After he had been driving a few minutes, he completely forgot about the cop. It was as if the accident had never happened, and his fever-ridden mind returned to thinking about Anita.
He was on more familiar ground now. He turned off the Paseo on to Armour Boulevard, through to Broadway, up Summit Street, and across the Essex Avenue Bridge.
He was driving better now, although twice, without knowing it, he ran through a red traffic signal.
The traffic was light at that hour, and no car crossed his path.
He began to slow down as he reached the shabby, darkened street where Anita’s apartment was.
The street was deserted. Only a few lights showed at the upper storey windows. As he pulled up opposite Anita’s apartment house, rain began to fall from the heavy black clouds that had been piling up for the past hour.
He sat for some minutes looking up at the dark building. It was now twenty minutes to nine o’clock.
Anita’s window on the top floor was in darkness. It would be another hour and a half before she came home, he thought. Could he last out that time?
He rested his burning forehead against the car window. If he let go now, he knew he would slip off into a coma from which there would be no awakening. He decided to go up and wait outside her door.
Anything would be better than sitting in the car in which he now seemed to have passed a lifetime.
He opened the car door. When his feet touched the road, he nearly fell, but caught hold of the door in time to steady himself. He had thought he had been pretty bad the first time he had come to this house, but that was nothing to what he was feeling now.
He stood still, gathering his strength. It seemed a long way across the street, and his mind recoiled from the thought of climbing all those stairs, but he was determined now to get to her room: nothing would stop him.
As he was about to close the car door, he saw the Thompson gun on the floor by the driving seat.
He picked it up instinctively and, holding it under his arm, he turned, leaving the car door open, and began a slow, staggering walk across the street.
A car coming around the corner avoided him with a scream of tortured tyres and a blast of the horn.
Baird scarcely noticed it, his eyes were fixed on the front door of the apartment house, and he was oblivious to anything else.
Painfully he dragged himself up the steps. Every muscle in his body seemed to be on fire. He pushed open the door and walked into the dimly lit, airless lobby.
The flight of stairs faced him. He stood looking at them, swaying to and fro, only just keeping his balance. Then he moved forward, and began the nightmare climb that seemed to go on and on: a climb that wracked his body and forced his breath in great labouring gasps through his clenched teeth.
He reached the first floor landing, and stopped, his back against the banisters, sweat streaming down his face. He couldn’t remember how many more stairs he had to climb, and he began to doubt if he could reach the fourth floor. But his will drove him on, and slowly he staggered and lurched down the passage to the next flight of stairs.
He climbed them somehow, pausing on every step before mounting to the next. As he went down the passage to the third flight, a woman opened the door of a room close by and stared at him.
He kept on, not seeing her, and horrified at the sight of the gun and his lurching, staggering gait, she hastily closed the door.
He went up the last flight of stairs on his hands and knees, dragging the gun with him. He lay face down on the landing, drawing in great gasps of breath.
Well, he had done it. An hour’s wait, he thought, and he heard himself groan. He rol ed over on his side and looked at the closed door a few feet from him.
He was going to see her again. She might have changed her mind about him. He wouldn’t let go, now he had got so far. She had saved him before. She might even save him again.
Through his dazed and confused mind a gruesome joke filtered.
He thought, ‘I’l see her again if it kills me.’
III
Lieutenant Olin was on the telephone when Dallas put his head around the door.
‘I’m busy,’ Olin grunted. ‘Go away and bother someone else.’
Dallas came into the small office, pulled up a chair and sat astride it. In the hard light of the desk lamp he looked tired and edgy. He made a face at Olin, took out a cigarette and pasted it on his lower lip.
Olin said into the phone, ‘Okay, check it for finger-prints and call me back.’ He hung up, pushed back 103
James Hadley Chase. The Fast Buck. 1952
his chair and scowled at Dallas. ‘What do you want? I’m busy.’
‘I heard you the first time,’ Dal as said. ‘Found Hater yet?’
‘I’m not even looking for him,’ Olin returned. ‘What makes you think he’s where I could find him?’
‘It’s my bet Baird engineered his escape.’
‘Baird?’ Olin reached for a cigar, bit off the end and spat into his trash basket. ‘Are you making guesses or do you know something?’
‘I know something,’ Dal as returned, paused to light his cigaret e, then went on, ‘Kile hired Baird to get Hater out of jail. Hater was to tell Kile where he had cached the stuff. The idea was put to Kile by a guy named Adam Gillis, Eve Gillis’s brother. He and Kile were going to hand the stuff over to the Rajah of Chittabad in return for a half million in cash.’
‘How long have you known this?’ Olin said, his eyes suddenly hard.
‘Purvis had an idea this was the set-up for weeks, but he hadn’t any proof. As soon as I got proof, he told me to come down here and give you the dope.’
‘You mean you can prove it was Baird who got Hater out?’
‘Yeah. Gillis has just been booked for attempted murder. He’l talk.’
Olin put down his unlighted cigar.
‘What’s this? How do you know Gil is has been booked? Who’s running this goddamn police force?’
‘Take it easy, George,’ Dal as said soothingly. ‘I was on the spot when Gillis went for his sister. I guess if I hadn’t broken in, he’d have kil ed her. As it is she’s got a fractured skul , and may lose an eye.
The punk hit her with a bottle.’
Olin drew in a long, deep breath.
‘Look, I’m busy,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a cop kil ing on my hands. This’ll have to wait. You’re sure Gillis has been booked?’
Dallas nodded.
‘What’s left of him,’ he said, and looked down at his skinned knuckles. ‘He tried to get tough with me, so I had to quieten him.’
‘You know we’ve picked up Kile?’
‘Yeah. I saw you pick him up. Gillis tipped you. I was right behind him when he put the call through to you. I’ve been on his tail al the evening. Lucky for his sister I was.’
The phone rang.
Olin snatched it up.
‘What is it?’ He listened, stiffened, half got up. ‘You sure? A blue Packard? Okay, I’l start something. Thanks, Bill,’ and he hung up. ‘My cop was shot by a .45 Colt with Baird’s prints on it,’ he told Dallas. ‘A blue Packard was seen by a passing motorist heading away from the scene of the shooting, coming this way.’
‘Maybe he’s got Hater with him,’ Dal as said, get ing to his feet.
‘I don’t give a damn one way or the other. I want Baird.’
Olin got up and went out of the office. Dallas could hear him shouting orders in the outer office. He came back after a while.