by A. A. Glynn
“Got the truck out back,” he greeted breezily. “Had a hard time getting past a beat-up old hay-wagon some lame-brain left in the side alley—and there are a coupla funny-looking guys loafing around out in the back area. How do you aim to get these love birds away, Fred?”
Fred gave a brief outline of his packing-case idea.
Chuck nodded. “How far d’you want to go?” he asked.
“As far as your post office first, then clear to Chicago,” I answered.
Chuck looked at his half of the four dollars Fred had split with him.
“There’s more than two dollars in it for getting us to Chicago,” I said. “First we want to get out of here, and stop off at the post office.”
Chuck nodded agreement.
“Post office is just along the street a ways. C’mon, let’s go into our act.”
We trooped out into the kitchen, Joanne and I taking pains to keep out of sight of the street.
Fred was right about accommodation in the packing-cases being cramped.
They were long, fibre-board containers with close-fitting lids.
Joanne squeezed into one, lying flat, and the trucker and café man settled the lid into position. I climbed into a second one. It smelled strongly of something greasy. When Fred and Chuck fixed the lid into position, it was like being stowed in a coffin before your feet were cold.
They took Joanne out first, then came back for me.
“The two shamuses are still out back,” reported the voice of Fred the counterhand through the thick texture of my coffin. “They watched us take the first crate out, but don’t seem to suspect anything.”
I felt the fibreboard coffin hoist into the air and make a swaying motion as it was carried out. It tilted down at one end as the pair descended some steps, then bumped heavily down on a wooden floor.
The slam and click of the truck door being fastened sounded, and I shoved up against the lid and climbed out. Joanne’s box was lying close by in the gloomy interior of the enclosed vehicle. I yanked off the lid and helped her out.
Up front Chuck hit the starter and the truck snorted into life.
“Don’t know what we did to deserve the breaks, Mike,” said Joanne, “but we seem to be getting them.”
“I’ll feel better when we have these papers off our hands,” I answered. “Putting them in the mail is about the best thing we can do with them in our present fix, and the sooner we do that the better.”
Chuck negotiated the side-alley in which I had parked the old hay truck. I glued my eye to the imperfect joining of the two doors. Through the crack, just as the truck turned out from the back of the restaurant, I caught sight of two of Shelmerdine’s hoods leaning against a wall. One was the lean and hungry Slats, the second looked like the kid mobster who was in Shelmerdine’s book-lined study the previous night.
The truck reached the main street and began a steady progression along its asphalted length. I pulled off the coveralls and stood in my shirt and pants; my suit jacket was still in the cab of the abandoned Ford truck.
Chuck jerked the truck to a halt and slid back the covering of the small square window which communicated the driver’s cab and the rear of the truck.
“This is the post office, right here,” he said.
I told Joanne to remain where she was and climbed out of the truck.
The post office was a substantial brick building located at the corner of the main drag and a minor street. There was a big, wide-mouthed mailing-box standing close to the door of the building. All I had to do was walk a few yards, drop that package into the box, and it was off my hands.
My feet touched the sun-sheened asphalt of the street and I started to walk towards the mailing box. Then, I heard the growl of a quickly-started car down the street at my back.
I whirled about. Down the straight length of the main street, I saw the Cadillac lunging forward from the kerb nearest the café. Two figures were running out of the alley in which I dumped the hay truck. They wheeled on to the main street and came pounding the pavement in my direction.
The Cadillac was snorting up the sunlit street towards me. I could see Tescachelli’s Italian face over the wheel.
So they had grown weary of waiting and entered the café. They had either forced the story of our escape from Fred or the truth about those packing cases had dawned on them just naturally.
Anyway, they spotted me leaving the truck, saw me heading towards the post office and were coming up-street—fast.
I started to run.
Only a matter of yards and I was at that mailing-box.
But the Cadillac was close upon me.
And the kid mobster across the street got trigger-happy.
He fired clear across the street as I started to run, I heard the slug whine past my ear and saw it chip the wall of the post office.
Another universe away, a woman shrilled a high scream and a dog started to bark. I heard the car snort to a halt at the kerb.
I ran for the mailbox the way a man runs from a horror in a nightmare, leaden-footed and seeming to move his legs on one spot without covering any ground.
Feet sounded behind me on the sidewalk.
And I made it by tossing the package the last yard, landing it into the safe-keeping of the United States Mail. I turned, saw Ike Tescachelli and another hoodlum only a matter of yards behind me, running with faces that portended trouble a-plenty.
A long way behind them, Slats and the trigger-happy kid were making across the street at a dead run. An even longer way behind them, a figure in khaki uniform was blowing an urgent note on a police whistle. One of the local cops, brought to life by the shot fired by the hotheaded young hood.
I made a swerve to run for the truck, but Tescachelli’s pal made a grab at me. I swung about, tried to hit the hoodlum, but he got the first blow in and I went to the sidewalk, tasting the saltiness of blood.
The sidewalk was warm with the sun and the cop continued to blow his whistle in the distance. A cautious cop that, I thought. He was taking no chances on not making it across the years to his pension. He simply stood on one spot and blew his whistle.
The whole bundle of Shelmerdine mobsters piled on top of me, Tescachelli and his pal, joined by Slats and the trigger-eager kid.
I rolled on the sidewalk under their combined weight and they started slugging.
CHAPTER NINE
They could hand out a king-sized slugging, those Shelmerdine torpedoes, when they set their minds to it.
They hammered into me while I rolled on the hot sidewalk, with the faraway noise of an alarmed Stokestown sounding through a red haze. Somebody, I don’t know who, was sprawled on top of me, somebody else was trying to drag me to my feet, and a third somebody, with the temperament of a boxing kangaroo, kept swinging at my jaw and contacting every time.
I crooked my knees upwards and jabbed them hard into the belly of the hoodlum who was pinning me down. He gave a snorting gurgle and his weight shifted from me, then I got an arm free and began to swipe out blindly.
Whoever was trying to drag me upright almost succeeded, then I realised I was not alone in the fracas. I was getting help, good substantial help.
Chuck, the trucker, was wading into the thick of the fight with the power you’d expect from a guy built like a tank.
I came to my feet, half-dazed, and saw the truck driver deliver a haymaker across Ike Tescachelli’s jaw. The mobster crumpled to the sidewalk. I saw the kid mobster, flourishing his clubbed heater, come out of nowhere, and I put the flat of my hand square in his face and shoved him back, then I swung my other fist low and gave him the kind of blow that was good enough for his kind. He dropped his heater, doubled as if hinged in the middle, and went scooting back on his heels.
Slats and the fourth hoodlum seemed to lose heart for the fight and went running for their car at the kerb.
I staggered around blindly for a couple of seconds flailing my fists. The cop was panting upstreet towards us, with another of the fla
tfoot breed alongside him.
Both were veterans and they couldn’t run notably fast, but hadn’t a great deal of distance to cover now. Tescachelli was beginning to sit up on the pavings and take interest in the world around him again. The youthful hoodlum was rolling around clutching his midriff and squawking.
Chuck grabbed my shoulder with a beefy fist.
“C’mon, let’s get the hell out of here,” he suggested.
So we got the hell out of there. I could almost feel those two old country cops breathing on my neck as we ran for the truck.
We made it by the width of an eyelash.
Chuck pitched himself in behind the wheel and I slumped beside him. As he hit the starter and the truck jerked into life, I took a look at the street behind us. One cop was standing in the middle of the road, waving his arms like a windmill with St. Vitus’ dance, the other was picking up Tescachelli. A crowd of Stokestown citizens stood around getting their eyes full of what was probably the most exciting spectacle the burg had witnessed since the night of the big wind.
Joanne Kilvert’s face, wide-eyed and peaked, looked out of the communicating window between the cab and the body of the truck.
One of my ears had stopped a hoodlum’s fist and it felt three or four times too big. I rubbed it.
Chuck gunned the truck hard and it went roaring along the street to where a cluster of trees marked the vanishing point of the thoroughfare and the beginning of open country.
“Thanks for helping me out against those bums,” I told Chuck, “but you shouldn’t have done it. Drop us when you hit a lonely section of road.”
“Nuts, you said you wanted to go to Chicago and that’s where I’ll take you. I enjoyed that fight, but I didn’t think those shamuses would get to using guns. That girl’s father must hate you all to pieces.”
I remembered the piece of fiction I had concocted in the café. And this country cousin still believed it!
“Look, Chuck,” I said, “those guys weren’t private eyes and we’re not eloping. They’re Shelmerdine’s monkeys—Athelstan Shelmerdine, ever heard of him?”
Chuck swallowed hard and looked at me sharply, then he concentrated his gaze on the country road ribboning ahead of the truck.
“Sure, I’ve heard of him and I don’t like the sound of him. Don’t you still want to go to Chicago with me?”
Getting it through Chuck’s skull was a man-sized job.
“Not after that little session of self-advertising in Stokestown,” I told him. “The cops in that burg have had a good look at this vehicle and they’ll have wired ahead to the highway patrols to intercept us. The Shelmerdine combine is not the only organisation on our tails, the cops are after me, too. Better drop us, Chuck, and we’ll head across country on foot.”
Chuck kept the truck chugging along the tree-fringed road.
I was getting distinctly anxious. I took a quick look back, but saw no pursuing cars.
“What’re the cops after you for?” asked Chuck.
“Ventilating a guy in South Bend, a mobster. It was self-defence—at least, I shot to defend a pal of mine. I can clear up that mess after I’ve got the girl away from danger from the Shelmerdine crowd. Now, how about dropping us right here, before we run into trouble?”
“What do I do when I’ve dropped you? All Stokestown saw me fighting those guys with you, the cops, too. They’ll ask questions.”
“Then you tell ’em lies,” I suggested. “Tell ’em you were giving a couple of strangers a ride and when one of them stepped out at the post office, he was attacked by hoodlums, so you went to his aid—don’t tell them you know the hoodlums were Shelmerdine men, and keep quiet about our being on the run.”
Chuck began to ruminate on that for a while. The truck was still eating up the road.
I began to crowd him.
“Chuck, Athelstan Shelmerdine is no gentle Annie. If his boys catch up with us—kkkk—kkk!” I drew my finger across my throat and clicked my tongue. “And that goes for you, too.”
That won him over.
He braked at a spot where trees covered the road. He jerked his head towards a rail fence separating the road from pastureland.
“If you keep heading over those fields, you’ll hit the state highway eventually. What do I do now? I can’t go back to Stokestown until the heat cools off.”
“Keep heading the way you are; you might take the scent off us. I don’t figure anyone will hurt you when they find we’re not with you. Take a trip around the countryside until things cool off in your home town.”
I fumbled in my pants pocket, produced my wallet and fisted him a five dollar bill from my sadly dwindling roll.
“I wouldn’t take it, but business is slack,” he apologised.
I turned to the window communicating with the back of the truck.
“End of the line, Joanne; from here on we walk.”
I stepped down and helped her out of the back of the truck.
We waved our good-byes to Chuck as he took the vehicle off up the road, climbed the rail fence, and set off walking on the green grass.
There was no sign of traffic on the road.
I sniffed the air. It was sweet and clean.
“Seems a long way from mobsters and all their doings,” I observed.
“They won’t stay too far away,” she replied. “What happens now?”
“We keep walking until we reach the state highway, then get ourselves as far away from this vicinity as we can. I guess you’d best head for Chicago and the protection of World Wide, while I give myself up to the South Bend Police and clear up the killing of Kornes.”
“What will they do, charge you?”
“Probably, but I shot to defend Jack Kay, and that should help. We might stand a good chance of avoiding any further tangling with the Shelmerdine bunch, now. I guess the guardians of the law in that hick town back there will hold Tescachelli and his pals for a while after that fight on the street.”
Joanne pulled a wry face.
“Maybe there are more than Tescachelli and those few men after us. Shelmerdine seems to be able to gather the clans pretty fast when he needs help from the underworld.”
“Yeah,” I grunted. “But the Shelmerdine crowd isn’t the only bunch running around the country. Walt Toland, my Chicago agency chief, and some of his boys are somewhere in the offing—I wish they’d meet up with us.”
We tramped over the fields for a long time, an oddly contrasting pair, I guess, Joanne in her crumpled summer dress, looking a little weary, but still mighty good, and me in shirt and pants, wearing a day’s growth of beard. I felt like somebody who just got back from a New Year party lasting from January to July, and my mouth tasted as if a herd of cattle had been driven through it.
My jacket was in the abandoned hay-wagon, the borrowed coveralls had been dumped in the rear of Chuck’s truck. I had my wallet, the automatic, and the Colt, taken from the cop in my trouser pockets, and I was rid of the package of papers, which was a considerable relief.
“You’re a good guy, Mike, getting me away from Shelmerdine’s place the way you did last night, and getting yourself mixed up in all this on my account,” Joanne said softly.
I made an attempt at a light-hearted laugh. It sounded like a rooster with tonsilitis trying out his morning song.
“Think nothing of it. I’m on vacation—having a wonderful time!”
“There’s no telling what they would have done to me if you hadn’t shown up,” she said.
“Athelstan did mention Lake Michigan,” I reminded her, “which is as good a reason as any for making sure those hoodlums don’t catch up with us again.”
We walked and walked.
Somewhere around noon, we reached the state highway. We plodded across a field and came to a white fence on the other side of which the wide banner of the highway stretched. Traffic was slack, just an occasional car or truck travelled the lanes.
Some distance from where we reached the highway, a signboard poin
ted north, with the distances to Peru, Plymouth, and South Bend marked upon it.
“That’s our direction, girlie,” I said. “Now, we have to set our minds to hitchhiking, if any driver will give a ride to a leathery looking bum like me.”
I was also thinking about the cops who were combing Indiana for me, but didn’t mention them.
We climbed the fence and started walking north along the grass margin of the highway. Every once in a while, when we heard an engine behind us, we turned and made hopeful expressions in the direction of the driver.
No takers.
Maybe it was me, coatless and with a blue chin, that ruled us out as passengers. There was nothing in the least off-putting about Joanne.
We walked alongside the highway for about three-quarters of an hour. Joanne began to limp noticeably. The going had been rough for her, for she wore a pair of illogical high-heeled shoes, but she never complained.
“I wish I knew what those Rollinsville cops did with my coupe after they slugged me with their clubs,” I complained.
A couple of slick cars zoomed up the northbound lane, passing us like a couple of rich men ignoring two beggars by the roadside.
“I hope their tyres burst,” I snorted, watching the rear ends of the cars dwindling in the direction of Peru.
Another ten or fifteen minutes of walking and yet another motor sounded behind us. Joanne turned.
She clutched my arm suddenly, panicking.
“Mike, it’s them!” she cried. “That big car—it’s Shelmerdine’s!”
I whirled about and saw two cars coming up behind us. One was a powerful saloon, a big black monster with glittering trimmings, the second was smaller. In spite of the distance, I could see the legend lettered on a glass sign above the wind-shield: “Rollinsville Police Department.”
I could see the uniformed chauffeur crouched over the wheel of the leading car. Both vehicles were eating up the asphalt.
I shoved my hand in my pants pocket, grabbed the handle of the Colt and held it there without drawing it out.
“C’mon,” I told Joanne, “start running!”