I said: «Get the pictures, Marty.»
He stood up slowly, looked down at the Colt, put it in his side pocket. His hand moved slowly up to his breast pocket.
Somebody rang the door buzzer and kept on ringing it.
ELEVEN
Marty didn’t like that. His lower lip went in under his teeth and his eyebrows drew down at the corners. His whole face got mean.
The buzzer kept on buzzing.
The blonde stood up quickly. Nerve tension made her face old and ugly.
Watching me, Marty jerked a small drawer open in the tall desk and got a small, white-handled automatic out of it. He held it out to the blonde. She went to him and took it gingerly, not liking it.
«Sit down next to the shamus,» he rasped. «Hold the gun on him. If he gets funny, feed him a few.»
The blonde sat down on the davenport about three feet from me, on the side away from the door. She lined the gun on my leg. I didn’t like the jerky look in her green eyes.
The door buzzer stopped and somebody started a quick, light, impatient rapping on the panel. Marty went across and opened the door. He slid his right hand into his coat pocket and opened the door with his left hand, threw it open quickly.
Carmen Dravec pushed him back into the room with the muzzle of a small revolver against his brown face.
Marty backed away from her smoothly, lightly. His mouth was open and an expression of panic was on his face. He knew Carmen pretty well.
Carmen shut the door, then bored ahead with her little gun. She didn’t look at anyone but Marty, didn’t seem to see anything but Marty. Her face had a dopey look.
The blonde shivered the full length of her body and swung the white-handled automatic up and towards Carmen. I shot my hand out and grabbed her hand, closed my fingers down over it quickly, thumbed the safety to the on position, and held it there. There was a short tussle, which neither Marty nor Carmen paid any attention to. Then I had the gun.
The blonde breathed deeply and stared at Carmen Dravec. Carmen looked at Marty with doped eyes and said: «I want my pictures.»
Marty swallowed and tried to smile at her. He said: «Sure, kid, sure,» in a small, flat voice that wasn’t like the voice he had used in talking to me.
Carmen looked almost as crazy as she had looked in Steiner’s chair. But she had control of her voice and muscles this time. She said: «You shot Hal Steiner.»
«Wait a minute, Carmen!» I yelped.
Carmen didn’t turn her head. The blonde came to life with a rush, ducked her head at me as if she was going to butt me, and sank her teeth in my right hand, the one that had her gun in it.
I yelped some more. Nobody minded that either.
Marty said: «Listen, kid, I didn’t —»
The blonde took her teeth out of my hand and spat my own blood at me. Then she threw herself at my leg and tried to bite that. I cracked her lightly on the head with the barrel of the gun and tried to stand up. She rolled down my legs and wrapped her arms around my ankles. I fell back on the davenport again. The blonde was strong with the madness of fear.
Marty grabbed for Carmen’s gun with his left hand, missed. The little revolver made a dull, heavy sound that was not loud. A bullet missed Marty and broke glass in one of the foldedback french windows.
Marty stood perfectly still again. He looked as if all his muscles had gone back on him.
«Duck and knock her off her feet, you damn’ fool!» I yelled at him.
Then I hit the blonde on the side of the head again, much harder, and she rolled off my feet. I got loose and slid away from her.
Marty and Carmen were still facing each other like a couple of images.
Something very large and heavy hit the outside of the door and the panel split diagonally from top to bottom.
That brought Marty to life. He jerked the Colt out of his pocket andjumped back. I snapped a shot at his right shoulder and missed, not wanting to hurt him much. The heavy thing hit the door again with a crash that seemed to shake the whole building.
I dropped the little automatic and got my own gun loose as Dravec came in with the smashed door.
He was wild-eyed, raging drunk, berserk. His big arms were flailing. His eyes were glaring and bloodshot and there was froth on his lips.
He hit me very hard on the side of the head without even looking at me. I fell against the wall, between the end of the davenport and the broken door.
I was shaking my head and trying to get level again when Marty began to shoot.
Something lifted Dravec’s coat away from his body behind, as if a slug had gone clean through him. He stumbled, straightened immediately, charged like a bull.
I lined my gun and shot Marty through the body. It shook him, but the Colt in his hand continued to leap and roar. Then Dravec was between us and Carmen was knocked out of the way like a dead leaf and there was nothing more that anybody could do about it.
Marty’s bullets couldn’t stop Dravec. Nothing could. If he had been dead, he would still have got Marty.
He got him by the throat as Marty threw his empty gun in the big man’s face. It bounced off like a rubber ball. Marty yelled shrilly, and Dravec took him by the throat and lifted him clean off his feet.
For an instant Marty’s brown hands fought for a hold on the big man’s wrists. Something cracked sharply, and Marty’s hands fell away limply. There was another, duller crack. Just before Dravec let go of Marty’s neck I saw that Marty’s face was a purple-black color. I remembered, almost casually, that men whose necks are broken sometimes swallow their tongues before they die.
Then Marty fell down in the corner and Dravec started to back away from him. He backed like a man losing his balance, not able to keep his feet under his center of gravity. He took four clumsy backward steps like that. Then his big body tipped over backwards and he fell on his back on the floor with his arms flung out wide.
Blood came out of his mouth. His eyes strained upwards as if to see through a fog.
Carmen Dravec went down beside him and began to wail like a frightened animal.
There was noise outside in the hall, but nobody showed at the open door. Too much casual lead had been flipped around.
I went quickly over to Marty and leaned over him and got my hand into his breast pocket. I got out a thick, square envelope that had something stiff and hard in it I straightened up with it and turned.
Far off the wall of a siren sounded faintly on the evening air, seemed to be getting louder. A white-faced man peeped cautiously in through the doorway. I knelt down beside Dravec.
He tried to say something, but I couldn’t hear the words. Then the strained look went out of his eyes and they were aloof and indifferent like the eyes of a man looking at something a long way off, across a wide plain.
Carmen said stonily: «He was drunk. He made me tell him where I was going. I didn’t know he followed me.»
«You wouldn’t,» I said emptily.
I stood up again and broke the envelope open. There were a few prints in it and a glass negative. I dropped the plate on the floor and ground it to pieces with my heel. I began to tear up the prints and let the pieces flutter down out of my hands.
«They’ll print plenty of photos of you now, girlie,» I said. «But they won’t print this one.»
«I didn’t know he was following me,» she said again, and began to chew on her thumb.
The siren was loud outside the building now. It died to a penetrating drone and then stopped altogether, just about the time I finished tearing up the prints.
I stood still in the middle of the room and wondered why I had taken the trouble. It didn’t matter any more now.