The rain was a steady drizzle; it looked like being a damp pursuit. And then, as he drew closer to his quarry from a parallel position across the street, in an instant it changed from pursuit to decision. Across Seventh, at the corner of Forty-fifth and Broadway Russo handed the widow the package he had been carrying, and with no exchange at all that Johnny could see widow, package and umbrella turned north on Broadway while Ed Russo continued west on Forty-fifth.
Johnny hesitated and then decided for Russo. The sharp-featured man was on the street in the rain with no hat, raincoat or umbrella now, and he gave no indication of looking for a cab. Ed Russo increased Johnny's interest in the next fifty yards by turning left on Eighth Avenue where he walked the block to Forty-fourth and turned back east, so that as Johnny once again took up the chase from the opposite side of the street the original direction had been reversed.
Between Eighth and Broadway Russo stepped into a doorway, but it was only to turn up the collar of his jacket. So it was not to be a short trip, then; Johnny settled down to it. He was more curious than ever now about Ed Russo's destination, since it appeared to be one that the man felt he had to walk to, in the rain. They crossed Seventh again, and the Avenue of the Americas and Fifth, and between Fifth and Madison Johnny made a discovery. He was not the only one following Russo. A man in an oilskin slicker stayed a steady two-thirds of a block behind the oblivious target.
This observation was confirmed almost at once when Russo turned left on Madison and the slicker followed. Johnny dropped back a little further; let the slicker follow Russo, and he would follow the slicker. Russo turned right again on Forty-sixth; he had evidently only wanted to by-pass the Grand Central building. The procession trekked damply across Park, Lexington and Third, and at Second Avenue Russo turned right again for two blocks to Forty-fourth, and at Forty-Fourth turned east again.
From the opposite side of Second Avenue Johnny made the long diagonal as he kept the oilskin slicker in sight. The slicker turned the corner of Forty-fourth, looked east and broke into a run. From the middle of Second Avenue Johnny accelerated through the puddles, and turned the corner himself.
On Forty-fourth Street Ed Russo was nowhere to be seen at all. The oilskin slicker was forty feet from the corner, poised doubtfully before two narrow alleys, practically side by side, that meandered off almost at right angles into the wet darkness. Evidently he hadn't seen which one Russo had taken.
The speed at which Johnny negotiated the corner caught the slicker's attention; he turned and stared. Rather than turn back and invite inquiry, Johnny walked on more sedately; he would have walked right on by, but the slicker stepped into his path and barred the way.
“I thought so!” the slicker said grimly. “There couldn't be two that big out on a night like this.”
Johnny stared down into the wet, angry features of Detective James Rogers and for once in his life was at a loss for words.
“Well?” Jimmy Rogers demanded. “I'm listening. What-”
His staccato inquiry choked. In the darkness and rain an automatic pistol went off four times, soggy sounds in the soggy night.
“He's got someone else!” Johnny said tightly.
Detective Rogers said nothing at all; he turned and ran up the nearer alley, and Johnny ran hard at his heels.
CHAPTER 12
He slogged heavily over the uneven cobblestoned footing up the close-walled alleyway between the dark warehouses, a step and a half behind the bobbing flashlight in the hand of Jimmy Rogers. They burst into a wider areaway with a slight downgrade; the rapid circular movement of the flashlight disclosed cement loading platforms on three sides of the rough inner square. The alley was a dead end.
Johnny stood on tiptoe as the flash returned to its starting point and made a slow, probing semicircle of the loading area, picking up the blank-faced, whitewashed doors and the dusty concrete freight-handling surfaces which the steady rain had turned to pasty mud at their unprotected outer edges.
He pushed up behind the slender, intent detective. “You think we come up the wrong alley?”
The sandy-haired man made no reply. He started the light on another tour of the darkness, this time at ground level. Two-thirds of the way around the circuit Johnny grunted as the bright beam wavered and then locked down on a shapeless bundle prone in the shallow puddles of the pitted roadbed of the alley.
“Jackpot,” Detective Rogers said tersely and trotted to the still figure. At his shoulder Johnny looked down unbelievingly at the white face and staring eyes and the head with most of its top gone. Ed Russo lay dead in the wet night, the nearest puddle stained a bright red, and Johnny mentally rocked back on his heels.
The detective knelt and felt for a pulse, although the condition of the head made it only a formality. He straightened, fished a handkerchief out from under the slicker, and wiped off his hands. “Kaput,” he said unnecessarily. His light left the body to make another swing around the cement loading platforms. “-nine, ten, eleven,” he counted. His voice was bitter. “Eleven warehouse doors leading off this rabbit warren, and our man needed a key to only one. What a spot for an ambush.” The light returned to the body. “Looks like he got it at eye level. Then fell-or was pushed-down here.”
Johnny had trouble finding his voice. “How wrong can you get? I thought this guy was pitchin', not catchin'. This stones me. When we heard the shots out on the street I figured for sure he'd scratched someone else breathin' on his neck.”
“Where'd you pick him up?”
“At the hotel. He was with the widow over there. I didn't make you until between Fifth and Madison coming east.”
“I saw the widow. We'll talk to her.” Detective Rogers wiped a trickle of rain from his face and amended his statement. “Or somebody will. This one's out of our territory- first one not in the precinct. Walk out to the corner and see if you can locate the beat man. If not, call in. Not our place; it's not our baby. Yet.”
“You want me back here?”
“Certainly I want you back here. The local boys will have a few hundred assorted questions for you. Lucky for you I was standing right beside you when we heard those shots. That about used up your luck, though, because when the lieutenant finds out you were seventy-five yards away when Russo got it, you bought a tough ticket. You know what he told you.”
“He told me to stay away from the people in the public relations office. He didn't say a word about Russo.”
“Correction. He said stay away from anyone connected with the case. You didn't consider it significant that the woman you saw Russo with before you took out after him now happens to own that public relations business?”
Johnny was silent, and Rogers looked him up and down. “You're heading for a fall, Johnny. You can't buck-”
“Ahhh, stow it!” Johnny interrupted angrily. “You people think you got a patent on me? You're beginning to sound just like all the rest.”
“I have a job to do, and I do it the way I'm told,” Detective Rogers said after a short pause; there was an edge in his voice. He stopped and slapped disgustedly at the wet leg of his trousers. “Forget it. I'm worse than you are for arguing with a mulehead like you. Go on out and get somebody in here. I'm an incipient pneumonia case right this minute.”
Johnny headed out into the darkness and stumbled and splashed his way up the slight upgrade. It was black in the alley; he welcomed the comparative brightness of Forty-fourth Street. He stamped his feet on the sidewalk to remove the clinging mud which had oozed above the welt of his shoes. At the southeast corner of Second Avenue a broad-backed black raincoat glistened in the lights of the little all-night restaurant across the street, and Johnny walked up to the corner resignedly and tapped the raincoat on the arm. It turned, and elderly sharp blue eyes in a wide, pug-nosed face inspected Johnny carefully.