The cage was already descending. Fleer said, “I think that guy recognized you, Kyle. He’ll phone an alarm!”
Jurgen spoke for the first time. “Should I go up an’ smoke him?”
“Naw,” said Fleer. “We’ll be away in two minutes.”
“X” asked him, “What’s this stunt you got for gettin’ away?”
Fleer smirked. “Wait’ll you see. It’s the same stunt we used for gettin’ Sam Slawson in the city when he broke from Riker.”
THE cage reached the ground floor, and they went out. Fleer led the way around the corner. “X” knew, now, that he was on the right trail. At last he was getting closer to the elusive Sam Slawson, whose fingerprints had mysteriously disappeared from headquarters.
As they rounded the corner, “X” looked up and saw a window high up in his building, from which some one was looking down at them. He wondered if it was his neighbor.
Fleer said to him, “Look, Kyle. Here’s the stunt. Ain’t it a wow?”
“X” looked at the hearse drawn up alongside the curb. “It sure is a wow,” he replied. “What am I supposed to do — be a corpse?”
“That’s the idea,” Fleer grinned. “Who’d think of stoppin’ a hearse to look for Killer Kyle!”
Jurgen had opened the back of the hearse. In his black suit he passed very well for an undertaker’s attendant.
Fleer looked up and down the street to make sure nobody was in sight, and urged “X” on. “Hurry up — get in. Nobody in sight.”
“X” shrugged, climbed in the hearse. Inside, there was an open coffin. The cover lay alongside.
Fleer and Jurgen climbed in with him. “All right,” said Fleer, “get in that box, an’ see if you can act like a corpse.”
“X” looked from Fleer to Jurgen. He didn’t like it. There was a peculiar gleam in Jurgen’s eyes.
He said, “Listen, you guys. I’m gettin’ in there, but don’t try to cross me, see? Or I’ll take the two of you apart!”
Fleer said, “Don’t be sappy, Kyle. We’re only tryin’ to help you get out of the city, like the boss told us. Hurry up now.”
“X” said, “Okay. But remember what I said.” He got in the coffin and lay down. Fleer and Jurgen took the cover, one at each end, and laid it over the box. “X” was in darkness, stretched out on his back, with not an inch of room to spare.
There were bolts projecting from the edges of the box, and holes in the cover, into which they slid.
Now, “X” heard queer scraping sounds above him. He called out, “Hey, Fleer! What’s that noise?”
Fleer’s voice came to him innocently, “Nothin’, Kyle, nothin’.”
“X” raised a hand, pushed at the cover. It would not move! He called out again, “Hey, Fleer!” He knew now what those scraping sounds had been. Fleer and Jurgen had screwed down the clamps on the cover. He was a prisoner in the coffin.
“What’s the idea o’ screwin’ me in?” he called out. He heard movement, the sound of the starter, of the motor turning over, then of gears being shifted. Fleer’s voice came to him from alongside the coffin. “The boss said to get you, Kyle, an’ bring you up to him in a coffin—ready for burial!”
“What!”
The hearse had got into motion. Apparently Jurgen was driving. He heard the sounds that Fleer made in going up front to join Jurgen.
From the front, Fleer’s voice came back to him. “You shouldn’t of talked so rough to the boss, Kyle — about squealing. The boss don’t like guys who squeal. So he figured the best thing to do was to bury you. He’s got a nice little mausoleum up at his place, where you’ll never be found!”
“X” understood fully the trap he was in. Whoever this boss was, he was ruthless, efficient in crime. He left no backtrails. The moment he felt that Kyle was becoming a menace he took swift steps to eliminate him. “X” admired him, for a simpler mind would have ordered these two gunmen to kill Kyle on the spot. This boss, however, chose to spirit him away and bury him in a mausoleum, rather than give the police an additional mystery to solve by leaving the killer’s body for them to find. As it was, the police would think that Kyle had completely escaped their net.
His thoughts were interrupted by the spang of a bullet against the chassis of the hearse. This was followed by another and another, in quick succession.
“X” heard Fleer cursing fluently. Fleer cried out, “Step on it, Jurgen. That’s the cops!”
THE hearse leaped forward behind the roar of its suddenly accelerated motor. More bullets struck the hearse.
Fleer exclaimed, “That guy in the house must have seen us an’ reco’nized Kyle. I bet he phoned downtown!”
Jurgen growled, “An’ it’s our luck that radio car had to be right in the neighborhood!”
“X” estimated that the hearse was doing seventy by this time. A crazy, doped-up driver like Jurgen could do it. No sane man, surely, would take the corners the way he was doing.
There was the sound of Fleer climbing in back again. More shots came from behind. Then as the hearse rounded another corner, a bullet crashed into the coffin.
It whizzed through both sides, not an inch above “X’s” head. It made a clean hole on the left side, where it went out. But the wood on the right side was cracked in a hundred lines that radiated from the hole. A splinter lodged in “X’s” cheeks. He worked his hand around and up to his face, drew it out. A little more and it would have pierced his eye.
Now the Secret Agent could look out through the peephole that had been made for him by the bullet. There was little he could see, though, in the darkness.
The radio car was sticking to them, though they were making tremendous speed. He heard Fleer’s voice close beside the coffin. Fleer was working at something that gave forth little clicks. “X” realized suddenly what it was. He was assembling a Thompson gun.
Fleer said, “Slow it up, Jurgen. I’m gonna take a crack at those guys.”
More bullets were spattering around them, though none entered the coffin.
The hearse slowed a little, and suddenly the Thompson beside the coffin began to chatter; a short burst, then silence. Then from behind, a terrible crash, followed by an explosion.
Fleer exclaimed gloatingly, “I got ’em! Boy, look at ’em burn!”
“X” heard Fleer putting the Thompson away. Fleer said, “Well, Kyle, I bet you never did a good job like that. Just one little burst — and blooey! No more cops!” He must have seen the hole in the coffin, for he suddenly asked, “Hey, Kyle! You hit?”
“X” said. “Yes. I’m bleeding to death! Get me a doctor!”
Fleer chuckled. “You’ll be better off than bein’ buried alive. But the boss will be a little sore. He wanted to ask you a couple questions.”
Jurgen called back from in front, “Is he dead?”
“No,” said Fleer, “but he says he’s hit. He’s dyin’.”
“Hell,” said Jurgen. “We’ll have a job cleanin’ up the blood!”
“X” called out, “Listen, you guys. I got plenty dough salted away. Take me outta here, an’ I’ll fix you both up.”
“Nix,” Fleer told him. “The boss’d track us down an’ we’d never enjoy the dough. Look what he’s doin’ to you fer just talkin’ big. Imagine what’d happen to us if we crossed him like that. Did you ever have a corkscrew twisted around in your body? Nothing doing!”
Chapter XII
THROUGH the night the hearse traveled at tremendous speed. “X” could discern little from his peephole. But he was able to tell when they left the city and got onto a country road. After what he estimated to be more than a half hour, the hearse stopped for a moment while one of the two — either Fleer or Jurgen — got out. He came back then, and “X” knew it was Fleer, for he said: