Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 52, No. 7 & 8, July/August 2007
- Автор: Baldwin Barry, Campbell Melodie
- Год: 2007
- Язык: английский
- Год: Dell Magazines
- ISBN: ISSN:0002-5224
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 52, No. 7 & 8, July/August 2007». Краткое содержание книги:
When the lieutenant arrived, Corey leaned close to him, shouting to make his voice heard above the noise of the wind and train. “We’re going to have to do this quickly. If we take too long and Perkins is waiting by this door, he may hear us and one of us will get shot. Same thing could happen if we take too long crossing the top of the baggage car. We don’t want him to act until we’re ready for him.”
The lieutenant was eyeing the gap between the cars. It was less than four feet, but he didn’t seem to be able to take his eyes off it. His body swayed noticeably.
“Lieutenant? Are you alright?”
The lieutenant shook his head but answered in the affirmative. “Of course, of course, let’s do this.”
Without hesitation, Corey leaped across the gap and landed on the roof of the baggage car. It was harder than he had expected, for there was nothing to grab hold of to keep him from sliding around. Fortunately he had a good sense of balance and recovered himself without trouble. The lieutenant, however, in his current condition, might find the jump more difficult.
The officer was not ready to follow Corey. He was staring at the gap again and swaying slightly from side to side.
“Lieutenant!” Corey called to him, but the man did not look up.
“Ridgewood!” Corey called again without success. He had to find a way to get the man’s attention. “Don’t make me jump back over there to get you!”
The lieutenant looked up then, meeting Corey’s eyes for just a moment, before planting his feet more firmly beneath him. Still he didn’t make the jump.
Corey tried another tactic. “It’s now or never, Lieutenant, and it’s your decision. This is your whole career in front of you. The army will forgive you losing your men, but they’ll never forgive cowardice!”
“Cowardice!” Ridgewood’s face snapped back up toward Corey again, and he leapt at the boxer without warning. In an instant he was across the gap and looking to get his hands around Corey’s neck.
Corey slithered nimbly backward, keeping out of the lieutenant’s reach. “Easy there, Lieutenant! Good job! I knew you could do it!”
Lieutenant Ridgewood caught sight of Corey’s laughing face and stopped scrambling after him. His own face colored with embarrassment. “Sorry about that, Callaghan. I don’t know what came over me back there. I was just so damned dizzy.”
Corey turned his back on the lieutenant and hurried toward the end of the car. He had to assume that Perkins had heard them land on the roof, and he didn’t know how much time he had. A glance back over his shoulder told him the lieutenant was following him, albeit more cautiously.
Corey reached the ladder at the end of the car. No other cars stretched out on the track ahead of him. Sully must have separated the cars right here. The sense of urgency boiling hot within him, Corey decided not to wait. He swung down onto the tiny platform at the end of the car, grabbed the steel ring that controlled the hand brake in both hands, and gave the mechanism a mighty twist, throwing his whole weight into the effort. The railcar lurched as the steel brake pressed against the steel wheels of the car. Sparks fanned out behind the train in a broad and brilliant arc.
Corey twisted again. The screech of steel on steel was deafening, but the brake was biting hard into the wheel now, and Corey knew they had to be slowing down.
Shouting profanities, Perkins shoved the car door open and thrust his pistol in Corey’s direction. Without conscious thought, Corey’s hand flashed forward, grabbed the pistol, and yanked it hard toward him. It fired once before it pulled free of Perkins’s hand, but the bullet flew off somewhere into the wilderness without hitting flesh. Corey sent the pistol careening after it, then braced himself to put down Perkins.
He was not in very good shape for a fight. The beating he took from rifle butts and kicking boots in Cheyenne had been severe. But Rock Quarry Callaghan was not a man who backed away from a fight, and his pride would not let him admit that any man alive might beat him with his fists.
Perkins, for his part, was broad in the shoulders and heavily built. While not a boxer, he had the look of a man who got into his share of fights and expected to win them when he did. He edged out of the doorway, a large grin splitting his face. “Callaghan, somehow I just knew I was going to get to beat on you before this day was through.”
Corey attacked. His right fist shot out twice in quick jabs directed against Perkins’s nose. He didn’t break it, although a trickle of blood squirted over Perkins’s lips.
The big man just smiled to show Corey he could take it.
Corey struck again with a left to Perkins’s broad stomach. The gambler responded with a sweeping blow to Corey’s head, which the boxer easily avoided.
Corey drove two fists into Perkins’s rib cage with the same apparent lack of success. Perkins rocked a blow to Corey’s shoulder that almost turned him on the little platform. The blow hurt far more than it should have, and Corey had difficulty bouncing back as if he were unaffected.
The fight was reminiscent of a very old style of boxing, before the footwork and maneuvering that marked the current sport. In those days, boxing was about brawn and grit. The man who had them stood his ground, endured punishment, and won matches. Fighting in close quarters was similar to that, except that this wasn’t a ring and there weren’t rules, and Corey, who had first learned how to fight on the docks of Boston, knew how to take advantage of this situation. He brought his right knee up hard into the fork of Perkins’s legs.
The big man grunted and hesitated.
That was all the opportunity Corey needed. His hands shot out to grab Perkins by the collar of his shirt. Then he yanked the man forward, pivoted on his left foot, and heaved the massive gambler off the car and onto the tracks below.
Perkins cried out as he tumbled through the air, but it was too late. One giant hand almost grasped hold of the thin steel railing but couldn’t quite find a grip. Then the small mountain of human flesh impacted the much larger mountain of rock and earth and he was tumbling along the track well behind Corey and getting farther by the moment.
“Very nicely done, Callaghan,” Lieutenant Ridgewood complimented the boxer. “But am I mistaken or were you supposed to wait for me to get set and get my gun out before you set the brake?”
The lieutenant’s gun was out now, and he was leaning over the edge of the roof of the railcar peering down at Corey. He still looked pale enough to cause Corey to worry about him.
The boxer shrugged. “I got anxious.”
“Can’t argue with success.” Maneuvering carefully, the lieutenant took hold of the ladder with his free hand and descended to the platform beside Corey, who stepped back to the other end to make room for the officer.
“Do you think Perkins was alone in there?” the lieutenant asked, indicating the door with his gun.
Three shots rang out in response, puncturing the door to the baggage car and nearly perforating the two men as well. They leapt as far to their respective sides as the narrow confines of the ledge would permit them, and braced themselves for more shots.
“I guess that answers that question,” the lieutenant observed. He looked the door over up and down. “I guess we have to do this the hard way after all.”
Reaching out with one foot, the lieutenant tapped the door. Two more shots punctured the panel. The lieutenant stepped out behind them and fired five shots through the door into the baggage car.