Gat Heat (26 page)

I aimed the crossbow at 'Arry's head, held my breath, started to squeeze the trigger, then waited as feet pounded inside on my right. This time it was a man I didn't know who raced out, ran past 'Arry and stopped, staring at the garage. I didn't recognize him, didn't know him, but it was enough for me that he was one of Jimmy Violet's chums.

I'd held my aim and let out my breath as the third man came outside, then sucked it in and held it again. I let the arrow fly.

Fourth bull's-eye in a row. Cross off English 'Arry.

But that was the last chance I had to use my trusty crossbow. It was fine when guys would stand still and let me leisurely sap them from afar; but it wasn't worth a damn for fast action or a moving target. And from now on, it appeared incontrovertible, the action was going to be speedy and the targets moving. Yesterday's weapon had had its day; now it was time for tomorrow's.

I dropped the bow, grabbed for the gun under my belt as two things happened simultaneously. The lob in the gaudy shirt, one of my movie stars, turned and spotted me. There was plenty of reddish light, enough so he lost no time coming to the conclusion that I didn't belong here—and, presumably, was responsible for the fire. As his eyes fell on me a fourth man came running to the door but stopped barely outside, staring to his right at the blaze—and, fortunately, away from me. Immediately he turned and ran back inside yelling something I didn't understand.

Maybe I understood it with part of my mind, but it just didn't penetrate because the gaudy-shirted lob was jumping aside, crouching, grabbing for a gun at his hip. I flipped the rocket gun toward him, fired and missed. But missed by not more than an inch—I could see the slug fly past barely to the left of his neck.

The nearer man had turned, was looking at me. But he didn't have a gun in his hand and gaudy-shirt did, so I kept the gun on him and fired a second time—and the second one wasn't wide. It hit him dead center as he triggered his gun.

The boom of his gun and crack of the bullet into the side of the house near me came at the same time. But that was the last slug he was going to toss. The impact of the small rocket in his chest threw him backward and spun him, as if he'd been clipped by a car. His gun arced high into the air. I didn't watch it start to fall.

I slapped the gun left, toward the man near me—but he wasn't near me long.

He'd been staring at me, staring at the gun in my hand, and he had seen the slug's fiery glow as it sped from me to the man even now spinning in the air, not yet on the grass.

He let out a yell of sheer panic, spun and raced away from me. I can't be sure, but I do believe he thought my strange little gun with its hot pills had caused that large conflagration all by itself. Whatever he thought, he wanted no part of it, not desiring to be cremated. He raced toward the lake and left his feet in a very ungraceful dive, hit, splashed, and disappeared in the water.

I stood there for no more than two seconds longer, then slammed the door open and jumped inside the house. But those two seconds were long enough for me to note a few things I'd been unaware of during the just-concluded action. Things like the sudden, almost painful dryness and tightness of my throat, the too-rapid hammering of my pulse, queer cooling of skin, throbbing of temples, and the thudding ache in my entire head, as if my brain was alive and trying to escape to a less agonized place.

Then I was in the carpeted hallway which stretched ahead of me to the back of the house. On my left, a door stood open. Light poured from the room into the hall. I jumped to the door, but the room was empty.

Light spilled through another open door down near the end of the hall—that room where I'd been with Jimmy Violet and his men yesterday. I ran toward it, gun gripped tight in my right hand, head feeling as if it were going to split open.

But it was no time to stop or even slow down now. Maybe he who hesitates isn't always lost; but he sure would be this time. So I ran full tilt down the hall, slowed skidding, and jumped through the wide double doors, catching the whole scene with one quick swing of my eyes around the room.

I let my knees bend, crouching as low as I could, gun held forward and parallel to the floor, swinging my body left.

There, on my left, was Bingo. And of the four men in the room he was the only one with a gun already in his hand. It was either the same gun he'd held on me in my Cad this morning outside the Beverly Hills Hotel, or one just like it, a .45 caliber automatic. Shock bloomed on his thin pockmarked face.

Near him, two men were throwing papers, books, something into what looked like a big hole in the wall, a big square hole. It was a safe—or rather a vault; the heavy door swung open and back against the wall. It had obviously been concealed by paneling when I'd been in this room before, but it was open now—already open, open for me, if I lived through the next few seconds.

One of the men before the vault was Little Phil, the short but meaty-faced and hook-nosed hood who'd been driving the car for Stub Corey this morning, and, later, chasing me in the woods. And next to him, hands full, was my buddy, cadaverous, with his usual air of ghastliness accentuated by his sprained expression as he swung his head toward me, and by the size of his swollen discolored nose. Jimmy Violet. Whom I had recently popped on the beak. Who had been doing his level best to get me killed.

One more man was present. He was on my right, seated in a chair near the bar. Tall, round-shouldered, potbellied Gippo Crane. He was seated, but moving, leaning forward and coming out of the chair.

Bingo fired before I did, but he missed and I didn't. There was so little kick to the gun that it wavered hardly at all when fired, didn't pull the gun off target; and I squeezed the trigger twice, both slugs slamming into his chest high and on the right. The double impact knocked him clear back to the wall.

Jimmy Violet and Little Phil had dropped whatever they were holding and their right hands were moving, Jimmy's to his shoulder and Phil's to his belt; but I could see Gippo Crane, up out of that chair now, see the gleam of light as his hand moved, the glitter of light on metal.

There wasn't time to turn, to swing my body toward him, so I just snapped my head right as I swung arm and gun around, still balanced on the balls of my feet but facing away from Gippo.

The gun was still moving when I squeezed the trigger, but I hit him. Low, down around his hip, but he hadn't been able to get his gun on me yet He flopped back onto the front edge of the cushion in the chair behind him, but the snub-nosed .38 was still in his hand, and I had my own gun steady on him now. I put a second shot into his chest.

Remembering that he, along with Tooth outside, had left white-haired Porter flat on his face on Broadway—I felt like putting one or two more into him. But I didn't. Even while the thought spun briefly in my mind I threw my fist back toward Phil and Jimmy Violet, finger heavy on the trigger.

But that was all.

All the shooting.

All of it.

Jimmy's hand was still not out from under his coat. Little Phil's gun was in his hand, still moving, but he simply let go of it—much as Jimmy Violet had dropped his shiny little pistol when I'd been in this room before. Phil threw his arms up over his head, stiffening them, fingers splayed and thrusting toward the ceiling.

I glanced at Gippo Crane. The snub-nosed revolver had fallen to the seat cushion by his leg. His head had dropped down and turned sideways, chin on his chest. He was still moving, bending forward.

I looked at Jimmy Violet. “Go ahead, Jimmy. Do something. Pull that heat out the rest of the way. Cough, sneeze—do
something
.”

I straightened up, lifted the gun higher, sighted over it, carefully aiming at a spot between his dull, dark eyes.

“Go ahead, Jimmy,” I said.

He always looked sick, but he looked sick unto death at the moment. Those cupid fat lips grew slack, turned down at the corners. He didn't say anything, but he licked his dry lips and held his left hand toward me, palm out, then—slowly, slowly—used it to pull back his coat so I could see his other hand on the butt of his chrome-plated pretty. Continuing to move very slowly, he lowered his right hand, let the gun drop from it. Without being told he nudged it toward me with his foot.

I backed toward the corner of the room, stood near the wall. Gippo slid forward that last fraction of an inch, and his weight pulled him out of the chair and onto the floor. He hit with a thump. That was the last time he moved.

I carefully aimed the gun again, between Jimmy Violet's eyes. “How many men here, Jimmy? It could be I already know. In which case, if you lie, I'll have to kill you, I guess. How many all told, including you, Jimmy?”

He swallowed. But he didn't hesitate in answering. “Ten,” he said. “That's all.”

“Name them.”

He named them. I did a little mathematics in my aching head. Usually I can take addition and subtraction or leave them alone; but this time the mathematical labor was a pleasing thing, so pleasing it seemed even to help the ache in my head. The addition came to ten, all right; but the really rewarding part was the subtraction.

Four here. Fleck and Tooth cold in front and the doorman cold in back from my first tour outside the house. That was seven. English 'Arry with a lump on his head, and gaudy-shirt the movie star, shot. That was nine. And the tenth man was either still running, or still swimming, or drowned by now.

For the first time I relaxed a little. But when a man is wound as tightly as I had apparently been wound, it is difficult to relax just a little. When I sort of let go, my knees actually bent. I sank down about an inch, gun wavering. But then I tightened my leg muscles, straightening up, but feeling those muscles beginning to tremble.

I wasn't so tired or weak, however, that I couldn't handle the little remaining to be done.

I sighed, took a deep breath, and said, “Well, let's see what we've got.”

21

“Sam?” I said into the phone's mouthpiece. “Shell here. I've, uh, got something to tell you. Yes, quite a story to tell you.

“Oh?” Sam could put a lot into just an “Oh?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Now, let me tell you the whole thing before you crack up—before you say anything. O.K.? That's the only way you'll be able to appraise the total situation and arrive at a calm and reasoned—”

“What have you done?” If anyone thought Samson could put a lot into an “Oh?” he should have heard those four words.

“Well. I—it's wonderful news. From your point of view, I mean. I've wiped out the Jimmy Violet gang. That is, they're—”

“What?
What?
Wiped
what?
”

“The Jimmy Violet gang. This is a great victory for law and order, Sam. I'm calling from Jimmy's place now, using the phone in his den, matter of fact.”

I glanced around. It was rather an appalling sight, even to me. Jimmy Violet and Little Phil sat on the floor with their hands tied behind them—I'd had Jimmy tie up Phil, but had made sure of the job on Jimmy myself.

And near them, heads against the wall and feet toward me, lay seven bodies. Two dead, one still alive despite a pair of little rockets high in his chest, and four out cold with lumps on their skulls. On the carpet near their feet was a collection of guns, knives, and saps marvelous in its variety.

There had been silence from Samson. Now he said, “You're out there? Wait a minute. I just got a report there's a fire in that vicinity. Engines on the way there now. But I had not allowed myself to think, even to
dream
—”

“Not this vicinity, Sam. Right here, this is it. I had to burn down his garage.”

“You had—”

I could recognize the tone, so I hurried on. “It was the only way, Sam, the
only
way, otherwise they would have killed me. I had to divide them to conquer, or something like that.”

I could hear him yelling, shouting muffled things. The sound was muffled because he apparently had his hand over the mouthpiece while yelling and shouting things.

But I knew he would still be listening, so I sped on. “Besides, I had to do something dramatic, something
big,
Sam. You can see that, can't you? After all, my life was ruined, wasn't it? All my friends, laughing,
laughing
—it had to be a real humdinger—”

“What have you done?” The words came out slowly, heavy, dropping into my ear like hot lead.

“I'm trying to
tell
you, Sam. And this is, um, sure going to make you happy. Certainly makes
me
happy. After all, I don't think so many people have tried so hard for so long to kill me, ever in my life. Justice had to be done. So, I done it.”

“Yes?”

“Here's the picture. I came out to Jimmy's, and there was quite a fracas, you might say. But I've got them all here in a package, waiting for you.”

“All?”

“All that were here—except one, who ran, or swam, or maybe passed away. Haven't seen any more of him. But I've got Jimmy and eight of his men. Now, two of them are dead, that's true—but it worked out very nicely. They're the slowpoke from my movie, who turns out to be practically a mass murderer, a
real
mean one—and Gippo Crane, who helped knock Porter off, as Tooth DeKay will be able to testify when he comes to. If ever anybody deserved—”

“When he comes to, huh?”

“I had to knock four of them out, Sam, or I wouldn't have had a chance. I mean, sap them. From a distance, that is. Naturally I couldn't just walk around clanging them on their skulls, so I used a bow and arrow—”

“Stop.”

“Sam, I have to get this said; I haven't even got to the good part yet.”

“I'd say not.” He paused. “Are you truly trying to tell me you've killed, or maimed, or somehow ravaged Jimmy Violet and a bunch of his hoods? There were—how many?—nine of them?”