Abruptly the car was flooded with brilliance as a following car, running without lights, suddenly blazed its headlights on the parked car.
Bill shoved the gun under his coat. “If that’s a prowl car,” he warned, “and you make a squawk, I’ll kill you just as sure as—”
A figure jumped out of the car behind and came striding forward. A man’s sneering voice said, “Well, Bill, trying to cut yourself a piece of cake, eh?”
At the sound of that voice Peggy could see Bill’s face twist in a spasm of fear. He jerked his body around. “Butch!” he exclaimed, and then after a moment added, “Am I glad you’re here! I’ve caught a dame trying to pull a fast one on us.”
“Yeah. You look as though you’re glad to see us,” Butch said.
Another man came up on the other side of the car and stood at the open window on Peggy’s side. He was a tall cadaverous man with lips so thin that his mouth looked as though it might have been cut across his face with a razor blade.
The man Bill had addressed as Butch said, “Get in and take the wheel, Slim. Drive up to Bill’s place. Bill, you get in with us. I want to talk with you.”
Slim opened the door and slapped Peggy’s thigh with the back of his hand. “Move over, cutie.”
Butch opened the door on the right-hand side. “Come on, Bill.”
Bill said. “Sure, sure.” His voice was too full of cordiality. “I want to talk things over with you guys, but listen, I think this babe is maybe a private dick or something. She’s trying to pull a fast one.”
“Yeah,” Butch said. “We know all about this babe. Come on, get in, Bill. We’re going to take a nice little ride and have a nice little talk.”
Bill got out of the car. Peggy slid over on the seat, and Slim took the wheel.
“You’ll have to back out,” Butch said to Slim. “It’s a blind alley.”
“Okay.”
“You take the lead,” Butch went on. “If she makes any trouble, bean her.” Butch moved away with Bill.
Slim reached into his side coat pocket, pulled out a blackjack, and looped the thong around his wrist. “Let’s not have any misunderstanding, sister,” he said. “One peep out of you, one false move, and I’ll knock you so cold it’ll be next week before you come to. I’m going to be driving with one hand. This other one is ready to chop you down whenever you make a yip. Get me?”
She smiled at him and said, “Aren’t you making a mountain out of a molehill? Perhaps if you’ll tell me—”
“Yeah, I know,” Slim said, “pulling the old sex charm. It doesn’t work, babe. When I’m on a business deal I’m cold as a cucumber. Now, turn your kisser around here so I can take a little precaution against any sudden screams.”
“What do you mean?”
He grabbed her around the shoulders and pulled her head over to him roughly. She felt the slap of a hand across her mouth and something sticky against her cheeks. Almost before she understood what he was doing, a wide strip of adhesive tape had been slapped across her mouth. Slim’s cigarette-stained fingers massaged the tape firmly into place.
“All right, baby,” he said. “Don’t try to raise your hands to the adhesive tape. The minute you do, you get clouted. Don’t make any grabs for the steering wheel. Don’t try anything funny. If you reach for the door handle you’ll never know what hit you. Okay, here we go.”
He drove skillfully with his left hand, his right on the back of the seat, the blackjack ready. The glint in his eyes told Peggy he was, as he had said, cold as a cucumber when he was on a business deal.
Slim tooled the car along until they glided to the curb in front of an apartment house a block from Adams and Elmore.
“Just sit still,” Slim cautioned.
The other car parked behind them. Peggy saw Butch escorting Bill Everett, saw that Bill was talking volubly, rapidly, that Butch wasn’t even listening.
A third man came up to address Slim briefly. “I’ll go ahead and make sure the coast is clear,” he said. “Wait for my flash.”
“Okay,” Slim said.
Bill and Butch moved into the apartment house. A light came on in a ground-floor window. The curtain was promptly drawn, shutting off the light.
A few seconds later a flashlight blinked twice.
“Okay, babe,” Slim said. “Let’s go.”
He reached across her. opened the door, and shoved her out. She looked desperately up and down the deserted street.
Slim’s hand moved deftly down her arm, caught her wrist, doubled it back until excruciating pain caused her to take a step forward to ease the pressure.
Slim stepped forward with her. The pressure remained the same.
Peggy tried to scream, but only a little whimpering noise came from behind the adhesive tape. In the end she was all but running, trying to keep just enough ahead of Slim to ease the pressure on her wrist.
She was hurried along a dark corridor. The third man, who had evidently been driving the other car, jerked open a door. Peggy was pushed inside.
Slim tossed her purse at Butch. “Catch,” he said.
Butch opened her purse and examined her driving license and identification.
“Honest, Butch,” Bill said, “this is a new one on me. She made contact and—”
Butch looked up from Peggy’s driving license. “Shut him up, Slim.”
“Okay,” Slim said, moving forward.
Bill said, “No, no, I am on the level with this. She—”
Slim swung the blackjack with the deft wrist motion. The peculiar thunk sounded as though someone had slapped an open palm against a ripe watermelon. Bill turned glassy-eyed, his head dropped forward, he slumped down in the chair, and then, with fear in his eyes he held onto a thin margin of consciousness.
“No, no,” he screamed. “You guys aren’t going to do that to me!”
The peculiar thunk was repeated.
Butch didn’t even glance at Bill. He looked at Peggy and said, “So you’re from the insurance company that has the two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar policy on the Garrison gems.”
Peggy pointed toward the strip of adhesive tape on her lips.
“You don’t need to have that off to nod,” Butch said, his eyes cold.
She remained stiff-necked, defiant. Butch jerked his head, and Slim moved over beside her.
“When I ask questions,” Butch said, “I want you to answer them. Slim plays rough, and he doesn’t have any more feeling about women than a snake. Now, as I get it, you work for the insurance company, and Bill was making a deal with you to turn back the gems provided you could buy him immunity and pay him maybe thirty or forty thousand bucks. Is that the case?”
She shook her head.
“Soften her up, Slim,” Butch said. “She’s lying.”
Slim tapped the back of her neck with the blackjack. It was only a gentle tap, but it sent a sharp pain shooting through Peggy’s brain. She saw a succession of bright flashes in front of her eyes and felt a numbing paralysis that gradually gave place to a dull throbbing ache.
“I’m waiting for an answer,” Butch said.
She took a deep breath, fought back the nauseating headache, then shook her head determinedly.
Slim cocked his wrist and then held it at a sign from Butch, whose slightly puzzled eyes held a glint of admiration. “Damn it,” he said, “the babe’s got nerve!”
Butch turned to regard the unconscious Bill. Then he said, “When he comes back to join us we’ll ask him some questions. I sure had a straight tip that Bill was in on a sellout, and — hell, it has to be true.”
“Want me to take the tape off?” Slim asked.
“Not yet.” Butch said. “We’ve got all night. We—”