you, but was a salesman who had stayed here many times. He seemed disappointed.”

  “Probably he has a sense of civic responsibility. Go to bed and get some sleep now. You don’t have to fret about me.”

  “All right, Jud. Thanks a million for calling.”

  “Sure. Stay on your own side of the bed. I may sneak in early in the morning.”

  He could imagine her blush, but there was no shyness in her tone when she said, “I’ll be waiting. Anytime, anywhere.”

  When he hung up, Carroll asked, “Who was that?”

  “Just a friend.” He accepted the glass the bartender held out to him.

  They killed an hour in the apartment. Sands refused a second drink, but Carroll had two more. The only effect they seemed to have was to quiet his jittery nerves.

  At twenty of one Sands said, “We’d better get going.”

  Back in the neighborhood of the Kit Kat Inn Sands drove down the street behind it, turned right and halted just short of the alley mouth. Checking his watch under the dash light, he saw it was five after one. Cars were pouring out of the alley from the lot behind the Kit Kat. Carroll waited in the station wagon until they stopped coming.

  “That seems to be it,” Sands said when no headlights appeared in the alley for a full minute. “I thought they’d clear the place out at the stroke of one. You ought to find the lot deserted.”

  Carroll got out of the car. Despite the drinks he had taken, he looked a little pale.

  “See you shortly, I hope,” Sands said.

  Carroll merely nodded. He walked off down the alley with his right hand clutching the gun in his pocket.

  Sands pulled ahead to the intersection and parked again, just short of the corner. From here he could see down the street to the front of the Kit Kat. A few cars were parked along the street, but none were in front of the Kit Kat and none seemed to be occupied.

  He checked his watch again. It was one twelve.

  A blue Ford sedan crossed the intersection in front of him, slowed and pulled up directly before the Kit Kat Inn. Through its rear window he could see that a man was in the driver’s seat and a woman sat next to him.

  Sands pulled the station wagon forward, swung right and drew up alongside the Ford. Leaving the engine running, he stepped out and peered across the hood at the occupants of the Ford.

  A plump, round-faced man held both hands carefully on the wheel. He stared back at Sands nervously. The woman next to him was Ginny. When she saw Sands, she gave a little cry of fear.

  Without taking his eyes from the plump man, Sands said, “Get out of the car, Ginny, and come around here.”

  Ginny nearly tumbled from the car in her eagerness. Running around the front of both cars, she stopped and said breathlessly, “They tricked me, Jud. They phoned and said you wanted me to come to this apartment. When I got there, they—” She started to cry. “I had to do it, Jud. They hurt me so. What have I done to you?”

  “Nothing,” he said, his eyes still on the plump man. “Get in the station wagon, Ginny. Drive off and go home. Don’t call the police, because it won’t do any good. Phone Bridget tomorrow and tell her you have the wagon. It’s hers.”

  “Jud, what kind of a deal did you make with them? I’m not going to let you—”

  “Do as I say, God dammit!” he rapped out. “Get the hell away from here fast.”

  She flinched as though she had been struck. With a little sob she went around him and slipped under the wheel. He heard her release the brake.

  “Get going,” he said. “And don’t try to do anything for me. Just go home and go to bed. Understand?”

  “All right, Jud,” she said in a barely audible voice.

  The station wagon moved forward, gathered speed, and its engine was roaring by the time it reached the corner. Sands moved in closer to the other car, his gaze still fixed on the plump man. The man licked his lips.

  “We’ll give her a couple of minutes to get a good start,” Sands said quietly.

  “Sure,” the man said in a husky voice. “That’s all right.” His hands remained tightly on the wheel.

  Two minutes passed in silence. Then Sands dipped his hand under his coat. The plump man looked worried as Sands brought out his gun.

  Sands tossed it past him to the seat by his side.

  The plump man exhaled a sigh of relief. Picking up the gun, he dropped it in his side pocket.

  “Just knock on the door,” he said. “They’ll let you in.”

  “Aren’t you going in?” Sands inquired.

  “Henny wants me to drive the car around back.” His tone became pacifying. “I’m not going to chase after your girl. It’s all right, isn’t it?”

  Sands smiled bleakly. “Why ask me? You’re the one with the gun now.”

  The plump man flushed. Shifting the car into drive, he pulled away. Sands watched as he turned right at the corner.

  He glanced up and down the street. There were several taverns and small clubs in the block, but all had shades drawn or Venetian blinds closed over their front windows. There wasn’t a soul on the street.

  The Kit Kat’s front window and glass-paned door were blanked out by Venetian blinds. But one slat of the door’s blind was oddly tilted askew at one end, leaving just enough opening for an eye to peer through and observe what was going on outside.

  Drawing a deep breath, Sands walked over and knocked on the door.

  It opened instantly. Renzo Amatti’s gray-faced bodyguard stood just inside with a snub-nosed revolver pointed at Sands’ stomach. His right arm was no longer in a sling, but he held the gun in his left hand.

  Stepping back, Joey said with cold relish, “Come in.”

  Sands moved inside. With his right hand Joey closed the door and bolted it, his eyes never leaving Sands and his gun muzzle trained on him unwaveringly.

  “Put your hands on top of your head,” he ordered.

  Sands followed instructions, feeling the haft of his concealed knife press against his temple as he clasped hands on top of his head. As Joey moved in to pat him beneath the arms and at the hips and run a hand down each trouser leg, he looked around.

  The only light in the place was a small, shaded night light over the cash reg
ister which cast a bright circle of light on the bar immediately in front of it, but left a gradually increasing shadow over everything else, until the tables along the walls were barely visible. The beer-bellied proprietor, whom Sands recalled had been introduced to him by Amatti as Sam Durkin, was behind the bar. On a stool at the center of the bar sat the blackjack dealer, Belle, her snowy bosom, as usual, nearly falling out of her low-cut dress. Renzo Amatti stood next to her, indolently leaning one elbow on the bar.

  At the far end of the bar, in shadow because the night light didn’t cast its glow that far, a dim figure stood. Sands could make out nothing of him but his thin frame, but he assumed that it was Henny Ault.

  Beyond the bar, near the rear wall, he could vaguely see two other figures seated at a table. But it was too dark back there even to make out their sex.

  Joey stepped back and announced, “He’s clean.”

  Dropping his arms, Sands moved toward the bar. Joey stayed a step behind him, his gun centered on his back.

  Dropping an elbow on the bar next to Belle, Sands nodded to the beer-bellied Sam Durkin and said, “Hello, Belle.”

  She gave him a meaningless smile and raised a glass to her lips.

  Sands said to Amatti, standing on her other side, “You’re going to a lot of trouble for Ault, Renzo. How come you don’t make him do his own work?”

  Amatti’s teeth flashed whitely. “All I did was furnish the rendezvous spot. I’m just here to watch the fun. I figure I deserve it, after all the trouble you caused me.”

  “Aren’t you sticking your neck out, making yourself an accessory to kidnaping?”

  “Who kidnaped anybody?” Amatti inquired. “You came here under your own steam.”

  “I’m not talking about me. Ault kidnaped Ginny Thompson. What do you think brought me here?”

  Amatti gave an indifferent shrug. “I didn’t inquire what Ault used as bait. That’s nothing to me. Like I said, I just furnished the rendezvous spot. If he’s been going around pulling snatches, it was on his own.”

  Sands peered down at the shadowy figure at the end of the bar. “What are you waiting for, Henny?” he called in a sardonic tone. “Here I am.”