I woke up the next morning to a ringing that I thought was the telephone. I got the receiver to my ear but the line was dead. But the ringing was still going on, so it had to be the doorbell. By the time I had that figured out, the doorbell had stopped and somebody was hammering on the door frame. It sounded like they were using the root end of a tree stump. From the angle of the winter sun, it was late morning. I didn’t feel too rested. I guess that was the result of sleeping part of the night with the shotgun. It made for an uneasy night, like sleeping with a girl you didn’t like or trust.
I stumbled through the living room and got the front door open. Hump stood there, shivering, with his topcoat collar up. I waved him in and headed for the kitchen.
“I guess you haven’t been listening to the radio,” he said behind me.
“Not yet. Why?” I lit the gas under the kettle of water and went to the refrigerator for a glass of juice.
“The police think they’ve got Eddie Spence bottled up in Piedmont Park.”
I took a swallow of orange juice from the pitcher and went over and whirled the dial on the kitchen radio. I went past four or five rock-and-roll stations and one prayer meeting of the air before I found the news. “ . . . and Georgia Tech co-ed, Emily Campbell. A suspect matching Spence’s description robbed the Georgia People’s Trust at Eighteenth and Peachtree of an undetermined amount. A witness at the scene said the suspect drove away in a Yellow cab that had been parked in front of the bank. A few minutes later, the cab was found abandoned near the Fourteenth Street entrance to Piedmont Park. Police have closed off all entrances and exits and . . . ”
I got down two cups and spooned in instant coffee. “When I talked to him Sunday, he said he was short of cash.”
Hump slumped down into one of the kitchen chairs. “The abandoned cab thing, what does that mean to you?”
“He’s too smart to get caught that way. The police’ll find two or three dope dealers and a couple of hippies having their noon fuck in a sleeping bag.” I poured the boiling water into the cups and passed the sugar and milk to Hump.
“ . . . the cab driver, Edwin Benson of Northeast Atlanta, was found bound and gagged in a wooded lot near Piedmont and Monroe. He said a young white male hailed him near the corner of Tenth and Peachtree . . . ”
I nodded at Hump. “That’s it. He’s got another car. He parks his car somewhere around Thirteenth or Fourteenth, between Piedmont and Peachtree. He walks over to Tenth and hails a cab, shows the cabbie the .45, and has him drive to the wooded lot. Then, maybe even wearing the cab driver’s hat, he drives to the bank, robs it, and drives away. Goes the four or five blocks and leaves the cab. A short walk to his car, and off he goes. My guess is that he’s nowhere near the Park right now.”
“The cops that dumb?”
“I bet they’ve made the same guess. Policemen are knocking on doors all around that area to see it they can find somebody who saw Spence get into another car. At the same time, the Park’s nearby, and they’ve got to cover that as a possibility.”
Hump grinned. “I guess I got you up for nothing.”
“It was time, anyway.” I made breakfast and Hump had a second cup of coffee. An hour later, a news report said the police had finished their sweep through the Park. There’d been no sign of Eddie Spence. The search had, however, uncovered a cache of grass and two bottles of pills thought to be illegal drugs.
The phone rang a few minutes after Hump left. By the kitchen clock, it was twelve-thirty-five.
“Mr. Hardman?”
“Yes.”
“Ben Coleman here. I thought you’d be out at Piedmont Park.”
“That’s a fool’s errand,” I said.
“Meaning . . .?”
“Eddie Spence wasn’t anywhere near that search going on in the Park. I’d have been warmer looking in my own backyard.”
“I see,” Coleman said. “Oh, I was sorry to hear about the attempt on your life. I understand it was a close thing.”
“It was close,” I said.
“Well, keep in touch. Mr. Campbell is interested in any progress you make.”
I said I would, and I knew Mr. Campbell was, and then I rang off. It was a nonsense call, and I couldn’t see why Coleman had gone to the trouble. Of course, I hadn’t been too friendly to him. There was always the chance that he’d called for some good reason and had been put off by me. Someday I was just going to have to get around to being a little more pleasant to people.
Around five, I drove over to Art’s house. I found him in the backyard, raking leaves. He’d already filled three leaf bags and was working on his fourth. “It gets later every year,” he said. “I used to do this in October or November, and here it is almost Christmas.”
“Edna got on your back, huh?”
“She’s been on it for a month. It seems the neighbors don’t like our leaves blowing over onto their lawns.”
“The neighbors don’t believe that much in God.”
I held the mouth of the bag open while Art scooped the leaves in with his hands. “Anything yet on the Mullidge numbers and addresses?”
“Not yet,” Art said. “He seems to have been a pack rat for that kind of thing. I had a couple of men checking that out last night. Some of the addresses and numbers go way back. So far, we’ve found two girls he met in bars, but they didn’t know him well.”
“How about the pressure that got him off without doing time?”
“That’s a hard one. People don’t like to admit they were paid off or exchanged favors. I’m going to have to be sly with that one.”
I agreed that was probably best. Art put the rake in the garage, and we carried the leaf bags out to the street. We stacked them there for the garbage trucks.
“Stay to supper,” Art said.
“Can’t, but I’d like to use your phone.”
While Art washed up, I called Marcy.
“It’s about time you called, Jim. I thought you’d taken my virtue and decided to forget about me.” She sounded warm and a little amused.
“I was,” I said, “but the ugly go-go dancer had to work tonight.”
“You’re a hard man.”
“I thought we might boil up a few pounds of shrimp.”
“My place or yours?” Marcy asked.
“Mine. I wouldn’t want to hurt your reputation.”
When she finished jeering at me, I said I’d pick her up in thirty or forty-five minutes, after I’d done my shopping.
The fish store was closed. I had to beat on the door before they’d open up for me. I bought four pounds of shrimp and paid the employee a dollar extra, so he wouldn’t mind working overtime. On the way out to Marcy’s, I stopped at a beer and wine store and bought two six-packs of Beck’s beer and a bottle of Inglenook Chablis.
When the water was boiling, I threw in a whole peeled onion, a handful of celery tops and a couple of bay leaves. I turned the gas low so it would simmer, and went back over to the sink to help Marcy finish the peeling and deveining. It took a lot longer than I thought it would, and we were on our second Beck’s when we finished the last of the shrimp. With the shells gone, four pounds didn’t seem like very much. Marcy cleaned up the sink while I dumped the shrimp into the pot and stood over them, waiting for the first moment they turn pink. At that instant I cut the gas and drained the water off. I put the shrimp aside to cool, and sat at the table and watched while Marcy made a sauce.
Marcy looked up. “You’re grinning like a cat.”
“I wonder why.”
“Maybe you like having a slave around.”
“Is that why?” I asked.
“You want somebody to clean and cook . . . ”
“I cooked the shrimp,” I said.
“A warm body for your bed.”
“I’m warm too.”
Marcy grinned at me. “It’s a silly conversation, isn’t it?”
“Only if you believe that’s all I want from you.”
I was kissing her when the phone rang. I tried to say to hell with it, it couldn’t be that important, but the phone kept ringing, and finally it was Marcy who stepped away from me.
It was Hump. “The Man just called. He says all hell just broke loose over at his place.”
“Meet you there,” I said. I got my .38 from the closet and my topcoat from the back of the sofa in the living room. Marcy stood in the kitchen doorway and watched while I struggled into the coat and dropped the .38 into the pocket. “Wait for me,” I said. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know yet. I’ll tell you when I get back.”
I left before she could complain or ask me anything else.
Hump was there before me. He was at the rear of the building, with his back to the door that led to the staircase and up to The Man’s apartment. When he recognized me he stepped away from the door. “It’s a mess up there.”
He opened the door and we went in. There was one body at the foot of the stairs. It was a black man who’d been with Ferd that night in front of the Dew Drop In. His hands were taped behind his back, and the back of his head had been blown away. I stepped around him and moved up the stairs to the top of the landing. There was another body there, and a pool of blood. This was a young white man, and he’d caught a load of shot in his chest and belly. His face hadn’t been touched, except for some bluish spots where a few stray shot had hit him. He wasn’t anybody I knew. A machine pistol poked out from under his body. I stepped over him and reached the closed door. The door had taken a burst or two from the machine pistol, and the lock and the wood around it were splintered. I tapped at the door.
“Hardman out here.” The door eased open and I was looking into the eye of the pump gun. There was a different black behind it, one I didn’t know. The pump gun waved past me and lined up on Hump, who was a step behind me. “Hump Evans is with me,” I called out.
“Let them in.” It was the flat voice of The Man.
Inside the living room, past the pump gun, the first thing I saw was the damage to the bar. A burst from the machine pistol had stitched across about four feet of the copper fronting. Another had slapped against a shelf of booze. The whole apartment smelled like good alcohol gone to waste.
The Man was sitting in a chair pulled away from the kitchen table. A white doctor, gray haired and distinguished and wearing a three-hundred-dollar suit, was bandaging The Man’s right shoulder. The doctor didn’t look too happy to see me. Maybe he thought I was a cop. He cleared his throat a couple of times like he wanted to speak, but he didn’t say anything.
The Man looked at Hump and me. “It was a close one.”
“I can read it from here,” I said. “The black at the bottom of the stairs . . . ”
“Horace,” The Man said.
“ . . . Horace went out for some reason . . . ”
“Collecting,” The Man said.
“ . . . and he was picked up, and they tried to use him to get to you, to get past the door. But something went sour.”
“Horace warned us.”
“They’d come this far, so they tried to go on with it. The white with the machine pistol blew open the door and got off a burst or two before the pump gun got him.”
“I keep forgetting you were a detective,” The Man said.
“I’d say there was at least one other involved. One man doesn’t try this kind of hit. It takes two or three.”
“The other one hauled ass when the one on the landing got his.” The Man nodded at the black with the pump gun. “J.T. thinks he’s carrying lead too.”
“What hit you?”
“Flying glass from the bar.”
The doctor finished the taping and stepped away. He scribbled on a prescription pad. “I don’t think you’ll have much trouble with it, but it’ll stiffen overnight.” He put the prescription blank on the table and dropped the pad into the bag and closed it. “Get this filled. It’s for the pain.”
The Man got up and draped the smoking jacket over his shoulders like a cape. The doctor followed him out of the kitchen and into the living room. The doctor waited beside the bar while The Man went into the bedroom. The doctor caught me looking at him and looked away. The Man returned, and the doctor took the wad of bills uneasily, not liking to do it in front of me.
“Call my office tomorrow,” the doctor said, going out and down the stairs. That’s how doctors got rich, the unreported income. But I had a feeling this particular doctor might be busy the next time The Man called. There was too much blood and guts out there on the staircase.
“No police?” I asked.
The Man shook his head. “You two are my police.”
“You know the one with the machine pistol?”
“No,” The Man said. “I’d guess he was from out of town.”
There were noises on the staircase, and J.T., the black with the pump gun, cracked the door and then swung it wide open. I stepped around him and saw two blacks in coveralls loading Horace into a movers’ wardrobe box. Beyond them, I could see a van truck flush against the outside door. I went out to the landing and turned the dead white man over on his back. I pushed the machine pistol aside, and got my hands bloody doing it. I wiped my hands on the dead man’s topcoat and spread it open. There was a .45 automatic in the waistband of his trousers. I pulled out the .45 and passed it back to Hump. Then I went over the dead man’s clothes. In one pocket I found a money clip of bills and some change. I passed the bills and the change back to Hump. Hump handed them to The Man. I’d finished my look when the two blacks in coveralls came up the stairs with another wardrobe box. I straightened up and stepped away.
The Man stood watching the two blacks work, the bills fanned out in his hands. “Around four hundred dollars.” He folded the money again and put the clip on. “Ape.” One of the blacks looked up. “Split this up.” He tossed the clip of money.
J.T. closed the door on their thanks. The Man moved to the bar and got three glasses. He poured out three heavy shots of scotch. He was waiting.
“Pros,” I said. “No shop labels in the suit or the topcoat. From the weight of the topcoat, I’d say they were from out of town, maybe from the Midwest, where the winters are colder. Chicago or Detroit.”
The Man nodded.
“The machine pistol’s German, World War Two, probably brought back as a souvenir. Almost no way to trace it.” I put out my hand and Hump put the .45 in it. “I’d make book that this is clean, too. The police might be able to trace it for a ways, but it would be a dead-end.” I dropped the .45 on the bar counter and took the shot of scotch. “Who wants you dead this bad?”
“I don’t know.”
“You know,” I said.
“I wish I did.”
“Who was Emily afraid of? Who wants you dead, enough to pay the long-distance rates?”
“I don’t know.”
“That won’t wash.” Hump looked over the rim of his drink at The Man. “Late Monday night, a beginner tries Hardman. Two days later, the pros come after you. If the same man paid for both tries, then he must have learned you can’t bank on beginners. He’d make a call early Tuesday morning, and the pros would be on the plane that afternoon. From Tuesday afternoon or evening to now, that’s not much time to set things up.”
I jumped into it. “That could mean two things. Whoever it is is in a hurry. They want you dead yesterday. Not next week. Otherwise, why storm the fort? The percentage isn’t good. The percentage calls for a rifle on a rooftop, all neat and clean and safe, when you come out of the backdoor, or while you’re walking across the parking lot to the car. Number two. Somebody knows your setup here. Somebody laid it all out for the two pros. Must have known when the collections were made. The whole hit hinged on picking up your bagman and using him to get inside.”
The Man’s face didn’t show a thing.
“My guess is that it was somebody who hadn’t been here the last few days. Probably didn’t know about J.T. and the pump gun. That was the missing detail that screwed it up.”
“They got the day’s take,” The Man said.
“How much?”
The Man shook his head. “Too much.” The Man went into the kitchen and began dialing numbers and talking in a low voice. After a few minutes, he turned. “Horace got about halfway through the route.”
“That backs it up. Somebody knew the whole route and picked the best spot, one where Horace could be taken without much risk.”
“Hardman, it looks like somebody is after my operation.”
I laughed at him. “Shit!” I said, “you’re a funny man.” And then I laughed some more. He didn’t like it. To get rid of us, he said his shoulder was beginning to bother him. “I think I’d better go to bed.” I said I’d stop by the next day. Maybe he’d have some sense by then. He didn’t like that remark, either.
Out in the parking lot, we passed a panel truck with Acme Cleaning and Repairs on the side of it. Three blacks were taking a door from a frame on the side of the truck. That would replace the splintered one upstairs. I was sure they’d also scrub down the stairs when that was done. Unless I missed my guess, as soon as the stairs dried, they’d get a coat of paint.
A couple of blocks from The Man’s apartment, I stopped at a closed service station that had an outside pay phone. Hump’s car eased up behind me. I got Art at his department number.
“You pick up somebody with lead in them . . . probably a shotgun wound?”
“Why?” When I didn’t answer right away he said, “Involved with you?”
“You shoot somebody tonight?”
“No.”
Art snorted. “I’m getting tired of this one-way street we’ve been running on. I’m not sure I can do it much longer.”
“Come on, Art, I’ve told you all I could.”
“I doubt that.” There was a long pause. “Had a call about half an hour ago. Patrol car picked up a white male, around thirty, limping out along Whitehall. Good part of his side and hip were blown away. He says somebody shot him from a passing car. Said he didn’t know who it was. Then he passed out.”
“Where is he?”
“Grady emergency, last I heard.”
“You looking into it?” I asked.
“I wasn’t planning to, but . . . ”
I said I’d meet him in the parking lot next to the emergency wing.
Hump got out of his car, stretching. He leaned on the door and watched as I walked over to him. “Any news?”
“They found the other gun, I think.”
“Sooner or later,” Hump said, “you’re going to have to tell Art about The Man.” I shook my head. “The later it is, the madder he’s going to be.”
“I can’t do it yet. When this breaks wide open, he might not care.” I told Hump I was going over to Grady. He could head on home and I’d call him later, after I’d seen the other gun.
Art was waiting for me in the strong glare of light at the emergency entrance platform. He looked like he’d been working himself up into a rage. I took my time walking up to him, stopping once to light a cigarette. That didn’t help.
“All right, Hardman, tell me what it’s about.”