The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps

But not me. Gangsters don’t announce themselves in that style — at least, if they’re making an attack. And if it were the police, the job to assure them of our respectability must come from my client or O’Rourke. As for me — I kept my eyes trained straight on that parked car; the front window. The siren and the racing motor would not distract my attention, if that was its purpose — and it was.

It happened. I won’t say it was expected, or even what I was looking for. But then, I won’t say it was unexpected. Not unexpected, because in plain words — I don’t allow the unexpected to happen, if I can prevent it.

A face bobbed up in that car window. A dark coated arm shot above the half open glass, and the heavy bore of a nickel plated six-gun was smacked right against the side of my client’s head. I saw the flashing eyes, the set chin, the thick sensuous lips of the gunman, and knew that the rod he held was, at that distance, heavy enough to blow my client’s head to pieces. I knew too that the hand that held that gun was steady, and that the thick lips were cruel. My client turned his head suddenly and looked straight into the weapon which in the fraction of a second would carry death. And—. But why go into it?

I simply raised my right hand slightly, closed my finger upon the trigger and shot the gunman smack through the side of his head. Hard? Cold blooded? Little respect for life? Maybe. But after all, it didn’t seem to me to be the time to argue the point with the would-be killer. Remember — I was some twenty feet from him — and shooting at an angle.

The gun crashed to the step of the car. The gunman jumped back. And as I ran around the rear of that car he tumbled to the street and lay still. It was a cinch that he had the door open behind him. It was a cinch too that the car which shot up the street was neither a police car nor that of attacking gangsters. It was simply the getaway car for the man who had attempted the life of my client — for it half slowed, swerved to avoid the body in the street, and as its headlight played upon the dead white face, shot away up the block.

I didn’t run out and take pot shots at the fleeing car, but made sure that the gunman had been alone. I jerked out my pocket flash, and with that in one hand and my gun in the other, looked the car over. The gunman had been there alone — that is, as far as life was concerned. But in the back of the car lay the body of the chauffeur. The job was a quiet one. Some one had stuck a knife in his heart and twisted it around. There was a welt on his forehead, too, from a blackjack, the butt of a gun, or some other blunt instrument. He had been knocked out, then, before he was killed.

A brutal bit of work certainly. But maybe necessary from the gangster’s point of view. You can’t tell how long a guy will stay “out” from a smack on the head. And the waiting killer couldn’t know how long it would take for my client to appear on the street.

O’Rourke had laid his human burden against the stone wall surrounding the hospital and was taking a look-see into the car with me.

“It’s Conway,” he said, and his voice shook slightly. “A good boy. Only taken off his beat three weeks ago and assigned to the district attorney’s office. Been married two months, on the strength of the promised promotion. It’s a tough break for a guy — a tough break for a cop. And the lad you — you gave it to. Just another gangster. A lad that Joe Gorgon’s gotten out more than once.”

“Joe Gorgon’s some guy.” I put the flash back in my pocket. “But I’d like to see him get his friend out of this mess.” And in what I think was justifiable pride, “It wasn’t a bad shot, O’Rourke.”

“No—” said O’Rourke, “it wasn’t. I turned just in time to see you give it to him. He had it coming.”

“You’ll make a good witness when—” I straightened suddenly as a police whistle came from down the block. “Do I have to explain this, and—”

“You won’t have to worry this time, Race. Colonel—” he stopped suddenly. “Our man’s a big shot. He—. But it looks like all hell’s going to break loose in the city. Like—”

“Our last case together. The Angel of the Underworld — and Power.” I helped him out.

“No.” O’Rourke shook his head. “For that was a man who looked for power — who grasped it, too, in rather a fantastic way. But here is Power already established. Nothing fantastic. A reality of money and greed, tearing into the bowels of a great city. Influence — justice—”

“You’re talking like a book,” I told him. “Let’s think of this present mess, and—”

But my client, who O’Rourke called Colonel had already broken into life. He came around from the off side of the car, where he no doubt had been examining the stiff and getting a justifiable and personal kick out of it. Anyway, he had snapped back into life. I saw him talking to O’Rourke just before the harness bull came up the street.