He tried to slide his hand around her waist but she slid under his arm. “I’ll be expecting you at 3, Liddell.” She leaned back against the edge of the table, looked up at him from under lowered lids. “You won’t be late?”
Liddell grinned crookedly. “Not even if I break two legs.”
2.
The evening breeze flapped the awnings on some of the fancier boites along the avenue, felt good after the closeness of the bar. Liddell checked his watch, found he had two hours to kill, decided it was a good night for walking. He was halfway up the block when a man came up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder.
“Don’t turn around fast, Liddell,” a whining voice told him. “I got a nervous finger.” The man took his position at Liddell’s right, another man materialized on his left. The man on the right moved a topcoat he had folded over his right arm. The ugly snout of a .45 poked out from under its folds. “Let’s walk around the corner. It’s a nice night for a ride.”
His companion reached into Liddell’s jacket, pulled out his gun, dropped it into his pocket. “What’s it all about, friend?” Liddell looked the man over. He was thin, undersized, a fact that his carefully built-up shoulders failed to conceal. His hair was thick, black and rolled back in oily waves from his low hairline. He wore it in a three-quarter part, revealing the startling whiteness of his scalp. His thin, bloodless lips were parted in what was intended to be a smile, but there was no trace of it in the eyes that squinted across the high bridge of an enormous hooked nose.
“We’re going to a party.”
Liddell’s eyes dropped to the .45. “You make it hard to refuse. But I’ll take a rain check. I’m not dressed for a party.”
The thin lips tilted at the corners, the eyes grew bleaker. “You are for this one. It’s a come-as-you-are party.”
They turned the corner, headed for a car sitting a few feet down the block without lights. The man with the gun signaled for his companion to get behind the wheel, then he and Liddell slid into the back seat.
“What’d the girl tell you, Liddell?” the hook-nosed man wanted to know. From the tone of his voice, it seemed as though he didn’t care whether Liddell told him or not.
“What should she have told me?” Liddell countered.
The man with the gun ignored the question. “Who you working for on this caper? The insurance company?”
Liddell considered it, shook his head. “No one. She gave me hot flushes with that song of hers; I went back to see if I could do myself any good.” He shrugged. “From the reception I got, I guess a lot of guys get the same idea.” He settled back in the corner, managed to work the package the girl had given him out of his pocket. He could feel the perspiration beading on his forehead as he shoved it down behind the seat.
The hook-nosed man reached out, caught him by the lapel. “What are you squirming about?” His face was a white blur in the interior of the car. The snout of his gun bored into Liddell’s midsection.
“I was trying to reach a cigarette.”
Hook-nose pushed him away. “Okay. But get it with two fingers. Anything but a cigarette comes out, and I blast the hand off.”
Liddell brought up a cigarette, stuck it between his lips. He wiped the perspiration off his upper lip with the side of his hand. The gunman’s lips were twisted in a grin in the flickering light of the match.
“I always thought you private eyes were tough. You look real tough on television,” he chuckled. “What’re you sweating about?” He jabbed the gun into Liddell’s side, was rewarded with a grunt. “On T.V. you’d be taking this away from me. Here, I’ll be giving it to you — slug by slug.”
Liddell smoked silently, watched the character of the neighborhood change from densely populated to suburban with longer and longer stretches of unpopulated areas showing up. About forty minutes from the Queensboro Bridge, the car left the paved road, found an old dirt road that headed toward the Sound.
“What’s on the program?” Liddell wanted to know.
The hook-nosed man chuckled. “A swim. Only you’re not going to know about it.”
The car shuddered to a stop and the driver swung around on his seat. “You better find out what he knows first, Hook. The boss is going to want to know what the girl has on her mind. If she’s selling out—”
“I know, I know,” Hook growled. “You stick to your wheel. Let me take care of my end.” He jabbed the gun into Liddell’s side. “Out.”
“Suppose I don’t?”
“Then you get it here. Be my guest.” He pulled away from Liddell. “Don’t count on us being afraid to muss up the car. It ain’t ours.”
Liddell nodded, pushed open the door, stepped out. When the hook-nosed man got up from his seat to follow, Liddell took a long-shot gamble. He caught the door, slammed it shut behind him. He heard the yowl of pain as it collided with the gunman’s head, started running.
The sand seemed glued to his feet, made his shoes feel like hundred-pound weights as he sprinted for a clump of trees and underbrush a hundred feet away. His heart was pounding in his chest, his breath coming in gasps as he reached it. From the car came a series of sharp snaps, and slugs whistled over his head, chewed bits out of the tree next to him. He dove down onto his face, lay there.
He could hear Hook cursing shrilly, yelling orders at the driver. Liddell lay still for a moment, then parted the bushes. Hook and the driver were approaching cautiously, guns in hand. Liddell crawled back further into the bushes, pulled himself to his feet behind a tree.
“We split up. You go around that way, I’ll go this,” Hook snarled at the driver. “He’s got no gun and we got to get him.”
“The boss ain’t going to like it if he gets away, Hook,” the driver said.
“He ain’t getting away,” Hook promised.
Liddell could hear the crashing of branches as the two men pushed their way into the wooded area. He squeezed back out of sight behind the tree, squinted against the darkness. To his left he could see the driver pushing his way toward him. He moved around the tree, waited.
Suddenly, as the driver came abreast of him, Liddell jumped. He tried to get his arm around the man’s throat to cut off any warning, missed. The driver yelled his surprise and struggled. Liddell had his gun hand, twisted it behind the other man’s back, pulled him in front of him as a shield.
A bush to the right seemed to belch flame. The man in Liddell’s arms stiffened, jerked twice, then went limp. To the right he could hear the crashing of bushes as Hook ran for the car. Liddell let the driver’s body slump to the ground, wasted precious minutes fumbling in the dark for the dead man’s gun. By the time he found it, he could hear the roar of the car as its wheels spun in the sand. Suddenly, it got traction, roared back toward the road. Liddell pushed his way out of the bushes, squeezed the trigger of his gun until it was empty. In the distance he could hear the roar of the car’s motor, the scream of its tires as it skidded onto the road.
He went back to where the driver lay, turned him over on his back, lit a match. One of Hook’s shots had caught him in the neck. It left a little black hole above the knot in his tie that had spilled a crimson stream down his shirt.
It only took one.
Liddell consulted the watch on his wrist, groaned when he realized he had less than an hour to reach the redhead. He headed for the road, didn’t see another car or a place to telephone for over an hour and a half.
When he finally did reach an all-night drugstore, there was no answer from the redhead’s apartment. The girl on the switchboard at Marlboro Towers couldn’t remember whether Miss Varden had come in or not. Liddell slammed the receiver back on its hook, cursed vigorously. He dropped another coin in the slot, dialed police headquarters.