running. He was hatless now and halfway across the avenue. I heard a car being started. The alarm man raised his gun for a shot at him but slid on the ice and lost his balance. He tumbled. There was a clatter and a curse as he fell against a parked car. I ran out into the empty roadway. On the far side of the avenue the door of a black Mercedes opened to receive the gunman. The Mercedes leapt forward while the door was still open. I saw a flurry of arms, and one leg trailed, and cut a pattern in the snow, before the man was inside and the door closed. As the Mercedes reached the cross-street intersection, the driver switched his lights on.
‘Fulton County plate,’ said the voice of the intruder alarm man. ‘Did you see that? It was a car from Fulton County. Did you get the number?’
He was breathless from the tumble he’d taken, and I was breathless too.
‘Three digits and FC,’ I said. ‘It was too dirty to get it.’
‘Goddamned weather,’ said the man. ‘I would have plinked him but for that damned patch of ice.’ He turned and we walked back to the lobby.
‘I think you would,’ I said.
He slapped me on the back. ‘Thanks for taking his attention, young feller,’ he said.
‘Is that what I did?’
‘Raising your hands and acting scared … that took his attention. And that was cool.’ He stepped over the body that was sprawled in the doorway. I followed him.
‘Spread that around,’ I said. ‘But just between the two of us – I wasn’t acting.’
The alarm man laughed. It was the strangled sort of laugh that releases a lot of suppressed tension. He toyed with the .38 revolver that was still in his hand. It was a blue-finish Colt Agent, with the hammer shroud that prevented it from snagging when drawn from a pocket. He must have thumb-cocked the hammer, for there had been no time for double action between the movement of his hand and the sound of his shots.
‘I’d put that away,’ I said. ‘Put it out of sight before the cops arrive.’
‘I’ve got a permit,’ he said indignantly. ‘In fact, I’m president of my local gun club.’
‘They come down the street and see you standing over two corpses with a hot shooter in your hand they are likely to shoot first and check the permits afterwards.’
He put the gun away but not before bringing the next loaded chamber into position. He unbuttoned his overcoat and jacket, to place his gun into a highly decorative Berns-Martin spring-grip shoulder-holster. As we got back to the lobby Mann arrived with Tony Nowak.
‘You stupid bastard,’ said Mann to the alarm manufacturer although I had the feeling that some overfill was intended to splash on to me.
‘What am I supposed to do,’ said the alarm man, looking in a mirror and combing his hair, ‘let those punks drill me? I’d be the laughing-stock of the whole intruder alarm business.’
‘They’re both dead,’ said Mann. ‘You shot to kill.’
The alarm man turned to look at Mann. Then he looked at the two corpses and back to Mann again. For a moment I thought he was going to express satisfaction at what he’d done but he knew too much about the law to do that. ‘Well, that’s something you’d better talk about with my lawyer,’ he said finally. Some of the bubbly elation that always follows such danger was now fading, leaving him flat and a little frightened.
Mann caught my eye. ‘No, I’m getting out of here,’ he said.
‘I’m not Wyatt Earp,’ said the man. ‘I can’t shoot guns out of guys’ hands.’
I took Red Bancroft’s arm. ‘I’d better get you home,’ I said.
‘The police will want to talk to me,’ she said.
‘No. Tony will fix that,’ I said.
Tony Nowak nodded. ‘You get along home, Red. My driver will take you. And don’t lose any sleep about those guys … we’ve had a whole string of muggings here over the past month. These are rough customers. I know the Deputy Inspector – I’ll get him to keep you out of it.’
I thought the girl was taking it all with a superhuman calmness. Now I realized that she was frozen with fear. Her face was colourless and as I put my arm round her, I felt her body twitch violently. ‘Take it easy, Red,’ I said. ‘I’ll have to stay on here.’
‘They’re both dead,’ she said, and stepped high over the body of the man in the doorway, without looking down at him. Outside in the swirling snowstorm she stopped and wound her knitted scarf round her head. She reached up for me and planted a sisterly kiss on my lips. ‘Could it work out to be something special … you and me?’ she said.
‘Yes,’ I said. While we stood there a police car arrived, and then a car with a doctor’s registration.
Tony Nowak’s driver opened the door of the Lincoln for her. I waved, and stood there a long time until the car could no longer be seen. By the time I got back to the lobby the cops were there. They were stripping the dead gunmen naked, and putting the clothes into evidence bags.
5
Tony Nowak’s apartment is in the seventeenth police precinct, but dead bodies from those plush addresses go down to the Twenty-First Street Morgue and are put in the chilled drawers alongside pushers from Times Square and Chinese laundrymen from the Tenderloin.
‘Can we smoke?’ I asked the attendant. The cold room had an eerie echo. He nodded and pulled the drawer open, and read silently from the police file. Apparently satisfied, he stepped back so that we could get a good look at the hold-up man. He came out feet-first with a printed tag on his toe. His face had been cleaned of blood and his hair combed, but nothing could be done about the open mouth that made him look as if he’d died of surprise.
‘The bullet hit the windpipe,’ said the attendant. ‘He died gasping for air.’ He closed the file. ‘This has been a heavy night for us,’ he explained. ‘If it’s OK with you guys, I’ll go back to the office. Put him away when you’re through with him.’ He put the clip-board under his arm and took a look at his pocket-watch. It was 2.15 A.M. He yawned and heaved the big evidence bag on to the stainless steel table.
‘Medical examiner had them stripped at the scene of the crime – just so Forensic can’t say we lost anything.’ He prodded the transparent bag that contained a peaked hat, dark raincoat, cheap denim suit and soiled underwear. ‘You’ll find your paperwork inside.’ He twisted the identification tag that was on the dead man’s toe so that he could read from the UF6 card. ‘Died on Park Avenue, eh. Now there’s a goon with taste.’ He looked back at the body. ‘Don’t turn him over until the photographer has finished with him.’
‘OK,’ I said.
‘Your other one is in drawer number twenty-seven – we keep all the gunshot deaths together, at this end of the room. Anything else you want and I’ll be in the ME’s office through the autopsy room …’
Mann opened the bag and found the shirt. There was a bullet nick in the collar.
‘A marksman,’ I said.
