Maggie scowled at the cashier. “You warned me! What’d I tell you! We should’ve fixed up something to tell her, long ago, Ralphie.” She slapped Tony again, using a stream of lavatory wall expressions. “You’ll write a note to the right party, Mr. Snooper-dooper Quinn, and you’ll have them papers sent here, on the double. Or I’ll let you hear the kind of screeches your Miss Baldwin gives out when she’s really hurt in a sensitive place!”
Tony parried, “Will you let her go, if I do?”
Drummond said, “Yes. But you stay.”
Tony thought, You must have a low opinion of my savvy if you don’t suppose I’d be expecting a doublecross! He said, “All right. Bring her out here so I can see for myself she’s all right.”
The heavy rumble of a slow-moving truck penetrated the barbershop quartette on the radio.
The concrete mixer, Tony realized! That was something he’d overlooked, all right. Reinforcements for the enemy! Probably that mean-visaged, rangy customer he’d clouted on the crown with his gun butt, on the driver’s seat. That would offset any possible intervention by Silk, certainly! But Quinn would have to chance it. There was no other way, now.
Chapter XI
Drummond dragged Carol into the bedroom.
She was pale. The blonde tresses hung damply over her forehead. A black and blue bruise showed at her temple. Her posture was strained because her hands were bound so tightly behind her back. But she held her head high, and her voice was firm.
“I won’t go unless they free you, too, Tony!”
He smiled wryly. “I made a deal, my lovely. I mean to keep my word. That’s the way I want it. Good-by — and drink to me once in a while, for auld lang syne.”
The truck motor rumbled, idling, right outside the door.
Drummond said, “Untie him, Maggie.” He dangled Tony’s gun casually.
“Cut those cords on her,” Tony growled. “Get her out of here, or I don’t write.”
He knew she’d only get a dozen steps before that driver on the concrete mixer would recapture her, still it was better than having her here in the bedroom for the next sixty seconds. That way she might have a chance.
Maggie used a penknife on the cords binding Carol’s wrists. Drummond opened the door for her, bowed with mock politeness.
“You have Mr. Quinn to thank for your rescue, Miss Baldwin.”
Carol cried, “Tony!” She swung her arms to get the circulation going.
Tony snapped, “Don’t argue, lovely. Get going!”
She stumbled out onto the porch, ran.
Maggie slashed the ropes holding Tony’s wrists.
Tony sat up.
Drummond warned, “Don’t get up. Stay right there.” He lifted the gun threateningly.
Tony rolled to one side, slid his feet to the floor. “How’ll you get that note written, if you gun me?”
Maggie struck at him with the knife.
He ducked.
The gun roared.
Something punched hard at his left shoulder, spun him around. Outside, Carol screamed sharply.
He braced himself against the bed, moved in on the cashier.
The gun exploded again, almost in his face, but he didn’t feel the shock of the bullet. He had his fingers on the hot barrel of the weapon, was wresting it away from Drummond.
Tony felt a jagged streak of pain at his right side, and realized without turning that Maggie was stabbing at him with that penknife. He butted Drummond in the chin with his head as the cashier kneed him. They crashed together over a chair, went to the floor in a flailing tangle. But Tony had the gun.
Glass smashed, wood splintered, at the bathroom window. Silk’s voice came, sharp and hard.
“Drop it, now! Drop that knife!” His gun barked, twice.
Tony lashed Drummond between the eyes with the muzzle of the .45. The jolt jerked the trigger: the muzzle blast blinded him, momentarily. Drummond’s body sagged beneath the D.A. like a sack of beans.
Silk shouted. “Watch it. Tony!”
Maggie, grabbing at her chest, howled, “Shoot... shoot... shoot!”
Tony wrenched free of the cashier’s dead-weight in time to see the mean-faced, rangy lad standing straddle-legged in the doorway, leveling a T-gun at him.
Silk fired at the man.
Rangy Boy reeled, staggered off-balance. The tommy stuttered up at the ceiling. Sudden brillance — the mixing truck’s headlights — lit up the bedroom like a flash bulb, made the rain of plaster look like a dazzling snowfall. Through it Tony saw a ghostly figure materialize from a crawling position on the porch, its head swathed in white so only eyes and mouth were visible. The mouth emitted an enraged growl — Butch’s war cry!
“Want shooting, huh? Try this on your juke!” Butch held a .38 with both bandaged hands, shot Rangy Boy carefully in the stomach three times, swiveled the gun around toward Maggie.
Quinn shouted, “Hold it, Butch! We can’t convict any corpses!”
Butch came in, seized the submachine-gun from the rangy man who was trying desperately to lift the muzzle off the floor. Butch bent over Tony solicitously.
“Boss, you gotta get to a blood bank, quick! You got a hole in that shoulder you could hide a orange in!”
Quinn felt of the blood streaming down his side from the knife slash. “Look after — Carol — first.”
“Hell,” Butch said, and knelt beside Silk, “she’s full of fizz and vinegar. She’s out there ready to run that damn truck right through this shack if it looked like they were getting to you!”
Silk snapped petulantly, “I’m all right, Butch. One of those machine-gun slugs ricocheted and broke two of my front teeth, but that’s all!” He spat blood. “Butch, you get the boss out of here in that Chrysler — zoom him to the hospital.”
Tony felt of Drummond’s heart. It was still beating. “Get these people in the bus first, boys. Take us all to the same blood bank.”
Outside Carol cried, “Stay back! Don’t go in there, any of you! Call the police! Get an ambulance out here!”
Butch turned. “Looks like they’re going to mob us, boss.”
Tony said, “Don’t fret about it, Butch. Just excited bystanders. None of this gang left to do any mobbing — except a guy up in Pittsburg, maybe. Carry the woman out to my car, if you can lift her.”
Silk exclaimed, “Hell sake, I damn near forgot about that other kid, in my cottage. I better go check on her.”
Tony shook his head weakly. “Get the big ones. We won’t have to worry too much about the little ones, Silk. We’ve got the big ones right here. We can look after Lulie later.”
To himself he added, After we get the confessions of these three and find out whether she was directly implicated in the murders. If she was, of course he’d have to prosecute her, but if she’d been only a stooge—
He found himself too weak to concentrate on it further. He had a vague recollection of being carried to the car, of Carol’s saying, “Let me drive. You’d hold her down to sixty, Silk!”