The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps

6

Stone, splinters, plaster, beams thundered down. Yells and screams commingled with the tumult of toppling walls and ceilings. Lights were snuffed out. The roof, or what remained of it, boomed down. There were cries for help, groans, oaths. Tongues of flame leaped about, crackling.

MacBride found himself beneath a beam, an upturned table, and an assortment of other debris. Near him somebody was swearing violently.

“That you, Jake?”

“Yeah, Cap... if I can get this damn hunk of ceiling off my chest...”

MacBride squirmed, twisted, heaved. He jackknifed his legs and knocked aside the table. He brushed powdered plaster from his eyes, spat it from his mouth. The beam was harder. It was wedged down at both ends by other weighty debris, and MacBride could not shove it off.

But he twisted his body from side to side, backed up bit by bit, finally won free and stood up. His face was bloody, the sleeve of his right arm was torn from shoulder to elbow. He did not know it. He stumbled toward the pinioned Moriarity, freed him from the weighty debris pressing upon him and helped him to the sidewalk.

Going back in, he ran into Cohen. Ike was carrying a semi-conscious desk sergeant.

A crowd had already gathered. People came on the run from all directions. Somebody had pulled the fire-alarm down the block. The flames were growing. From a crackling sound they had been whipped into a dull roar.

Two battered but otherwise able policemen came out and MacBride sent them to chase away the crowd. Blocks away fire-engines were clanging, sirens were screaming. The policemen fought with the crowd, drove it back down the street. MacBride and Cohen were busy carrying out those they were able to pry from beneath the debris.

The first fire-engine came booming around the corner, snorted to a stop, bell clanging. Helmeted fire-fighters with drawn axes ran for the building. A couple of flashlights blinked. The big searchlight on the fire-engine swung around and played its beams on the demolished station-house. The firemen stormed into the mass of wreckage, hacked their way through to the pinioned men.

MacBride plowed back into the cell where the mysterious stranger had been placed a few hours before. He had trouble finding him. The man was deep beneath the wreckage. MacBride ran out, got an axe and came back to chop his way through. He carried out a limp dead weight.

Other engines came roaring upon the scene. There was a din of ringing bells, hooting motors, loud commands. Hose was being strung out. Streams of water began shooting upon the building, roaring and hissing. A grocery store down the street was used to shelter the injured men, all of whom had been taken from the building. An ambulance was on the way.

MacBride and Cohen were bending over the stranger. He was a mass of bruises, scarce able to breathe, let alone talk.

“Guess... I’m... dying,” he whispered, his eyes closed, his body twitching with pain.

“The hell you are!” said MacBride. “We’ll have an ambulance here in a minute.”

“Don’t... tell.” He struggled for breath, then choked. “Two ten... Jockey Street... Get ’em!” Then he fainted.

One of the gangsters was dead. The two others had escaped in the wild melee.

Kennedy was alive, though pretty much the worse for wear. He was hatless, covered with soot and grime, one eyes closed, a welt on his forehead. He limped, too, but he was not daunted.

“What next, Mac?”

MacBride turned. “God, Kennedy, you look rotten!”

“Feel rotten. I’d like to find the guy put his heel on my eye. I’m out of smokes. Who’s got a butt?”

Moriarity had one.

The battalion chief for the fire department came up. “Hello, Mac. Bomb, eh? Yeah, I know. I’ve just been around. It was pitched through a window in the back.” He looked up. “Good-bye, station-house, Mac!”

Even as he said this the front swayed, caved in with a smother of smoke, cinders and flame. Firemen rushed to escape the deluge. The hose lines pounded the place with water.