“We’ll have a cab there in five minutes, sir.”
I found some whisky, gave it to Tino. Then I folded three of his handkerchiefs against the bullet hole.
Tino spoke, his breath gasping. “Luxtro—shot me.”
“Why didn’t he finish it?”
“Did. Left me for dead. I was dead. I was dead. I came out of it. Heard bell. I was dead.”
“All right,” I said. “You’re alive now. I want you to tell me something. Fast. I’m going to get you to a hospital, but only if you tell me what I want to know. I’ll write it down, you sign it. Okay?”
“Earl Walker?” His whisper rasped.
“That’s right.” I got out my pad, started to write.
“Earl Walker framed,” Tino said. “He was in Crystal Bar. I gave him enough drops to make him woozy. He didn’t know where he was. Luxtro. Luxtro’s orders. Luxtro killed Ruby. Luxtro paid me. All this.” Tino’s gaze raked across his expensive apartment.
“Yeah. And all this, too,” I said. I jerked my head toward the bullet hole.
The phone rang. The driver was downstairs. “Okay, Tino, sign this.”
The little man’s hand shook, but he signed it.
I put the paper back in my pocket. I lifted Tino in my arms. It was easy; even bleeding, he didn’t weigh over a hundred and thirty.
When I walked out of the elevator carrying Tino in my arms, the cab driver’s eyes bugged. He jumped to open the front door. We went down the steps and across the walk.
“The nearest hospital,” I told him. He ran around the car, started the engine.
Tino whispered. “I—no—bad egg. Not me. I didn’t want to do it. Made me sick. I been sick ever since—but what could I do? What could I do? Take a bullet—or all that money?”
“It’s all right, Tino. I know how you felt.”
“Thanks. You make me feel better. Make me feel a lot better. First cop I ever knew—knew how a guy felt.”
“Sure,” I said. “I was human myself once.”
The driver wheeled the cab around a corner. I heard Tino make a rasping, gurgling sound in his throat. I felt him go tense in my arms, and then he sagged against me. I didn’t investigate. This time Tino had had it.
“Driver,” I said. “This is going to take too long, me going all the way to the hospital with you. I’ve got to get after the guy who did this. You let me out at the corner of Brevard, and take Tino on to the hospital. You can handle that for me.”
He slammed on brakes at the corner of Brevard. He glanced over his shoulder. “Okay, Lieutenant, I’ll get him there.” He hesitated. “What about the fare?”
“This guy’s loaded. Take what you want from his wallet when you get to the hospital. He won’t mind. He won’t need it in there.”
He nodded. “Okay, Lieutenant. If he says anything, I’ll tell him you told me to take the fare.”
“Okay,” I said, stepping out of the cab. “If he says anything, you tell him that.”
Chapter Twenty-one
I looked at my watch. It was an automatic gesture, and I didn’t even notice the time. The time didn’t matter except in one way. For me, it was running out.
There was a lot I wanted to do, and there just wasn’t going to be time. For one thing, I could no longer trust cabs. By now, the word was surely going out on their car radios.
I walked along the boulevard, listening to the cars race past, tires screaming against the pavement.
Inside a drugstore, I entered a pay booth and called Tom Biggs at the Ubangi.
“Tom, is Luxtro there?”
I heard Tom catch his breath. Then his voice was phony with its casualness. “Why no, Mike, he isn’t. But I know he’d like to see you. Why don’t you come on over; maybe I can get in touch with him.”
“Gosh, Tom, I’d like to.” I matched the phony quality. “But it’s important. Maybe I can find him. I know pretty well where he goes.”
I left the drugstore, walking swiftly. I knew they hadn’t traced the call, but the word would go to Luxtro that I was looking for him.
I cursed because I didn’t have my Olds. Now, when I had to move fast, I was forced to walk, and walk in the dark.
I heard a bus approaching across Brevard. I raced across to the bus stop, waving my arms. The bus hissed to a stop and I got aboard.
There were only a few people on it, nobody paid any attention to me. People who ride buses are used to seeing breathless patrons.
I thought about Luxtro, trying to decide under which rock to look first. I knew all his rocks. Maybe nobody knew as well as I did where to find Luxtro. That came from all my misspent years, storing up Luxtro’s money and all Luxtro’s habits for the time when I’d need them.
The bus stopped at Seventh Avenue. That was good enough for me. I jumped up and left the bus. The street was silent. I stopped under a street light, checked my watch.
It was two A.M. Seventh Avenue was silent. I walked along it, hearing my own breathing, the sound of my heels on the walk.
When I reached Twenty-third Street, I turned left. The houses all looked alike in the dark, like gray cats. Brown-stones, private homes in another lifetime, they’d been converted into apartment buildings. Halfway down the block, I found the house I wanted. I stood in the shadows across the street.
The house was dark except for a small sign winking like an evil eye in a first-floor window.
I didn’t have to read it, I already knew what it said.
D A N C E S T U D I E S
It was lettered like that in green neon, and burned twenty-four hours a day. The letters N-U-D-E-S were in caps, larger than the others. From the middle of Twenty-third those five letters were all you could read. They were all you needed to read.
I went up the littered steps and pushed the button. Distantly, I heard the bell ring. The door was opened by a sleepy woman in a cheap wraparound. Her hair was twisted in tight curls, moored with curl papers. Without make-up, she looked like the wrath of God. “Sorry,” she said. “No rooms this time of the night.”
She started to close the door. I rammed my foot against it, stepped inside beyond her. She closed the door, leaned against it, watching me.
“All right. What you want, mister?”
“Alex Luxtro.”
She frowned, shook her head. “Never heard of him.”
“You’ve heard of him. You want to get him, or do I take this dump apart room by room?”
“What makes you think he’s here?”
“What makes you think I’m going to fool around talking to you about it all night?”
I strode across the musty foyer, jerked open a door. The room beyond was brightly lighted, well furnished. It was empty.
“Well, on to the next,” I said, turning.
Her face was set. She lifted her shoulders. “Never mind. Come with me.”
She led me along the hallway to the stairs. She waited for me to go ahead of her. I shook my head.
“After you. Beauty before pleasure. And watch your step. I’d just as soon spoil all that beauty as look at it.”
Her cold smile bared stained teeth. “I know all about you.”
I followed her slowly up the steps.
She came off the top step and walked along the darkened upper corridor. That was when I realized we were no longer alone. I can’t say how I knew. Maybe it was instinct, the feeling that somebody is crowding you, the sound of caught breath, a faint body odor. I don’t know.
Suddenly the woman darted ahead. She ran down the hall. Then the ceiling fell in on top of me.
They pounced from both sides of the hall. They timed it perfectly. The man on the right jumped first. Instinctively, I heeled to face him. That was when the other guy landed.
First I thought they’d lighted a torch in the hall. But the light was in my head. They were using saps, working deftly and silently, cramped by lack of space and my efforts to get between them. The only sound was their snorting breath as they whipped the saps across my head and sh
oulders, the slap of loaded leather against flesh and skull.
I rammed my elbow into the groin of the man behind me. Hell, I’d not only fought in alleys, I was raised in them.
The man moaned, doubled against me. With the other guy still whaling away at me, I pulled myself around and shoved. The man skidded, still moaning. He struck against the newel post and rolled down the stairs.
The sap landed behind my ear. This boy had more working space. The floor melted into flaming mist that would not support my weight. I felt myself fall down through that insubstantial fog.
I reached out for support. There was nothing. I kept telling myself I had to get up, had to stop falling before I hit the bottom in this black well.
Another sharp blast of pain and light, and the clouds swirled upward past my head, and I went careening down into darkness. As I fell I saw this kid running crying and sobbing through the night, scared and sick because of what they did to his old man, and because there was nobody to turn to for help. I tried to yell at the kid, tell him he had nothing to worry about, hell, I’d look out for him. Only I couldn’t help myself, and the boy was gone and the lights were gone, and I was lost in the dark.
Chapter Twenty-two
A man was bending over me. I opened my eyes and first the man looked like a reflection in a fun house mirror, distorted and misshapen.
The man said, “The bastard’s coming out of it.” He stepped away. I saw the big shoe coming. I was too weak to move far enough to avoid it. The shoe smashed into my face. I tasted blood, hot and salty.
I rolled over on my back. From a million miles I heard Luxtro. “Make him stand up. Get him on his feet.”
Two men yanked me to my feet. I dragged my hand across my face. The room skidded and I almost fell. I heard them laugh. I put my legs apart and gritted my teeth, surprised that the top of my head didn’t fly off.
“Mike Ballard,” Luxtro said. “Tough Mike Ballard.”
Mists shifted before my eyes. Luxtro sat against a desk. His face was screwed tight with hatred.
A telephone shrilled, the sound rattling around in my head. Luxtro answered, listened. He dropped the phone.
“Ballard is off the force. Suspended. They don’t want him,” Luxtro said. “This bastard won’t hound us any more. We got the word that a fatal accident is just what should happen to this boy.”
I reached automatically for my gun. It was gone. Luxtro laughed.
“Get smart, Ballard. You’ve had it. I’m sick and fed up with you, Ballard. Nothing has kept you alive this long, but I wanted to find out what kind of stink would be raised if I killed you. Now I know.”
He laughed again.
I spoke through the blood in my mouth. “If you were going to kill me, you ought to have done it in the hall.”
The two hoods laughed with Luxtro.
Luxtro said, “This is what I been waiting for all this time you been bleeding me, Ballard, and acting so high and mighty. I’m going to put a bullet in your gut. I’m going to watch big Mike Ballard whine. I’m going to listen to you beg. I’m going to watch you bleed. We’ll see how tough you are.”
I stepped toward him. Luxtro went back around the side of the desk. The two hoods closed in again and beat me down to my knees. I stayed there on my knees, staring up at Luxtro through the blood in my face.
Luxtro got his gun from the desk.
I got up, watching him.
“Stop him,” Luxtro said.
“You got a gun.” I spit blood. “You stop me.”
The man to my left moved in, swinging that sap. I rammed my hand, fingers extended, into his face. He fell back, screeching.
As I turned, Luxtro fired.
I felt the bullet strike me. It spun me around and I was on fire. I went right on around and lunged toward Luxtro, waiting for him to fire again.
Luxtro stood and stared at me. By the time he brought that gun up again it was too late. Too late for Luxtro. I caught his wrist, snagged it and twisted.
The fat man moved in then. Trained by Luxtro, he had been waiting for his boss to put one in my gut the way he’d boasted.
I pulled on Luxtro’s wrist with all my strength, pulling his body between me and the fat man.
Luxtro’s fingers gradually relaxed on the gun. I snatched it from him. Luxtro lunged away and the fat man snapped a shot at me. Luxtro screeched. The fat man stood and stared at him.
The other man came around the desk and I saw it was Orzatti. I spun around, slapping down the automatic across Orzatti’s temple, splitting the flesh. Orzatti took one more step by instinct. He stopped, shaking his head, trying to clear it. I struck him again and he went down slowly to his knees.
Luxtro tried to pull away toward a rear door. The fat man charged. I let him come in. I spun the gun in my hand and snapped a shot upward. I couldn’t miss, and I didn’t.
Sirens wailed out on Twenty-third Street, the sounds piercing the walls. Fatty turned and started walking toward the door. He walked slowly, and moved more slowly with every step. He stumbled through the door into the hall.
Luxtro was at the rear door. He fought it open. He turned and stared at me.
“You can’t kill me like this,” Luxtro said. “This is murder, Ballard. Arrest me. Take me in. You’re a cop. You can’t just shoot me in cold blood.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Luxtro. I can kill you. Just like this. I’m not a cop any more, Luxtro. You fixed that. Put me right where I needed to be. Where it doesn’t matter any more. I don’t have to have evidence, don’t even have to have a reason for killing you, except I just hate your guts.”
I pressed the trigger, staring at him.
Luxtro staggered, turning around. He staggered again trying to go through that door. I shot him again. The bullet slapped into his back and sent him sprawling.
I stood there and stared at him. Dead, Luxtro looked as much like a rat as the other two.
I was on fire; the pain in my side was more intense and I didn’t know how long I could go on standing up. The sirens were in the room with me, in my blood stream, screeching along with the pain.
I found the confession from Tino. They’d taken it from me. It was in Luxtro’s pocket. I folded it, put it in my own pocket.
I stood and looked at the room once more, the pain rocketing through me. What a mess. In a minute the cops would be all over this place, looking for me. For murder.
I found Luxtro’s black Cad parked in the alley. That was the wonderful part about knowing a hood so well. You knew where he left his car.
The alley wheeled around me, but I hung on to the steering wheel and drove slowly down the middle of the alley.
None of my senses functioned now. But I kept telling myself I had even less time to use Luxtro’s Cadillac than I’d had to travel by cab.
I had to get somewhere I could get help, and stay away from the police at the same time.
I thought about Hilma...
I parked the Cad around the corner from Hilma’s place. It was the longest walk of my life. It was beginning to be daylight. The first rays of the sun blasted against my eyes.
I rang Hilma’s doorbell. I don’t know how many times. The pain was too bad now. I was conscious only of that doorbell and my thumb against it.
At last I knew she wasn’t going to answer. I found my key, opened the door. I closed the door behind me, leaned against it. I turned on a light. That was when I saw the note.
The apartment keys were on top of it. I felt my eyes sting. The first time in all my life I really needed Hilma, and she’d left me another note.
It took a long time to get that note open, and even longer to read it:
Dear Mike,
I don’t pretend you’ll care. Not any more. I waited for you, but you didn’t come. You didn’t want me any more. Don and I are married. Please don’t make any trouble. I’m sorry, but maybe this is what I always wanted—even when I tried to pretend something else for you. Penny will be happier too. Even in a public school.
Hilma.
It wasn’t much of a note, but it seemed to me it went on forever. I stood there, feeling the blood spilling from my side, feeling the room wheeling. And all I felt was, the hell with it. The hell with you, Hilma.
I tore up the note. I dropped it in the middle of the floor, dropped my key to this apartment on top of it. That left me right where I was before. Running from the cops, bleeding to death, and nowhere to go.
I sat down in a chair, too weak suddenly to go anywhere, or think anything.
For a long time I thought about calling Ernie Gault and telling him to come and get me.
I went over to the telephone, found the book, looked for a doctor. I remembered one in this building.
I put through a call to him, waited until he came, voice sleep-heavy, to the telephone.
“Doctor, this is Mike Ballard. Lieutenant of police.”
“Yes, Mr. Ballard. I’ve seen you here in the building. Often.”
“Doctor, I’ve picked up a bullet in my side. In official business. I wondered if you could help me out.”
“Where are you, Ballard? I’ll come to you.”
“No.” I kept my voice casual. “I’ll come to your apartment, Doctor, if that’s all right.”
“Certainly. I’ll have everything ready for you.”
It’s wonderful the way they can make you feel. The bullet is gone, the poison is gone, and they give you a shot against the poison and a shot against the pain. You sit up, feeling warmer than usual, but with the world no longer whirling.
I got my wallet, offered to pay the doctor. He shook his head. “If I can’t do this much for a wounded policeman, Ballard, I’m not much of a doctor.”
I sighed. “I hate you to make a report of this, Doctor. It was a gunfight with some hoods. I don’t like them to think they got me.”
“There won’t be a word of this that will go out of my office, Ballard.”
“Thanks, Doctor.”
I stood up. My legs were shaky. I started from the office. That headline leaped up at me: COMMISSIONER BOWS TO CITIZEN COMMITTEE; OUSTS VICE LT. MICHAEL BALLARD.
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