So she was dead!
Verne Baird crushed the newspaper between his big, powerful hands. His pale eyes ranged over the noisy saloon, packed with people, cloudy with cigarette smoke and strident with voices, laughter and the jangle of a juke-box. No one was looking his way, and he dropped the newspaper on the floor, kicking it out of sight under the booth seat.
Damn her! he thought savagely. To have died like that! It wasn’t as if he had hit her more than once.
A broken neck! It was unbelievable!
He would have to get out of town now. Olin would be certain to pick on him. What a fool he had been to waste a precious hour in this saloon! He should have gone as soon as he had got his get away stake from Rico. Now it wasn’t going to be easy to get out. Every cop in town would be looking for him.
He signalled to the Negro bartender, who came over, his face glistening with sweat.
‘Another beer with a shot of rye,’ Baird said, ‘and snap it up.’
While the Negro went back to the bar, Baird lit a cigarette. He had no qualms about killing this woman. This wasn’t the first time he had killed. The act of taking a life was of no consequence to him. If someone got in his way, he killed them. Even his own life was of no value to him. He knew, sooner or later, the police would corner him, and it would be his turn to die. But so long as he had life in him, he would rage against any interference, any break in his planned routine, and this woman’s death was going to upset his plans. He wouldn’t be free to wander the streets or sit in a saloon or drive the battered Ford along the highway when the mood was in him to escape from the noise and the congestion of the city’s streets. He would have to watch his step. He couldn’t walk into a saloon now until he had carefully checked what exits there were, if a copper was lurking inside, if someone was planning to reach for a telephone the moment he was seen.
He drew his thin lips off his teeth in an angry snarl. Damn her! To have a neck as brittle as that!
He became aware that the Negro was whispering to the barman as he levered beer into a pint glass.
Baird slid his hand inside his coat. The touch of the Colt was reassuring. He watched the Negro carry the drinks across the room, and he could see the excitement of unexpected news in the Negro’s rol ing eyes.
The Negro set the drinks on the table. As he did so, he whispered, ‘A couple of dicks coming down the street, boss. They’re looking in every saloon.’
Baird drank the rye down in a hungry gulp, pushed the beer towards the Negro.
‘Got a back exit?’ he asked, without moving his lips.
The Negro nodded. Baird could see the sweat of excitement running down the ruts in the Negro’s black skin.
‘Through the far door, down the passage,’ the Negro said, and grinned delightedly as Baird flicked a dollar over to him.
‘Take care of the beer,’ Baird said, got up and walked without hurrying across the smoke-filled room to the door the Negro had indicated.
As he pushed open the door someone shouted, ‘Hey! Not that way, mister. That’s private.’
Baird felt a vicious spurt of rage run through him, and he had to restrain himself not to turn and go back to smash the face of the man who had called out. He didn’t look around, but stepped into a dimly lit corridor and walked quickly to the door at the far end.
A fat little Wop in an under-vest, his trousers held up by a piece of string, appeared from a room near by. He was sleepily scratching his bare, hairy arms, and his red, unshaven face was still puffed by sleep.
‘Can’t come this way,’ he said, waving a hand at Baird. ‘The other way, please.’
Baird looked at him, without pausing. The Wop stepped back hurriedly, his mouth falling open. He stood stiffly still, watching Baird as he opened the door and peered into the dark alley beyond.
Baird didn’t like the look of the al ey. It had only one exit, and that into the main street. At the other end of the alley was an eight-foot wall; above the wall he could see the outlines of a tall, dark building.
He loosened the .45 in its holster, then stepped into the alley, closing the door quietly behind him. He stood for a moment listening to the roar of the traffic on the main street, then he walked quietly to the wall, reached up, hooked his fingers to the top row of bricks and pulled himself up. He hung for a moment looking down at a dark, deserted courtyard. Then he swung himself over the wall and dropped.
Across the courtyard he spotted the swing-up end of an iron fire escape. He decided it would be safer to go up the escape and over the roofs rather than risk the main street.
He just managed to touch the swing-up on the escape and hook his fingers in it. The escape came down slowly, creaking a little, and bumped gently to the ground.
He went up it, swiftly and silently, pausing at each platform to make certain no one was concealed behind the darkened window, overlooking the platform. He finally reached the roof without seeing anyone or hearing any sounds below. He crossed the roof, bending low to avoid being seen against the night sky, dropped on to a lower roof, climbed down a steel ladder to a garage roof, and from there, he scrambled down to a dark street that ran parallel with the main street.
He paused in a doorway to look right and left. He saw nothing to raise his suspicions, and walking quickly, he crossed the street and dodged down an alley that brought him to within a hundred yards of the walk-up apartment house where he had a couple of rooms.
He paused again at the end of the alley. Keeping in the shadows, he looked over at the apartment house. There were a few personal things in the apartment he wanted: a book of photographs, a suitcase of clothes, another gun. He was prepared to take the risk of returning to his rooms for the photographs alone. To anyone else the photographs were valueless; snaps he had taken when he was a kid of his home, his mother, his brother, his sister and his dog. They were the only links in a past long blotted out.
His mother had been killed by a police bullet in a battle between G-men and his father. His sister was walking the streets in Chicago, and at this moment was probably inveigling some drunk into her apartment. His brother was serving a twelve-year stretch at Fort Leavenworth for robbery with violence.
His dog had run out of the house when the G-men had come and had never been seen since.
Baird didn’t want to remember them as they were now. He wanted to remember them as they were before his father hooked up with Dillinger, when the farm was a happy place, and his mother was always laughing, in spite of the endless hours of work.
But if Olin suspected him, he would have the house covered by now, and he wasn’t going to walk into a trap, no matter how much he wanted that book of photographs.
He remained in the shadows, watching the house. There was no one in sight, and there was nothing suspicious about the house. His two windows, overlooking the street, were in darkness, but for all that, instinct warned him to take no chances.
After five long minutes of standing motionless, he decided it would be safe to cross the street. He pulled the Colt from its holster and held it down by his side. As he was about to step into the light of a street standard, he saw a movement from a dark doorway opposite him.
He froze, his pale eyes searching the doorway. It was several minutes before he made out the dim outlines of a man, standing against the wall.
Baird showed his teeth in a bitter, mirthless smile. So Olin was on to him, and he had nearly walked into a trap. Very possibly there were coppers in his apartment waiting to put the blast on him as he opened his front door. Cautiously he edged back, then when he was out of sight of the house, he turned and walked quickly back the way he had come.
At the other end of the alley was a drug store. He pushed open the door and crossed over to a row of pay booths. There was no one in the store except a young girl in a white coat, reading a paper-backed book, behind a soda fountain. She glanced up to give Baird an indifferent glance, then went on reading.
Baird shut himself in the booth and dialled Rico’s number. He had to be sure Olin was covering the house. It would be infuriating to be stampeded by some loafer waiting for his girl. He would never forgive himself if he were panicked into leaving those photographs when it would be so simple to cross the street and get them.
Rico came on the line.
‘Are they looking for me?’ Baird whispered, his lips close to the mouthpiece. He heard Rico catch his breath in a startled gasp.
‘Who’s that?’ Rico asked feverishly. ‘Who’s talking?’
‘Did Olin call on you?’ Baird said, still keeping his voice low.
‘Yes,’ Rico said. ‘Get off the line, you fool! They may be listening in! They’re after you! Olin says he knows you did it! Don’t come near me! He’s after me too!’
‘Don’t lose your head,’ Baird said, seeing in his mind’s eye Rico’s twitching, terrified face. ‘They can’t prove anything. They’ve got to have proof…’
But he found himself speaking over a dead line. Rico had hung up.
Baird replaced the receiver. The muscle under his right eye was twitching. As he turned to leave the booth his quick, suspicious eyes spotted a movement at the drug-store entrance. He ducked down out of sight behind the panel of the booth door, his Colt jumping into his hand. He heard the drug-store door open and heavy feet walk over to the counter.
‘Police, Miss,’ a curt voice said. ‘Anyone been in here within the last few minutes?’
Baird eased back the safety catch. They must have spotted him while he was retreating down the alley. He wondered if there were any more of them outside.
He heard the girl say, ‘There was a big fell a in here about three minutes ago. He must have gone.’
‘In a brown suit?’ the detective asked. ‘A tall, broad-shouldered guy with a white, hard face?’
‘That’s right. He used the phone over there.’
‘Which way did he go?’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t see him leave.’
There was a sudden sharp silence. Baird knew in a split second the detective would guess he was still in the pay booth. He didn’t hesitate. Reaching up, he took hold of the door handle, turned it gently and flung the door open.
He had a glimpse of a short, stocky man facing him, whose hand was flying to the inside of his coat.
He saw the girl in the white coat, jumping off her stool, her mouth opening, her eyes sick with terror.
The Colt boomed once as the detective got his gun out. The heavy slug smashed a hole in the detective’s face, hurling him violently back against the counter.
Baird shifted the gun to cover the girl as she screamed wildly. The fear of death wiped the pert sophistication, the undisciplined sensuality and the old-young worldliness from her face. She looked suddenly pathetically child-like as she huddled into the corner formed by the wall and the counter with no hope of escape. The rouge on her cheeks and the lipstick on her mouth brought a sharp picture into Baird’s mind of his sister when she was seven, plastering her face with a stolen lipstick, and laughing at his uneasy disapproval.
It was partly because of this sudden, bitter vision of his sister, and partly because he knew this girl mustn’t be allowed to give the police a description of him that he shot her.
He was able to watch without a qualm the girl arch her body in agony as the bullet hit her. She slithered along the wall, her eyes rolling back, her outstretched arm knocking over a row of Coke bottles that fell with a crash of breaking glass to the floor. As she disappeared behind the counter her breath came through her clenched teeth the way the breath leaves the body of a rabbit when its neck is broken.
Baird left the booth, looked swiftly around the drug store, spotted a door behind the counter, jumped over the counter and wrenched open the door.
Outside, not far away, he heard the shrill blast of a police whistle. He ran down a dimly lit passage and up more stairs. He was cold and unflurried, and his one thought was not to be seen. So long as no one saw him, Olin couldn’t pin the killings on him. Already his calculating brain was at work on an alibi that would fox Olin. As soon as he could safely do it, he must get rid of his gun. That, and that alone, so far, could take him into the gas-chamber.
Ahead of him he saw a glass panelled door that led to the roof of the building. As he opened it, he heard a sudden clamour of police sirens outside the building. He ran to the edge of the roof, and peered cautiously over it into the street below. It was alive with running police. Prowl cars were skidding to a standstill, and from them poured more police, guns in hand. Rushing around the corner came a truck, carrying a searchlight which went on before the truck came to a standstill. The great white beam of light flashed up the side of the building and lit up the roof with blinding intensity.
Baird didn’t hesitate. He swung up his Colt and fired down the long beam. There was a crash of glass and the light went out. The darkness that followed was as blinding as the previous intense light.
Someone down below let off with a sub-machine-gun, but Baird was already running across the roof to the shelter of some chimney stacks. He ducked behind them, looked right and left, decided to go for a higher roof, and bending double, ran swiftly to a steel ladder, swarmed up it and reached fresh shelter as the first of the police came bursting on to the lower roof.
Still unruffled, Baird made his way silently across the roof, keeping the chimney stacks between himself and the police. He could hear them whispering together, unwilling to show themselves, not sure if he was waiting for them or getting away.
‘Well, get on with it!’ a voice bawled up from the street.
Looking down, Baird spotted Olin standing up in the middle of the street, gun in hand. He was glaring up at where his men were sheltering.
Baird was tempted to shoot Olin as he stood there, but realising his chance of escape depended on keeping the police foxed as to where he was, he resisted the temptation, and made his way across the roof to look below on the far side of the building.
Another roof, fifteen feet or so below him, stretched out in a gentle slope, terminating in a low wall.
There was no escape that way. He looked to his left. A higher roof seemed more inviting, and he could see a ladder that would take him up there.
Bending double he ran towards the ladder. Half-way up it, he heard running footsteps, and looking back over his shoulder he caught a glimpse of the silhouette of a policeman’s flat cap against the night sky. The policeman was going to the lower roof, and apparently hadn’t seen Baird on the ladder.
Baird swarmed up the remaining rungs of the ladder. In his haste to get under cover, he forgot to keep low, and for a second or so he was outlined against the sky as he reached the top of the ladder.
From the opposite roof came a crack of a rifle. Baird felt a violent blow against his right side a split second before he heard the shot. He staggered, went down on one knee, got up again, and swerving to right and left, ran blindly across the roof to the shelter of more chimney stacks.
The rifle cracked again, and he heard the slug whine past his head.
‘He’s up on the upper roof,’ a voice bawled from the opposite building. ‘I’ve winged him.’
Baird felt blood running down his leg, inside his trousers. Jagged wires of pain bit into his side as he moved unsteadily across the roof to the far edge. Below was a flat roof with a skylight.
He swung his legs over the edge, dropped heavily on the lower roof. He caught his breath in a gasp as the pain in his side grabbed at him.
He put his hand to his side, feeling the wet stickiness of his bleeding. He was losing a lot of blood, and he began to be worried.
They were close behind him. He couldn’t go on like this, running from roof to roof. If he didn’t stop the bleeding he was going to pass out.
He went over to the skylight, hooked his fingers under it and pulled. It came up soundlessly, and he peered down into a dimly lit passage.
He lowered himself awkwardly down into the passage. It was as much as he could do to reach up and close the skylight. Sweat was running down his face. He leaned against the wall, the .45 heavy in his hand, while he struggled against the feeling of faintness that gripped him.
Making the effort, he began to move slowly along the passage, aware he was leaving a trail of blood behind him. It came to him with a sour bitterness that this was the end of him. Even if he hid somewhere in this building, they’d search him out. They knew they had winged him, and the blood would give him away. He would be cornered and shot down like a mad dog.
Well, he wouldn’t go alone, he told himself. If only he could stop this damned bleeding, he might still give an account of himself. He wasn’t afraid; only bit er at the thought of ending it this way. He wouldn’t have cared if he hadn’t been wounded. If he could have shot it out with them, knowing his aim was straight and he was taking some of them with him, he would have rather glorified in such an end.
But as it was, his gun was now growing so heavy it was as much as he could do to keep it level, let alone shoot with it.
He approached a door. His hand, creeping along the face of the wall, guiding and supporting him, touched the door which swung open.
He paused, drawing back his lips off his teeth as a bright light came from the roof into the passage.
He leaned against the doorway, staring into a bright but sparsely furnished room. His eyes took in the divan bed, the threadbare rug on the stained boards, a sagging armchair covered with a cheap but gay chintz, the cream-painted walls and the screen that probably hid the toilet basin.
He wedged his shoulder against the doorway, trying to give his buckling knees support. The shaded electric lamp hanging from the ceiling was beginning to spin around. He felt his fingers opened against his will, and heard a far away thud of the Colt as it dropped on the floor.
This was how they would find him, he thought savagely. Helpless and unable to hit back. They would drag him down the stairs, handcuffed, into the street for the crowd to gape at: there was nothing now he could do about it.
As he began to fall into the black chasm of unconsciousness, he had a vague idea that a hand came out of the darkness and caught hold of his arm.