A long, sloping ramp led to the subway garage under Al Murphy’s building. He led the way down past the office, waved to the mechanic on duty in the shack. Long rows of expensive-looking cars stretched into the dimness of the garage.
The mechanic stuck his head out as Murphy and Liddell walked past. “Anything I can do for you, Mr. Murphy?”
“No, thanks, Al. If I need anything, I’ll yell.”
His car was toward the rear on the left side of the garage. It was a gleaming hard-topped Buick convertible. The windows were all down, the right side splashed with mud.
“When they came abreast of me, I naturally kicked the brake so they could go past,” he told Liddell. “I guess that saved my life.” He pulled open the door on the driver’s side, slid into the seat. “When they saw me swerve off the road, I guess they thought I’d had it.”
“Roll up the window,” Liddell instructed.
Murphy rolled up the window on his side. There were two neat little holes with splits radiating from them, turning the window into a network of fine lines.
Liddell grunted, stuck his finger into one of the holes. “Too big for a thirty-eight. Probably a forty-five. How about the other window?”
“Smashed to hell, too. The slugs went right on through.” Murphy leaned over, rolled up the other window. There were two holes through it, but not as much shattering.
“Well, that takes care of the slugs.” He examined the window closest to him again, opened the door, and examined the floor under the steering wheel. Finally, he straightened up, brushed off his knees. “Not a helluva lot to be learned from this. But I’ll tell you this, Al. If those boys are using forty-fives, they’re not amateurs.”
Murphy rolled down the windows, stepped out the door, and closed it behind him. “That’s why I’m packing it in, Liddell. That’s why I want you to pack it in. They missed this time, but there’s always another time.”
Liddell walked around the car, shook his head. “Next time, with a boat like that under you, try outrunning them.”
“This is a helluva time for funny cracks. I’m making no bones about it. I’m scared. I’ve got nothing to gain and everything to lose all the way along the line. I’m sorry as hell I ever brought you into it.”
“You can’t be any sorrier than Tate Morrow.”
Murphy snorted. “Look, you’ve tossed that guy in my face until I’m pretty damn sick of hearing his name. Do you think it felt good for me to have to go out to that damn morgue and identify Laury?” He snapped a cigarette into his mouth. “Sure, I feel lousy about what happened to her, but that’s no reason to foul up the living. So call me a heel. Maybe I am, but at least I’m still alive.” He held a match to the cigarette. “And I intend to stay that way.” He turned, walked to an elevator in the rear of the garage, entered it without looking back.
Johnny Liddell stared after him for a moment, watched while the elevator door closed and the indicator showed it on its way to the lobby. He opened the door of the car, took a last look at the bullet holes, measured them again with his finger. Then, he slid behind the wheel, rolled up the window on the other side. The line between the holes showed that the slugs would be within inches of anyone driving the car.
Liddell grinned wryly, rolled down the windows, and got out of the car. “It’s a good thing he doesn’t wear a mustache,” he grunted.
He headed back up the ramp, past the mechanic, who didn’t bother to look up from his racing form as the private detective went by.
The air outside the garage smelled fresh and clean after an atmosphere compounded of equal parts of oil and gasoline such as he had just left, so Liddell decided to walk across town and pick up a cab on Park. Up the street, the awning outside the entrance to the apartment was flapping in the soft breeze. Already the street lights were beginning to go on as the sky darkened.
He was halfway up the block to York Avenue when a man came up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder.
“Don’t turn around fast, Liddell,” a whining voice advised. “I got a real nervous finger.”
Liddell stopped, waited. The man took up his position on Liddell’s right, another man materialized at his left. The man on the right lifted the topcoat he had folded over his arm. The ugly snout of a .45 poked out from under its folds. Liddell looked from the gun to the man who held it. He was thin, undersized; a fact that his carefully built up shoes and padded shoulders failed to conceal. He wore no hat, and his hair was thick, black, and rolled back in oily waves from his low hairline. He affected a three-quarter part that revealed the startling whiteness of his scalp. His thin lips were parted in what was intended to be a smile, but there was no trace of it in the eyes that squinted from either side of the bridge of an enormous nose.
“What’s it all about, friend?” Liddell wanted to know.
“We’re going to a party,” the man with the gun informed him. He ran the side of his left hand under his nose, twitched his lips.
“You make it hard to refuse. But I’m not dressed for a party.”
Big Nose signaled to his partner, who slipped his hand inside Liddell’s jacket, brought out his .45.
“You are for this one. It’s a come-as-you-are party.” The lips twitched into a semblance of a smile, and he was wiping his nose again.
“Should I bring some candy to the hostess?”
“Never mind the cracks. Just be glad I already had my candy.” The big nose seemed to writhe. He looked past Liddell. “Get the car.”
The other man disappeared behind them. Liddell estimated his chances of making a fight for it, took a look at the muzzle of the .45, and then at the face of the man holding it.
“You’d never make it,” Big Nose told him.
“That’s what I decided,” Liddell agreed grimly. “I wasn’t thinking about me. I was trying to figure if I had to go, whether I couldn’t take you, too.”
The man with the gun snorted, wiped at his nose.
After a moment, a big car sighed to a stop at the curb. The man with the gun jabbed it into Liddell’s midsection. “Now’s the time to try, sucker.” He backed Liddell to the curb, then he stepped back, out of reach. “Cover him while he gets in,” he snapped to the driver.
The man behind the wheel tugged Liddell’s .45 from his pocket, reached over the seat, pushed the door open. When Liddell got into the back seat he was looking directly into the unwavering muzzle of his own .45.
Big Nose slid in beside him, took up a position in the opposite corner, held his .45 in his lap so that it covered Liddell’s midsection.
“They told me you were tough, Liddell.” From the tone of his voice it was apparent that he was unimpressed.
“Today isn’t one of my days.”
The man with the gun chuckled. “Too bad. You haven’t got many more.” He kicked the front seat. “How about getting going, or are we going to sit here until some cop comes over asking questions?”
“You didn’t tell me where to,” the driver complained.
“Where do you think? Times Square?” He turned to Liddell. “This is your ride, shamus. Where would you like it to be? Brooklyn? Long Island? Jersey? After all, you’re going to be there a long while.”
“Make it Long Island. I’m tired of being bumped off in swamps.”
“Long Island it is.” The man with the gun chuckled. “Hey, you are a tough guy. I guess a tough guy like you makes a lot of enemies. That ain’t smart, making enemies.”
“Anyone in particular?”
“You’re the detective. You find out.” His eyes narrowed. “What are you squirming about?”
“I’m just trying to reach a cigarette.”
Big Nose dug into his pocket, brought out a cigarette case. “Try one of mine.”
Liddell reached over, picked up a cigarette, held it to his nose. He put it back. “I prefer tobacco in mine.”
Big Nose chuckled. “Ain’t it a little late to be worrying about bad habits?” He brought the .45 into full view. “All right, get a cigarette. But bring it out with two fingers. Anything but a cigarette comes out and I’ll blast the hand off.”
Liddell brought out a cigarette, stuck it between his lips. He wiped the perspiration off his upper lip with the side of his hand. In the weak light of the flickering match, the gunman’s eyes were watchful, wary. Liddell took a deep drag, filled his lungs, let the smoke dribble in twin streams from his nostrils.
“You know something, Liddell? I ain’t done a job like this in a long time.” He settled back comfortably, cradled the gun in his lap. “Used to be there’d be lots of guys go for a ride. Those were the good days. Now they’re a bunch of panty-waists, scared of cops, scared of newspapers, scared of their own shadows. It wasn’t like that in the old days.”
Liddell smoked, watched the character of the neighborhood change from densely populated to suburban with longer and longer stretches of unpopulated areas showing up. The man with the gun seemed lost in his own thoughts as the big car hurtled east on Northern Boulevard.
“Brought in especially for this job?” Liddell wanted to know.
Big Nose started. “What makes you think I’m imported?”
Liddell shrugged. “You sound like you’re used to big-time operation. There’s no big time in this town any more.”
“Don’t I know it?” the little man growled. “I been in this burg for months and this is the first job I draw. And what a job, a lousy knockoff. Me, I used to boss a whole troop. I set up the hits and called the turns.” He pulled up the collar of his jacket, squirmed into a more comfortable position. “Now they ain’t got any use for an enforcer. Now they talk it over instead of taking over.”
“Maybe you and I could make a deal. I could — ”
Big Nose chuckled. “You know better, pal. I got a contract — I deliver. It ain’t anything personal, you understand. It’s just a job. Maybe if I show them how good a job can be pulled by an expert, maybe they’ll get wise and throw some business my way.”
Liddell nodded. “It’s an idea.”
The little man settled back into a glowering silence. Liddell estimated they had been riding about forty-five minutes since they’d left the Queensborough Bridge when the car left the paved road, found an old dirt road that led south toward the Sound.
“What’s the program?” Liddell wanted to know.
“A swim. But don’t worry about it being cold. You won’t know about it.” He swore at the driver as the car rumbled along the rutted road, held onto the rear door handle to steady himself and his gun.
The car finally slithered to a stop in sand, and the driver swung around in his seat. “Look, Hook, let’s make this fast, eh? Never mind the fancy stuff. I know all about the old days. But these days cops got cars, too, and they got a nasty way of getting places fast.”
“You telling me my business?” Hook snarled at him. “You stick to your wheel, let me take care of my end. I was handling contracts when you were still stealing nickel Hershey bars.” He motioned at Liddell with the gun. “Outside.”
“Suppose I don’t?”
Hook’s thin lips peeled back from his lips. “Then take it here.” He raised the muzzle of the .45. “Don’t think we’re afraid to mess up the bus. It don’t belong to us.”
“You talked me into it.” Liddell pushed open the door, stepped out. As the man with the gun got up to follow him out onto the sand, Liddell decided to take a long shot.
Hook was bent over, gun in front of him as he prepared to follow Liddell out of the car. As he reached the doorway, the private detective caught the heavy door, slammed it with all his strength. He heard the yowl of pain as it collided with the gunman’s head, and he started running.
The sand seemed glued to his feet, made his shoes feel like hundred-pound weights as he sprinted for the clump of trees and underbrush less than a hundred yards away. His heart was pounding in his chest, his breath coming in sobbing gasps. Every moment he expected to feel the heavy slam of a slug in his back. When he was a few feet from the underbrush, he dove for it desperately. From the car came a series of sharp barks. Slugs whistled above him, chewed pieces of bark out of trees, snipped off branches over his head. He squirmed forward on his belly, burying himself in the underbrush.
He could hear Hook cursing shrilly, barking orders at the driver. Liddell lay as still as his pounding heart would permit, then cautiously parted the bushes in front of his face. Hook and the driver were crossing the sand cautiously, guns in hand. Liddell squirmed farther back into the underbrush, pulled himself laboriously to his feet behind a big oak.
Hook and the driver stopped just outside the underbrush. “We split up here. He’s in there someplace, and we’ve got to get him.” The driver offered some argument that Liddell couldn’t hear. “Stop worrying. He’s in there and he’s got no gun. We’ve got to get him. You go that way, I’ll go this. The minute you see him, start blasting.”
Liddell could almost chart their position by the crashing of branches. Once Hook tripped over a root, snarled his resentment against nature in general. Liddell flattened against his tree. From the sounds, one of the hunters was stumbling toward the tree that hid him. Liddell peeked around the tree, strained his eyes against the darkness. The driver was approaching his tree from the left. Liddell moved to the right and waited.
The driver was proceeding with maddening deliberation. Finally, he came abreast of the tree Liddell was behind. The private detective took a deep breath, and jumped. He tried to get his arm around the other man’s throat to cut off any sound but wasn’t fast enough.
The driver yelled his startled surprise and struggled desperately to break the mugger’s grip with which Liddell was cutting off his wind. He almost toppled the private detective with his thrashing, but Liddell held on doggedly, managed to grab the man’s gun hand, and twisted it behind him.
The crashing of underbrush to the far right warned of Hook’s blundering arrival. Liddell swung the man he held in front of him as a shield. A bush to the right seemed to belch flame. The man in Liddell’s arms stiffened, jerked twice, and then seemed to go limp. There was another crashing of underbrush as Hook ran for the car. Liddell let the driver’s body slump to the ground, wasted precious moments fumbling in the dark for his .45, which the dead man had dropped.
By the time he found it, he could hear the roar of the car’s motor as its wheels spun in the sand. Liddell raced for the beach, but before he was in position, the car suddenly gained traction, roared back toward the road. Liddell pushed his way out of the bushes, squeezed the trigger of his gun until it was empty. In the distance he could hear the roar of the car’s motor, the scream of its tires as it skidded onto the road.
Liddell went back to where the driver lay, and turned him over. With the aid of a match, he saw that one of Hook’s shots had caught the man in the neck. It made a little black hole above the knot in his tie and had spilled a crimson stream down over his shirt.
It only took one.
Liddell transferred the contents of the man’s pockets into his own. He groaned as he contemplated the necessity of hiking back to the boulevard. His fears were justified — he didn’t see another car or a telephone for almost an hour.