And, I was thinking, it was still tight. The fact remained that I'd killed two police officers and swatted the chief himself on the head. True, I'd shot Blake and Carver instants before they would cheerfully and callously have murdered me. But I wondered how I'd convince a jury of that.
Betty said, "What are we going to do, Shell?"
"That's what I was wondering. I guess the only thing left is what we talked about last night. I can try to reach Baron and talk to him. I've got two live cops in the car, but it's still my word against theirs; we need something better. A lot better."
"You'll have to let me help now." She frowned. "Shell, how are you going to reach Baron?"
"He's pretty sure to be in his office. I'll just walk in."
She really frowned at that one. It did sound silly. "There are police all over town," she said. "And they all know what you look like, you know that."
"I do. But the town is swarming with cops, so maybe they won't notice one more. Uh, don't peek."
She sat in the Ford while I walked to the far side of the police car and got busy. When I finished, Carver's body was on the floor in back, and the chief and Mac were on top of him, gagged, handcuffed, and trussed together. Mac wore only his shorts. And I was a cop.
Mac's uniform was too tight, but his gun fitted perfectly against my hip. I adjusted my cap and walked to the Ford.
I said, "How do I look?"
"Somehow you still don't look like a policeman. But maybe it will help."
"Sure it will. It's got to. One cop looks pretty much like another. Usually you see the uniform, not the face. I . . . hope."
"I hope so too, Shell. Well, are we ready?"
"Ready enough. Let's go."
Betty left her Ford parked alongside the road and sat in front of the police car with me as I drove back toward town. Our three cops were in back, fairly well covered with my clothes and with seat covers from Betty's Ford. The police radio was turned on, but nothing to worry us was being broadcast. I went over what we were going to pull, and as we hit the outskirts of town, I asked her, "Got it all straight?"
"Of course. Mine's the easy part."
"Baby, it won't be easy. And it's got to work or we're dead. There may be some more on the force like Thurmond and Carver, maybe not. But we don't know for sure. And I imagine Norris and his boys will be looking for you by now. Any of them see you, they won't just tip their hats and stroll by." I'd stuck the extra guns into the glove compartment, and I opened it, took out a police revolver, and put it in her lap. "Might as well hang onto that, honey. And if you have to use it on a man, aim for his head. There's a myth fostered by movies that if you shoot a guy he falls down dead. But it ain't so here in Seacliff."
She tried to smile, but I could tell that she didn't feel up to it. Neither did I. We drove to the parking lot on Pepper and parked at the curb.
I said to Betty, "Just tap on the horn once if anything comes up. Anything at all." She nodded and I squared my shoulders and walked into the parking lot. I remembered the attendant's face from last night; if he remembered me, he was going to be more than mildly puzzled by my uniform. I walked straight up to him and said sharply, "Hey, buddy."
He looked at me, and as far as I could tell, all he saw was a cop. I went right on, "Looking for a black Caddy convertible somebody spotted here."
He broke in, eager to help. "Sure, Officer. Bet I know the one. Only one here. What is it, stolen?"
I gave him a baleful look for his curiosity. "Where is it?"
He trotted away and came back with my keys, handed them to me, and watched while I opened the trunk. When he saw all the junk inside he said, "What's all that?"
I gave him my baleful look again and he subsided while I pawed through the equipment, hunting for what I wanted. I found the two small boxes and pushed some of the other stuff out of the way so I could remove them and the attendant said, "This the car?"
"Yeah. This is it." I stared stonily at him. "Thanks. That's all."
He left, firmly convinced, I'm sure, that I was an honest-to-God cop. I picked up the two boxes, closed the trunk, and walked back to the police car with a spot between my shoulder blades twitching.
In the prowl car again, I drove toward Main, that spot in my back still twitching. On Main we passed another black police radio car going in the opposite direction, but nothing happened. The block between Fourth and Fifth was still blocked off for the Red Cross drive, a crowd of people bunched in front of the stand. I circled the block and came back into Main again at Fifth, swung right, and parked. "You set?" I asked Betty when she got out of the car.
"Ye-es." She was holding one of the small boxes by a strap at its top. I said, "Don't mess with that; just do what I told you. We'll start in at five-fifteen sharp. Don't fool with it at all."
"I'm scared. I don't mean too scared. I'll do everything all right. But I'm just . . . scared."
"You can't be any more scared than I am. We'll manage this OK, honey."
"Yes. Of course." She turned and walked back across Fifth.
I started the car and drove two and a half blocks ahead and parked in a red zone right in front of the Diamond Building. Seven floors up, Suite 712, Baron should be in his office. He might even now be looking out his window able to see the police car. It was just after five o'clock and some of the office workers had started pouring out onto the street. Now was as good a time as any, while a lot of people were milling around.
I got out of the car, slammed the door, and, with my mouth as dry as a blotter, walked across the wide sidewalk, straight for the entrance to the Diamond Building.
Office workers brushed against me as I went inside and stopped in front of the elevator. There was a tired feeling in my jaws and I realized I had my teeth clenched hard together. When the elevator stopped and discharged the passengers, the girl looked at me, glanced at the box under my arm, and said in a tired voice, "Going up."
I stepped inside, trying to relax. "Seven," I said.
Another man came in behind me, said, "Four," and leaned against the wall. I'd never seen him before and he paid no attention to me. He got out at the fourth floor, then we went up to seven. I looked around the hall and waited till the elevator started down again, then walked to the door numbered 712.
For a moment I was undecided whether to ease the door open and hope the surreptitious movement wouldn't be noticed, or merely swing it wide suddenly. Then I grabbed the knob, turned it, and shoved. There was nobody inside the room. The door banged with a small noise against the wall. I stepped inside and looked round rapidly, but the office was empty. A door in the wall on my left was closed.
I felt frustrated, angry. My whole play depended on Baron's being here. I was so keyed up, so much depended on this, that I thought only that he must have stepped out for a moment, maybe gone to the restroom or out for coffee. I didn't even consider the chance that he might be in one of the two other rooms of his suite. I headed for his desk, then my eyes fell on the big wastebasket beside it. I took the box from under my arm, checked its dials, and placed it in the wastebasket, partially covering it with some crumpled papers.
I was bent over when I heard footsteps in the hallway. My nerves jumped and I jerked out my gun. I stepped to the wall alongside the door and waited as the footsteps came up to the door. I aimed my gun at it, waited for Baron to come inside, hoping it was Baron. The walking feet went past, stopped. Then everything was quiet; I couldn't hear a sound. When I did hear a sound, it wasn't at all what I wanted to hear. It was Baron's voice—and it came from behind me near one of the connecting doors.
"All right," he said. "Turn around. Slowly."
I jerked my head around, starting to swing the gun up, but then I moved slowly as he'd suggested. The revolver in Baron's hand was a small one, probably .32, but it was big enough. And it was pointed squarely at my chest.
Baron was halfway across the room from me, and when I thought of all he had done, I wanted to jump for him, get my hands on him, smash them i
nto his face. But I knew I couldn't take more than one step toward him before he fired. Anyway, he was no good to me dead.
He said, "Drop that gun. Kick it over here."
I hesitated for another long second, then dropped the gun, nudged it over the carpet with my foot. This wasn't the way I'd planned our meeting at all. Baron was supposed to be squirming under my gun.
He stooped and picked up the revolver and dropped it into his coat pocket, his eyes never leaving my face. Then his large even teeth flashed in an uncertain smile. "I don't understand this, Mr. Scott. Put up your hands."
I stretched my arms over my head, thinking it must be close to five-fifteen now. I said, "You're surprised I'm not dead, I suppose."
"Mainly that you're here. Why here, Mr. Scott?"
"You can guess. You've framed me so tight there's no chance for me to get out. I came here to . . . pay you back, let's say."
He was frowning. "I see. You came here to kill me."
I didn't speak. He went on, "I suppose you know all of it."
"All the important bits. Enough to have stopped you, I think. If you hadn't had me on the run all the time."
Baron pulled back the hammer of his little gun. "You know, of course, that you'll never live to tell anybody."
"You can't kill me here. How are you going to manage it, Baron? And if you walk me out of the building, I'll run for it."
He said coldly, "Why can't I kill you here, Mr. Scott? You're in a police uniform, you came here to kill me, you forced your way into my office." He stopped for a moment, frowning. "I've never killed a man before, believe it or not."
"You murdered Emmett Dane."
When he spoke, it seemed as if he were talking more to himself than to me, as though he might still be trying to convince himself that he wasn't actually guilty of murder.
He said, "No. That's not true. I've never killed a man. It was Zimmerman. He and Gibbons—"
"Nuts, Baron. You don't have to pull the trigger to kill a man. Not when you can hire professional hoods like Zimmerman. And Norris. Maybe they pulled the triggers for you, but you're even more guilty than they are."
He suddenly took a step toward me, his eyes widening. "I thought you were in jail. Or"—he glanced at his watch, the gun never wavering from me—"dead. I don't understand."
"There's a lot you don't know, Baron. A lot you should know—besides what happened to your crooked police chief and his pals."
I thought his finger tightened on the trigger and I said rapidly, "I can't tell you if I'm dead. You'll never figure it out by yourself. Your operation's falling apart, Baron."
He swallowed and I saw muscles working under the fat at the sides of his jaws. I went on, "Some of it goes clear back to the day I met you and Dorothy Craig at the Manning home. Before I guessed you were passing Dorothy off to Dane and me as Lilith Manning."
He bit his lip, frowning at me, and I kept it going. I talked steadily for a full minute while he stared at me, and I tried to cover, fast, all the high spots of his operation here, the muscle and the con and the murder: the Craig-Manning deception, the rezoning angle, the foundation gimmick, the murder of Dane and the forged will; everything clear up to the moment when Chief Thurmond had started to stop the car this afternoon. I finished it up: "They meant to murder me, Baron, just as Carver and Blake tried once before, and I suppose you could have breathed easier then. But even with me out of the way, there's too much for you to cover, too many guys you've had to bribe or blackmail. It's not worth the lousy million bucks, Baron. It won't work, no matter what you do."
"It will." He spoke softly, earnestly, and again it was as though he spoke more to himself than to me. "And it isn't just a million. It's millions, literally millions upon millions. A city . . . an entire city, Mr. Scott."
"You'll never—"
"That's enough," he interrupted. He had talked with me, and let me talk, seeming hardly to hear my words or be aware of his own, apparently trying to screw his courage up to the point where he could pull the trigger of the gun in his hand. He looked now as if he had made up his mind, as though he'd got the needed courage from somewhere. His face was pale and beaded with perspiration, jaws clamped tightly together.
I had been straining my ears, listening with part of my mind for some sound, any sound from outside, from the street seven stories below us. Now I heard the ready wail of a siren. It didn't have to mean anything—but there was a chance it did. And I had to keep him talking, preoccupied, for at least another minute or two.
"Baron," I said sharply. "Wait a minute. Thurmond and his two buddies are down below, tied up in their car, the car I drove here. When the other cops in town, the honest ones, know what Thurmond's been messed up in, they'll tear him apart. He'll spill and they'll get to you finally. You said you haven't killed a man, not yet, not yourself. You've still got a chance. You—"
He broke in, staring, his voice tight. "I have no choice."
I knew from the expression on his face, the slight convulsive movement of his right hand, that he was going to shoot. His lips tightened over his teeth and he thrust the gun slightly toward me as I jumped aside, trying to get away from the muzzle of his gun. But I was too slow.
The gun cracked and simultaneously I felt the bullet slam into my middle, felt the sharp stinging sensation as the slug tore through flesh and muscle. I stumbled, fell to my knees, and twisted my body toward Baron as he stepped toward me, the gun pointed at my head.
The next moment seemed stretched, elongated, and dozens of distinct impressions raced through my mind. Baron's twisted, staring face, the louder wail of the siren below, the absence of pain in my side except for the slight stinging sensation there, the ugly bore of the gun in Baron's hand. And, in that moment, I knew that if I tried to jump him he'd fire again and again, and kill me.
"Baron!" I shouted. "Wait. A thousand people heard that shot."
Something in my tone or words stopped him momentarily. He paused, not yet squeezing the trigger. I pilled out the words. "I mean it. Every word either of us has said for the last five minutes has been heard by half the people in town. You'd better listen to me, Baron."
The intense, strained expression on his face slowly added and his eyes got puzzled. I got my feet under me, hands pressed to my side, feeling the warm blood spilling upon them. But there wasn't yet any real pain; there wouldn't be for a while. I said, "I planted a short-wave radio in here, a small sending set. It's in your wastebasket. Take a look."
His expression stayed the same. "You're lying. You couldn't have. I was gone only a few seconds. You're lying."
"Take a look."
He didn't move.
I heard the siren below moaning faintly. "You hear that siren, Baron? It's for you. And I'll bet these cops aren't friends of yours. You can't have any left. All your pals should be running by now. Jim Norris and his hoods, all your chums, they all know the operation's ruined now, Baron. They'll be pulling out."
He moved to the wastebasket, fumbled inside it, and even before he saw the small sending set, when his hand had merely touched it, his face changed. The flesh seemed to sag and his skin whitened. He pulled the small box out, glanced at it, then looked at me again. "You couldn't have. I heard you come in. There wasn't time." He looked at the plain box, at its grilled top.
I said, "No, Baron, nothing fancy. All I had to do was drop it in there. No outside wires, no nothing. Just some transistors and coils, a battery and a microphone. There's another set almost like that a few blocks from here, a receiving set. At the Red Cross stand, friend. And every word you've said, every word I've said—all that's happened here has been booming over the two loudspeakers there at that Red Cross platform. A thousand people must have heard your words, heard that gunshot. By now half the town knows about it. It's not just me any more, Baron. It's Seacliff. It's the whole town."
I hoped to God I was right, hoped that Betty had made it to the speakers, let everything her receiving set picked up blare out over the public-address system
there, over Main Street and a good chunk of town. Because if anything had gone wrong, Baron could still win.
He gently placed the box on his desk and looked away from it to the wide window open at the front wall of his office, but he kept the gun pointed at me all the time.
He glanced out the window, down seven stories to the street, and then raised his eyes, skimmed his sight over the length of Main Street toward the Red Cross stand, more than two blocks away. His gaze was away from me for a full second or two, but I took only one step toward him and his eyes were on me again, the gun pointing at my chest.
I stopped, tensing the muscles in my legs, but then I saw Baron's face and knew he was shaken, unnerved and frightened by what he must have seen. His face was an almost sickly gray, and his mouth was partly open, the lips slack. The gun drooped until it pointed at the floor between him and me and he said so softly I could barely hear him, "My God."
Then I heard, in the hall outside, the slap of running feet. "Here's your cops, Baron," I said, but he didn't seem to hear me.
I suppose I should have known what was going through his mind; maybe I should have been able to stop him. I didn't stop him, though. For one thing, he didn't move quickly, didn't suddenly jerk into motion. He looked at me, unseeing, his eyes staring through me. Then he looked out of the window again, looked far down below him to the street, and then glanced at me once more. But his eyes merely brushed over me and then around his office, and he turned, it seemed slowly, and thrust his head and shoulders through the yawning window.
I yelled and jumped toward him, a fiery pain darting through my side. The door behind me burst open as I jumped and grabbed for Baron's foot, my fingers just brushing his shoe, and then he was gone. I leaned forward, one hand pressed against the side of the window, and I saw him fall, barely turning in the air. He didn't cry out; not a sound came from his lips. His form seemed to became smaller as he plummeted toward the sidewalk, and then he hit.
Too Many Crooks Page 16