Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 27, No. 1, September 17, 1927
- Автор: Valentine, Corley H. W.
- Год: 1927
- Язык: английский
- Год: The Red Star News Company
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 27, No. 1, September 17, 1927». Краткое содержание книги:
He had racked the silver into a convenient canvas bag that was used to bank it; the bills were more pleasantly numerous than he had anticipated. Good-naturedly he began separating the checks, tossing them on the floor.
A customer entered the store and began poking about the display of furniture. Harris’s eyes narrowed.
“You guys make a move and I’ll plug you both,” he muttered from the corner of his mouth as he shoved the currency in the bag with the silver. He left them still paralyzed against the wall and strode confidently up the aisle toward the entrance.
The would-be purchaser looked up as he approached, and seeing what he took to be a rather sullen working man on his way out, went on with his examination of a davenport.
All would have been well except for one thing: Looey’s chronic distrust of everybody.
As Jacob had come down the aisle, to all appearances leading another lamb to the slaughter, Looey had remarked a glassy stare in the eyes of his older brother. Peeking around the edge of a convenient china cabinet, he beheld with horror the unbusinesslike transaction behind the cashier’s counter and had dropped to all fours where he scrambled in a zigzag course to the door and bolted down the street unobserved by even the astute Miss Getz.
At the moment Harris neared the doorway, Looey was returning, well in the rear of the hastily summoned traffic officer from the corner.
Wolf Harris had always counted on boldness and the skill of long practice for the success of his depredations and on only one notable occasion had he failed, but now, as he saw through the window the uniformed officer approaching, he realized that for a second time he had overplayed his hand.
It could not have happened at a worse moment; at any cost he must avoid capture now. He stepped behind a convenient screen and waited.
The representative of law and order rushed in the entrance, his gun drawn.
Without exposing his person more than was necessary Harris fired four times in quick succession at the hand that held the pistol. His idea was to disarm the policeman if possible; failing that, he must shoot to kill.
One random shot replied. A dazed look came over the face of the officer, his knees suddenly doubled under him and he dropped on the floor, his arms outstretched.
Wolf Harris thrust his gun into his coat pocket and with the canvas sack under his other arm walked out of the store.
People were staring up and down the street trying to locate the noise of the firing. Looey had disappeared like a scared rabbit. Harris turned to the left and half-way down the block entered an alley.
An electrician who had paused at his work, hailed him as he passed.
“Hear them shots?”
“Nah, that was the exhaust from a truck,” sneered Harris without stopping.
A little beyond, he broke into a run. At the opposite end he paused and looked back; three men had entered the alley and were following. He whipped out his pistol and turned. They stopped, then retreated, effectually discouraged for the time being.
Harris crossed the sidewalk and made his way between the line of parked cars at the curbing. In the street he turned to the right and passing several of these, darted into a small sedan farther along in which the engine had been left running.
A little old man in the front seat who had been anxiously peering at the passing pedestrians through the window, turned to chide him fretfully.
“I thought you said you’d only be gone a minute, Tom,” he scolded. “It makes me nervous to wait so long an’ set here listening to that engine burn up gasoline. I’d have turned it off if I’d known how to work the blamed thing.”
“I was — delayed,” grunted Harris grimly as he whirled the little car out into the traffic.
They passed the corner and swung to the right at the next; another two blocks and they turned south again. In this manner they traveled for several miles before Harris headed due west and at last north.
At the edge of town he relaxed somewhat, and the old man, no longer finding it necessary to breathlessly clutch the side door, became talkative.
“I declare, Tom, I wished awhile ago I hadn’t teased you to bring me along today. I got so fidgety there waitin’ for you — something came over me, sort of. I got to wonderin’ what I’d do if I should lose you agin.”
“Aw ferget it,” scowled Harris. “You give me the willies with that line.”
The old man smiled placidly. “Folks hearing you talk would be like to think you didn’t care much, but I can read you like a book, boy; you’ve got a heart just like your mother’s.”
Harris laughed shortly, but said nothing. It was not a pleasant laugh, but rather a grimace such as fighters use to taunt their opponents in the ring. It was like a defiant gesture of disillusion at life.
II
As the scattered bungalows gave way to more and more infrequent fruit stands and gas stations, the old man’s spirits rose.
“I guess I won’t make this trip with you again, Tom,” he said cheerfully. “I’m all through with the city. There’s too much noise and too many people and automobiles. I guess I’ll be content to stay on the ranch for the next few years; it won’t be long you’ll have to bother with me.”
The stony-faced gunman snorted contemptuously.
“When I was in Mexico, I seen Indians a hundred an’ eight an’ ten years old. Lots of ’em. Chew’ed tobacco in their sleep — they was so tough. You’re soft. You talk like a woman.”
“Now look at here, son,” expostulated the other, “I ain’t complainin’ an’ I ain’t afraid to die when my time comes. I’m just lookin’ facts in the face. When I was your age I was just as big a fool as you probably are, though I admit you been showin’ a lot of kindness to your old pop.
“The thing that makes me mad when I think of what I might have done in the past, is that a man don’t generally get good sense until he’s too old to use it.”
“Well, I figure you got quite a play comin’ to you yet. I’m goin’ to get you goin’ in this rabbit business you got your heart set on an’ if you don’t try to corner the rabbit market you’ll be settin’ pretty in another year.”
“You ain’t going away again, are you, Tom?” queried the old man anxiously.
Wolf Harris turned his expressionless eyes on his father and then looked ahead at the road again.
“Ain’t you satisfied with me gettin’ you out of that ‘Home’ an’ settin’ you up in ranchin’? I gotta look after my own business, ain’t I?” he gibed.
“That’s so, Tom. I don’t mean for to seem ungrateful. But you were gone so many years without a word — an’ I thought I was all alone — an’ then you came back all of a sudden. I’d hate to have you go away again now,” he concluded lamely.
“Well, I ain’t gone yet, old timer,” said Harris gruffly. “But I might have to go anytime, see! If I get a wire from my pardner down in Mexico I might have to beat it right away, without kissin’ the rabbits good-by or nothin’. All you gotta, do is keep right on gettin’ rich till I get back.”
An ominous foreboding clutched at the heart of the old man.
“Anyway, if you do go, son, you’ll write to me, won’t you?” he asked anxiously.
“Me, write?” grunted Harris. “Hell, no. There ain’t no post office where I’ll be, an’ them Mexicans swipe the stamps off your letters you give ’em to mail. I ain’t a hand to write, besides, like as not, I’ll get back here before you had time to answer a letter anyhow.”
The other’s expression instantly lightened.
“Then you won’t be gone long this time, if you do go?” he said with relief.
“Ain’t that what I been tryin’ to tell you?” snarled Harris. “You kept interruptin’ me till I forgot it. Another thing you put clean out of my mind was that I’m going to send fer them prize rabbits to-morrow.”