I lifted the gun and let him look down the big hole.
He saw it. He saw the hammer back and he could smell the cordite and the blood in the room. He said, “He went back to get... the thing.”
“Where?”
And I knew he was telling the truth when the fear came back and he opened his hands helplessly. The fear was too big to let him lie, the smell of blood too strong.
I reached out and turned him around. “Look at that one,” I said.
Automatically, he looked down at the corpse on the floor, the one without any face left at all. Then I swung the .45 and laid it across the side of his head so hard the scalp split and blood and tissue splashed over my hand.
He went down without a sound, falling so that he was almost kissing the faceless body of the one by the radiator.
I went back to Karen and said, “Did they hurt you?”
“No... not yet. They... were waiting.”
“Can you walk?”
“I can try.”
“Maybe I can carry you.”
“It won’t be necessary.”
“We have to get out of here. It isn’t over yet.”
She looked down at herself, gradually swinging her legs over the edge of the bed until she was sitting up. A grimace of pain went across her face, then disappeared.
“Wait a minute,” I told her. I jacked a shell in the chamber of the Luger I took from the guy, threw it to her and raced up the stairs to the rooftop and unbolted the steel fire door. I found my trenchcoat where I threw it behind the parapet and took it back down again.
Women. They are all alike. Death they could face up to, public nakedness... never. She gave me a wry smile as I helped her into it, then followed me down the stairs. We went through the print shop and I unbolted the door so the others would have no trouble. I found the phone, dialed Shaffer’s number and got him after I identified myself. He said, “Where are you, Irish?”
“Down under the Brooklyn Bridge, a place called Mort Gilfern’s Print Shop.”
“We know it.”
“Then hit it. There are two dead guys and a cold one here waiting.”
“Did you do it?”
“All by myself, buddy. I have news for you too.”
“Oh?”
“I’m shaggin Karen Sinclair out of here too.”
“Damn you, Irish, you...”
I chopped him off fast. “You asked for this, friend, so I’m doing it my way.”
He was still swearing at me when I hung up.
Going the eight blocks before I found a taxi wasn’t easy. I had to stop a dozen times and let her rest, my arm around her waist. Beneath my hands she was a warm, live thing, big and beautiful, the gutsy type I knew she would be and each time she stiffened and I knew she was hurting bad I felt the pain myself.
The taxi took us up to the Woolsey-Lever and I went through the lobby with her, both of us putting on an act.
The rain had soaked her hair into a lovely wet backdrop against her face and her laugh was a tinkly thing I hadn’t heard before. The fag behind the desk gave us an obnoxious glance and returned to answer the switchboard with a sniff of disdain, paying no attention as we got into the automatic elevator.
I got her upstairs, into the room and laid her down gently on the bed. I undressed her then, throwing the trenchcoat and hospital gown over the back of the chair.
Both the bandages were showing a little seepage of blood through the gauze and when I pulled the sheet over her she grinned through the hurt and let her eyes close.
Naked, she was too beautiful. Even a deliberate attempt to disguise it couldn’t last long at all. I couldn’t look at her too long, didn’t dare touch her, and hated anyone that ever saw her like I was seeing her now.
“Can you wait for me?”
She opened her eyes, made a smile again. “Forever if I have to,” she said. “How do they call you?”
“Irish.”
“No other name?”
“Ryan.”
“What are you going to do now, Irish?”
“I’d hate to tell you. Sleep.”
“Yes, Irish,” I arranged the coverless pillow under her hair and let her fall back gently.
Someplace in the city another person was waiting to die. He didn’t know it yet, but he would. I knew what “The Thing” was... and I knew where “back” would be.
And now I didn’t need any more help.
With her eyes closed she said, “Irish...”
“What, honey?”
“The only... record... of where those missile pads are...”
“Yes?”
“In that capsule. It would take... six months to locate them again... and it will be too late by then. I... can’t tell... our people.”
“That’s what I thought. Don’t worry about it.”
I caught the barest glimmer of light from her pupils as she looked at me. “I won’t.”
Chapter 7
I loved the night. It was part of me, rain and all. It was an environment suited to me personally like it had been tailored that way and I put it around me like a cloak. I waved down a cab that was letting out a couple across the street, hopped in and gave him a street corner two blocks below Fly’s pad. As we passed the Paramount building I looked up and checked my watch. It was a little after one.
Somehow the rain took on a new intensity, battering against the cab. The wipers worked furiously as if they were trying to claw through the downpour. I passed a buck over the driver’s shoulder and got out, waited until he left and walked the rest of the way in total solitude. It was coming down too hard for anyone to be on the streets at all, even to look for a taxi and that’s the way I wanted it.
The place where Fly had lived was in the basement rooms of a brownstone tenement, ugly places that were born with New York and now stood like decayed teeth in the jaws of the city. Cars were parked, nose to bumper along the curb, some junk heaps, others new and expensive from the newer apartments a few blocks away, the owners grabbing any available parking space as close as they could get to home. They would be lucky if they had tires left tomorrow.
I made my pass of the place from the opposite side, then crossed over and came back. I could be a target from a rooftop or window but I had to take the chance. There wasn’t enough time left to case it thoroughly. When I reached the building I didn’t hesitate, I took the short flight of stairs in two jumps, held in the shadows a second, then pushed the battered grill door back. I listened, but the noise of the rain didn’t let any other sound filter through. The other door was already open, held against the wall with a brick.
With the .45 pushed ahead of me I went inside, feeling my way along the wall until I came to Fly’s door. As carefully as I could, I turned the knob, nudged the door gently so that it eased back until it touched the arm of a chair and stopped. The only light in the room came from the street lamps outside, an ineffectual pale amber reflection barely able to reach through rain and filthy glass panes.
But it was enough. Fly’s body was there, all right, his neck still at that strange angle.
It was more than enough too because it let me see the other body stretched face down a few feet away almost hidden in the deeper shadows of a sofa.
I stood there, crouched to one side of the door jamb, letting my eyes become accustomed to the gloom, ears straining to catch any sound. Little by little I could see the ruin of the place, the sliced open furniture, the scattered junk all over the floor.
No, the job had been done. Two dead men and a ransacked apartment meant that they had come and gone. I stepped inside, walked to the other body on the floor and turned the head to one side.