The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps

I figured afterwards it must have been four o’clock when I snapped awake. I sat upright (I’d been sitting on the floor, against the wall) and listened. He was coming now — the guy I’d been laying for. I watched where I knew the door was when I dozed off.

There was a little wait. Then it came again — the faint squeak of the rollers under the wash-stand as it was being moved. And now I could see a tiny slit of light showing where the opening door was. I got to my knees, crawled over to a point of vantage, and waited.

The slit grew wider. The light from the hall seemed almost bright, after the dead darkness. The stand squeaked, stopped; squeaked, stopped.

I waited till the door was open six inches. Then I stood up.

Plop!

The slug from the silenced gun dug into the wall back of me. With one gesture I swung around to the window, fired, and dropped.

The room rang with the shot for a while, and when it died away everything was still. The door and the stand didn’t move any more; it didn’t have to. Whoever had been shoving there had done his job.

Like a damned fool, I’d kept my eyes peeled on that door, just like they planned. And meanwhile the bozo himself had fired from the window; and now he was inside with me.

I softly drew myself up, ready, and then didn’t move. He didn’t move, either. We were both waiting. All at once there was a little clatter by the opposite wall.

Even while I pulled the trigger, I knew I was pulling my second boner. I know when somebody tosses a pencil across the room. It was just instinct, I guess, that made me fire. Right away something bit my shoulder, burning it. I rolled under the bed while the report was still whooping around. I figured he must be somewhere at the other end of it. I lay there, listening. My arm stung a little. Not much.

I guess I must have Indian blood in me. A gravestone is a noisy, nervous animal, compared to what I was. I did a little necessary breathing — not much — and that was all. The second hand went tearing round and round somebody’s clock. It was his move first.

Probably he thought at last he must have got me. Anyhow, he moved a bit. Not three feet from me.

I let him have it.

By the time the noise died away, I heard them running up the stairs and along the corridor. I rolled from under, and when I got to my feet they were tumbling in the room — a whole army, it sounded like. When they lighted the light, though, I saw there were only four. Sergeant Rooney and three bobbies. Yes, and Coleman Fuller, standing there, white as a sheet.

I said:

“Have you got the girl?”

It seems they met her coming down on their way up. She stepped in, under escort, when I spoke.

“You nearly pulled a fast one, Desdy,” I said, “when you got my eyes on that door you were pushing open. But then, you deserved that break, after the help you gave me.”

She gave me a gum-chewing look. I wasn’t a nice boy now.

“What do you mean, help you?” she said.

“Why, by keeping the gang out of talking — and shooting — distance from me when I told you I might spread the news your boy friend double-crossed them. If they could pop me at a bowing distance — like in a passing car — well and good; but it was better to leave the near-at-hand job to the boy friend himself, and keep the others away, wasn’t it!”

She started to speak; stops; looks sidewise at Fuller; then back at me.

“What makes you think he’s my boy friend?” she asked sullenly.

“Just clever deduction,” I answered, modestly. “It took me a while to recognize you, with your glasses and fancy get-up, as the dame I’d seen talking with young Mr. Fuller here in the United Trust lobby—” (I heard Fuller mutter: “my—!”) — but then, when you were so quick to remember seeing somebody — Spike Lewis, or anybody else — steal down this hall, after Sergeant Rooney here and Bond and Job-son left, it was easy to see you were protecting one special guy. I was already pretty sure who the killer was, though,” I finished. “Let’s give credit where credit is due.”