by Edson, J. T.
Even as Tom delivered the rear-stamping-kick, he jerked himself forward. Twisting his torso to the left as he felt Stiffkey trying to snatch back with the arm across his throat, he swung his left hand behind him. It struck and deflected the revolver without a second to spare.
The sudden pain in Stiffkey’s leg caused him to tighten his forefinger on the trigger. However, he moved just a fraction too slowly. There was a roar as the Colt discharged the load from the upper chamber of the cylinder. Although Tom later found that the muzzle-blast had scorched his jacket, the bullet missed and ended its flight harmlessly in the wall of the building.
Knowing that he had had a narrow escape, but not exactly how narrow, the stocky deputy wrenched himself free and away from the killer.
Bounding forward, Brad did not fire. Remembering the sheriff’s orders, he took his left hand from the Colt’s butt.
Closing with the gasping Stiffkey as his partner’s movements left the way clear, the big blond swung a back-hand slap. Catching the blow on the side of the head the killer was knocked across the alley. He lost his hold on the revolver and, colliding with the wall, bounced from it to fall to the ground.
‘Did he get you, Tom?’ Brad demanded, tracking Stiffkey’s actions with the Colt.
‘No!’ the stocky deputy replied.
Throwing a relieved look in his partner’s direction, the big blond thrust his Colt into his waistband. Even in the stress of the moment, he had not failed to apply the manual safety catch before doing so. As he went towards the dazed killer, he reached behind his back and under his jacket to take out his handcuffs. Before Stiflfkey had recovered from the slap and the collision, they were fastened on his wrists.
‘Whooee!’ Tom ejaculated, wiping sweat from his face and taking the radio from his pocket. ‘That was close.’
‘Too close,’ Brad replied. ‘It’s lucky I’m blond. The gray hairs it’s given me won’t show.’
‘How about him?’ Tom inquired, nodding towards the groaning prisoner as Brad raised and sat him with his back against the wall.
‘He’ll likely have a sore head and maybe a bruise on his cheek,’ the big blond guessed, standing up and returning the Colt to its shoulder holster. ‘But I reckon we came pretty close to carrying out the sheriff’s orders.’
‘Bueno,’ Tom answered. ‘Captain Zandis’ll be pleased.’
‘How about you?’ Brad wanted to know. ‘There were times when I wasn’t sure if I was acting right or not.’
‘There’s no way you can be in that kind of situation,’ Tom declared. ‘I didn’t think he’d shoot. He might have wanted to waste us, but not when the only way he could do it would mean he’d be burned down himself. Anyway, let me call in and report. Then, while we’re waiting, I’ll tell you about the time the biggest and richest gal in Texas was looking for a man who could satisfy her.’
A sensation of relief flooded through Brad. Clearly, as the final words had proved, his partner approved of the way he had acted. Then his eyes dropped to Stiffkey and he decided that there was no way in which even the Gusher City Mirror could object about their capture of the cop killer.
Part Three – Cat-Catching Cop
Appearances can frequently be deceptive.
For an example, the man striding along Tanner Street towards the intersection with Yancy Boulevard looked like a typical member of the Gusher City Police Department’s uniformed Patrol Bureau.
Six foot three inches tall, very wide shouldered, with a slender waist and long, powerful legs, he had a tanned, exceptionally handsome face topped by brown hair and sporting as large a mustache as was permissible under the Dress Regulations of the Patrol Bureau; an organization notoriously old fashioned and hide-bound in such matters.
Being on the Night Watch, [xxvi] the man wore a waist-length black leather jacket, with his official shield on the left breast, a dark blue, soft-crowned, peaked cap, matching uniform shirt and trousers, black tie and ankle-supporting ‘old man’s comfort’ shoes. About his middle was a polished black, basket-weave patterned Sam Browne belt without a shoulder strap. It supported a key-case, a baton on its ring, handcuffs in their pouch and an ammunition carrier holding two fully loaded magazines for his weapon. On the right side of the belt, in a steel-lined, forward-raked Bianchi Cooper-Combat ‘bikini’ holster—so called because of its small size—with a long-tanged Elden Carl ‘fly-off’ safety strap, rode a Colt Government Model .45 automatic pistol.
Despite his clothing, Bradford Counter was not a patrolman. Nor was he a complete impostor. While a properly sworn and appointed peace officer, he was really a member of the Rockabye County Sheriff’s Office.
A deputy sheriff, holding the equivalent rank to a lieutenant in the Patrol Bureau, Brad was wearing the uniform of a patrolman and working out of the Leander Division’s Station House so that he could carry out a special assignment. [xxvii] That also accounted for certain changes in his physical appearance. To prevent his true identity from being suspected, his blond hair and eye-brows had been dyed brown and he wore a matching, well made mustache. The men with whom he was serving knew him as ‘Terry Proven’ and believed that he had transferred from the Snyder Police Department in Scurry County as he had considered there would be a better chance of promotion in Gusher City.
Although Brad had never served in such a capacity, having been appointed straight into the Sheriff’s Office after completing the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s training course for police officers, he knew enough about the work to make the deception possible. What few discrepancies there had been in his knowledge were explained away as arising from the different routine of the much smaller Police Department at Snyder.
After being sent out with an older patrolman for a week on the Afternoon Watch, so as to make sure that he knew the ropes, Brad was starting the Night Watch period of the Rota alone. He had been assigned to a foot beat in the business district of downtown Leander.
Strolling along Tanner Street at eleven twenty-five, making for the official police telephone booth on Yancy Boulevard so as to call in his report, Brad was thinking about the instructions which had been given to the Night Watch by the station house’s desk sergeant before he had sent them out to their various duties. A peace officer of long standing, who frequently boasted that in almost thirty years of service with the G.C.P.D. he had never worked out of uniform, it had been obvious that the kind of information he was imparting had been a source of considerable satisfaction to him.
‘Gentlemen,’ Sergeant Phineas Mulcachy had announced in his rich Irish brogue. ‘I’ll be wanting you to take extra careful note of what I’m about to say. Unable to cope with the wave of 1397s [xxviii] which’re plaguing the storekeepers of our fair city, the Detective Bureau’re doing what they always do on such occasions. They’re requesting that the Patrol Bureau give them assistance. So be on the alert, all of you—‘ at that point his eyes had gone to Brad, ‘—especially those in the shopping district. And should any of you be responsible for putting the arm on the miscreants—well, I’ll not be unmindful of it in the future.’
Thinking about Mulcachy’s comments and legendary inter-departmental antipathy, Brad grinned. It was the sergeant’s contention that the work of policing the city would be considerably improved if all the fuzz were put back into uniform and made to do an honest day’s work. According to the patrolmen with whom Brad was associating, Mulcachy’s expressions of disdain regarding the Detective Bureau were only exceeded by those which he leveled at the Sheriff’s Office. Brad wondered how the sergeant would react on learning that a deputy had worn the sacred uniform of the Patrol Bureau.
All in all, Brad was finding the work of a patrolman interesting and far different from his duties with the Sheriff’s Office. It was also, he mused as he turned on to Yancy Boulevard, far harder on the feet.
Forming the main shopping area of the district, Yancy Street was deserted. However, the street lamps and a few display lights in windows gave a fair amount of illumination despite
the various establishments having long since closed for the night. Seeing a car parked outside the unlit front entrance to Braxted’s Electrical House, Brad decided to check it out. As he drew nearer, he noticed that the door of the shop was open. What was more, there appeared to be something—or somebody —moving inside the darkened interior.
The gang who were pulling the burglaries to which Sergeant Mulcachy had referred specialized in robbing shops and stores!
Instinctively, Brad’s right hand moved into a position from which he could make his fastest draw. He did not follow the fictional cliché of making sure that the big automatic was loose in its holster. Any kind of gun rig which required such a precautionary measure would be more of a liability than an asset to its user. Nor did he free the safety strap. It had been designed—by Elden Carl, a peace officer and combat shooting expert—to remove any necessity of having to do so until the weapon was actually needed.
A man clad in a black dinner suit, white dress shirt and dark blue bow tie rushed out of the shop. Skidding to a halt, he stared in Brad’s direction for a moment. Then, giving an exclamation which indicated relief, he hurried towards the big peace officer.
‘I’ve been robbed!’ the man yelped.
‘Who are you, sir?’ Brad inquired, studying the other so as to be able to describe him if the need should arise.
‘My name’s Braxted!’ the man ejaculated and continued to speak in a staccato fashion which prevented the deputy from inserting a word. ‘That’s my shop! I’ve been to a party! Remembered that I had to hand my books in to my accountant in the morning! So I came back to collect them! When I went in, I found that most of my stock had been stolen!’
‘Did you call the police Complaints Board, sir?’ Brad asked, when the explanation had flowed to a halt.
‘I—I was going to,’ Braxted replied, throwing a scared look over his shoulder. ‘But I heard a noise in the storeroom out back. They’re still inside!’
Dipping his left hand into his trousers’ pocket, Brad pulled out a key. His regular partner, Deputy Sheriff Tom Cord, had given him a number of useful hints while he was preparing for the assignment. One of them had been to carry the key for unlocking the official telephone booth in a more readily accessible place than among the others which were attached to the case on his belt.
‘Take this, sir,’ Brad requested, holding out the key and pointing towards the box that was further along the street. ‘That’s tied in to the station house. Tell them what’s happened and ask them to send help as quickly as possible.’
‘I will!’ Braxted promised, grabbing the key and departing on the run.
Without waiting for the reinforcements, Brad walked towards the open door of the shop. He threw a glance in each direction, hoping to see the familiar shape of a black and white radio patrol car.
‘It’s always the same,’ Brad told himself wryly, when his search proved to be abortive. ‘There’s never a cop around when you need one.’
Modern law enforcement training stressed, for a number of valid reasons, that an officer should always try to obtain help when going to make an arrest. That applied particularly if he might be confronted by several criminals. So it had become accepted Rockabye County procedure for a peace officer to look for assistance at such a time. If he failed to locate any, he had to use his initiative.
However, under the circumstances, there were objections to Brad taking the most obvious course.
As part of Brad’s instructions in the F.B.I.’s Academy at Quantico, he had been taught the various methods by which various types of crime were committed. So he realized that, if the premises were still occupied, there would almost certainly be more than one man involved. Shop-breakers worked in small gangs, usually made up of four or five members. Most, as he was aware—if not all of them—would be armed.
While confident of his ability with a gun, Brad was equally aware of the dangers he would be facing. Even if he should come through a battle with the gang unharmed, having to kill some of them would almost certainly blow his cover story. That in turn would ruin any chance of his assignment succeeding. For all that, he would have to go in and see what could be done.
Slipping the flashlight from its holder, Brad gripped it in his left hand as he stepped through the door. The street lamp opposite the display window threw enough light for him to see the empty shelves, but there was no sign of the gang. Moving forward cautiously and silently, he studied the room’s two interior doors. The one behind the counter stood open a little and led to the rear of the building. The other was closed and had the words, ‘PRIVATE. STOREROOM’ painted on it.
A scuffling sound, followed by a thud, came from behind the storeroom’s door!
Almost without the need for conscious thought, Brad’s right hand moved in towards the Colt’s butt. As his thumb, second, third and fourth fingers enfolded the grips, his forefinger passed under the long tang of the ‘fly-off’ safety strap. He shoved apart the press stud which connected the strap to the holster and, having been held under tension, it sprang into the air. The automatic, its action at fully cocked, left the holster. Not until the muzzle was pointing away from him did he slip his forefinger through the trigger-guard, or thrust down the manual safety catch with his thumb.
Armed and ready to protect himself, Brad glided noiselessly towards the storeroom’s door. He listened in vain for the wailing siren of an approaching R.P. car. When the sound did not come to his ears, he knew that he must waste no more time.
There was, however, a problem which required a solution.
Brad did not know if the storeroom had another exit, how many of the gang were inside, or if they had locked the door on entering. If he tried the handle, he would warn any occupants of his presence. That was the last thing he wanted to do. Sufficient of the odds were in the gang’s favor for him to be disinclined to add to them.
Tensing himself, Brad launched a ‘mule-kick’ alongside the lock. He was not trying to batter down the door, but wanted to spring the lock, hurl it open and take who ever had made the noise by surprise.
The door resisted briefly, until its lock was sprung open, then it swung inwards. During his training at Quantico, Brad had learned how to tell the difference between kicking open an unlocked or locked door. Deciding that the gang must have turned the key on going in and used a second exit, the second deduction coming when neither exclamations of surprise nor shots greeted his appearance, he plunged forward into the darkness of the storeroom.
Although reasonably sure that the gang had departed, Brad went in prepared to counter any threat to his safety. Clicking on the powerful flashlight, he held it shoulder-high and sideways at arm’s length. Anybody shooting at the light would have missed him.
Still no shots came.
Swiftly Brad swung the flashlight so that its beam swept around the room.
Then he saw the cause of the noise!
A large black cat had caught a mouse and, in playing with it, had knocked some boxes off a shelf. The first time must have given Braxted the shock which had sent him flying into the street.
The second time—
Brad grinned.
‘All right, you son-of-a-bitch!’ the deputy breathed. ‘You gave me a bad couple of minutes, there—!’
At that moment, Brad heard the sound of a motor vehicle’s engine starting.
To his consternation, he realized that the noise was originating from the rear of the building.
Leaping from the storeroom, Brad raced across the shop. He went around the counter and through the second door. Illuminating his way with the flashlight, he darted along a passage and tore open the rear entrance. Going out, he found himself in a small, high-walled yard lined with stacks of wooden boxes. Not that he as much as glanced at them, his whole attention being on the gate in the wall. It had not been closed; but by the time he went through, he was too late. All he saw was the rear lights of the gang’s vehicle turning a corner further along the narrow back-street.
‘He
y there!’ shouted a familiar-sounding voice from inside the building. ‘Is everything all right out there?’
‘Just great, Pedro,’ Brad called back bitterly, identifying the speaker as a Mexican patrolman who was in the crew of a Leander R.P. car. ‘Except they’ve flown the coop and left me standing with egg on my face.’
Already heavy feet were thudding in the passage and two officers appeared through the rear door. Pedro Tocino was followed by his partner, a large Norwegian called Torrensen. Joining Brad as he holstered his Colt and returned from the back street, they stood listening to what little information he could give them regarding the gang’s escape.
‘There’s no point in us taking out after them, Pedro,’ Torrensen declared. ‘They could have gone any of a dozen ways. We’ll get it out over the air. Maybe somebody else will hit lucky.’
‘I hope so,’ Tocino answered, glancing in what might have been a sympathetic manner at Brad. ‘Old Phin Mulcachy’ll be fit to be tied when he hears about it.’
Going back into the building, Brad and the patrolmen found it illuminated. The owner had returned and switched on the lights. Standing in the center of the floor, he was glaring around in a furious manner.
‘I’m sorry, Mr. Braxted,’ Brad said, while Tocino and Torrensen went out to the R.P. car. ‘They’d gone before I could stop them.’
‘You did your best,’ the owner replied distractedly. ‘Damn it to hell!’
‘Yes, sir,’ Brad agreed, looking about him until he located the safety strap. As he went to collect it, he continued, ‘Don’t touch anything, please.’
‘I won’t,’ Braxted promised. ‘Damned sons-of-bitches!’
Leaving the owner contemplating the extent of his losses, Brad joined the patrolmen. Tocino was speaking into the car’s transmission microphone, supplying the dispatcher at Central Control with what little information they had to offer. Lacking a description of the gang’s vehicle, all he could say was in which direction it had been travelling when last seen. That would not be of much help if, as was likely, the driver knew his way around the Division and did not draw attention to himself.