These was no sound in that dim room except the clink of ice in Doc Yerrgsted’s glass. Doc kept swirling the cubes. A moment ago the Greek had been panting, but abruptly he was silent, as if he had stopped breathing at all. The whisper of drying cloth on goblets as the bartender worked behind the bar was silenced.
I stood staring at Jerry Marlowe. I don’t know what went through my mind—perhaps nothing at all—perhaps a last faint fleeting thought that I was a fool to wait. I had learned the fast hard facts about Jerry from the men in the know—men he had dealt with over the past years. The gamblers, the racketeers. I had learned something from Jerry himself when he wanted to fight me beside Tom Flynn’s pool. But, perhaps, far down in my mind, where I could not instantly reach it, was the thought of Carolyn.
I tried to press that trigger and could not do it.
Jerry faced me squarely across the room. The tables gleamed whitely beside him, the indirect lighting put his face in shadow, but I could see his eyes as though we stood in metallic sunlight, and his eyes were raging, partly with dope, partly with hatred.
The hood with him moved to one side, drawing his gun, and my finger tightened then without hesitation.
He fired first—and missed. I held my gun steady, pressing the trigger coldly, knowing I would not miss, and I didn’t. I had been a cop too long, and I had long ago forgotten to be afraid of punks like him. I could hit a man like him as I could drill a dummy on a police range. And that was all I did.
The hood was moving forward. The impact of the bullet stopped him, turned him slightly, knocked him off balance. But he was on the needle, sure of himself and his gun. He took two long steps toward me before he knew he was dead. Then he listed slightly, sagged in the knees, toppled against a table and sprawled on the floor. He did not move.
I jerked my gaze up to Jerry. A professional hood would have thrown in the rag right there, called it quits. A pro knows when to work and when to call it a day. But Jerry was no pro. Not yet
He had pulled his gun free from his jacket pocket. I yelled at him as he fired. They must have had some sort of plan, because the bright, sick, lemon-colored flame from his gun ignored me completely—I doubt Jerry had really even seen me—he aimed at the Greek.
Spyrous Papolous was knocked against the gleaming bar. Twenty-four years ago he had come here to keep a date with this bullet. The Greek was a courageous gentleman. He grabbed at the wound in his chest, collapsed, but did not emit a sound. I wasted a full moment, staring in horror at the little man crumpled on the floor-gaudy shirt, sleeve garters and bald spot like a monk’s cap.
When I recovered, Jerry had spun around and was racing toward the doors. An early five-o’clock drinker had pushed through those doors, unaware of the excitement. Three gunshots would be muffled outside the Greek’s air-conditioned, thick-walled saloon. They would not sound real. Whoever heard of gunfire in the Greek’s place?
But he was inside the door, and when he saw what was happening, he turned to stone. He stepped away from the thick glass doors, standing pressed against the wall, not even breathing.
Jerry snagged the door before its oil pressure allowed it to close. He swivel-hipped between door and jamb, on his way to the street.
I had a split second to shoot him in the back and did not. I went between the tables, leaping over the fallen body of the hood. As I slammed through the door, I heard a patrolman’s shrill whistle from across Lafayette Street.
Jerry and his friend had parked a Jaguar in the reserved zone directly in front of the Greek’s sidewalk awning. There was a black-haired girl at the wheel of the Jag. I saw her reach over, open the door for Jerry.
The uniformed cop was racing across the street, blasting away at his whistle. Cars had bucked to a stop both ways, and he came running through the snag-toothed path they cleared.
Jerry slid into the Jag, half crouching, bringing his gun up to fire at the cop in the street.
The cop had not yet thought of his gun. His hand stabbed down to his belted holster.
I said, “Jerry—” as I fired.
My voice reached him. He was turning his head as my gun exploded. He was looking over his shoulder at me when my bullet ripped into him. At that range, I couldn’t have missed, any more than Jerry could have missed the cop in the street.
Jerry’s body was thrown on top of the girl in the Jag. She began to scream, trying to fight her way out from under him.
A police car skidded into the curb behind the Jag. The black-haired girl turned, saw the cruiser. She stopped trying to push Jerry’s body from her and fought at the gears. All she could think of now was that she had to get out of there.
Ernie Gault leaped from one side of the black police Plymouth, a uniformed cop jumped out the other side. The two uniformed patrolmen converged on the Jag, grabbing at the girl, wresting her hands from the gear lever. One of them reached over her and twisted off the ignition key.
In the silence the girl went insane with her screaming. As one of the patrolmen put his shoulder under Jerry, lifting him, she began to fight, scratching and striking at anything in reach. As she leaped up in the seat of the Jag I saw she was wearing a baggy sweater and slim jims and knew where I had seen her before.
I walked slowly to the curb. Ernie was the first to notice I was there.
“I got here as soon as I could, Mike. You got to believe that.”
“Sure,” I said. I was staring at Jerry’s black-haired chick. It was Jackie Palmer, the girl on the air mattress, the babe who painted her toenails in Carolyn’s sunroom.
“My God.” Ernie Gault’s whisper was shocked, awed. “This is the dame that was in Climonte’s store the day he was killed.”
“That’s right,” I said. “And very likely the same two boys were with her that day, too. Only we’ll never know unless we can make her tell us.”
Ernie watched her fighting the cops, cursing them, spitting into their faces.
“We’ll make her talk this time,” he said. “We can make her talk all we want to.”
He moved around the Jag. The two young cops were in trouble trying to quiet the black-haired Palmer chick. They were trying to be halfway gentle with her, and she was taking advantage of it. When they pulled her out of the car, she began kicking at them, aiming her pointed toes at masculine vital spots. Yelling, screaming, cursing and kicking, she almost spun free.
As she turned around, she came full face to Ernie, and for the first time I saw Ernie Gault forget to be the mild little gentleman.
He said, “Shut up, you bitch,” and when Jackie screamed at him, he clipped her across the jaw, neatly, precisely and expertly.
Things quieted down then. Jackie’s eyes rolled upward in their sockets and she sagged, stunned, out cold.