Dogs. Apparently an entire row of them, each in separate booths. It struck him as odd that they were so quiet in his unexpected presence. Surely one out of the many would have the instincts of a watchdog.
He hadn’t expected to crawl right into their midst but now that he was here it was unbelievable luck to find them ignoring his presence. If I were a dog, Horne thought in some amusement, I’d sure as hell raise a ruckus if a stranger came crawling through my window. They acted as if they knew who was in the room.
As if they knew who was in the room.
Horne froze in his prone position beneath the pens. There was no sound — yes, there were sounds, small ones. A stirring here and there as some animal shifted position, a tongue somewhere along the line of pens lapping water. And his own labored breathing. He hugged the floor, belly down, and tried to guess where the other person was. The one whom the dogs knew by scent, a familiar scent, and consequently raised no outcry when he had entered.
He wondered if the dogs could see in the dark. If they could they would be following their noses, looking at him or the familiar occupant of the room. Now if he could only see where they were looking — he started to raise himself up and thought the better of it. If he got to his knees he would be silhouetted against the window.
He dropped back to the floor and was dismayed when the sounds of his hands striking the floor sounded like the dropping of a sodden rag.
The soft yet satiric voice said above him, “Get up off the floor, baby doll.”
“I like it here,” he ground out stubbornly.
She kicked him viciously in the ribs. “Get up!”
He winced and climbed to his feet. She was behind him. He sensed the familiar perfume. She placed the point of a knife against his bare back and thrust it in a fraction, puncturing the skin. Horne jumped.
“Hey!” he protested, “you’re hurting—”
“Shut up!” she hissed in his ear, “and get moving. That isn’t anything to what you’re going to get now.” Horne moved forward through the darkness.
“I guess the honeymoon is over,” he said slowly.
“You can say that again, you crooked louse. You and your damned shirts! Through that door — hurry. You’ve got the cops down on our necks now.” She gave the knife a vicious push.
He bit his lips to keep from yelling and stumbled through a black doorway into another unlit room. The girl guided him by pushes. They paused, she reached around him to open a door, and they began descending a stairway. When they had reached the bottom someone snapped on a light.
He was in a well-furnished basement room beneath the animal hospital. Bumble and Deebie Bridges stood there, watching him. The hate was still on the Negro’s face. The giant’s fists were clenching and unclenching in an obvious effort to control his anger. Deebie Bridges said nothing. Her face was grim, the long, thin lips tightly closed.
She made a jerking motion with her thumb.
Bumble walked across the room to Horne, picked him up in both hands, and carried him across the floor.
“Now wait a minute,” he cried in protest. “What—”
Betty struck him savagely across the mouth with the back of her hand. A trickle of blood ran down his chin from a split lip. He struggled in Bumble’s hands and the big man shook him as a terrier shakes a rat.
Deebie Bridges pulled aside a bit of tapestry to reveal the iron door that opened into a tunnel beneath the street. She swung it open. The redheaded girl pulled a chair beneath the opening and climbed in. When her feet disappeared from view the Negro tossed Horne into the opening head first. He threw out his arms to protect himself and his hands struck the feet of the girl ahead of him. She kicked back at him.
Behind him, Bumble crawled into the tunnel. The iron door clanged shut and all was silence. There was a strong odor of shoe polish in the air.
Sergeant Wiedenbeck sat on the running board of the patrol car parked in front of the animal hospital and watched the lights inside go out one by one. Deebie Bridges padded across a room in her night robe, in full view of the window, and switched out a light the searching police had left burning. Finally there was darkness in all but the rear bedroom where Deebie Bridges slept.
Wiedenbeck moved to the corner of the building and contemplated the light. In three or four minutes it too winked out. He returned to his former position on the running board.
The useless warrant rustled between his fingers.
“The old lady,” he said bitterly in the semidarkness, “wasn’t kidding us. She’ll raise hell about this in the morning.”
One of the patrolmen in the silent group about him raised his voice. He spoke with a belligerent surety.
“Sergeant, I saw that guy crawl in that window.”
Wiedenbeck stared at the man in thoughtful silence. A taxicab crawled along the street behind them, the cab driver flashing a light at the row of houses, seeking a number. Two people were in the back seat. They all stared curiously at the knot of policemen as the cab drove by.
The cab finally stopped at a small house down near the far corner. The passengers got out, paid off the driver, and walked up to the door of the house, craning to look over their shoulders at the police. Someone opened the house with a key, they entered, and shortly several lights went on inside the place. The cab drove away. The street was quiet again.
Wiedenbeck stood up and sighed.
“I don’t doubt your word, Eisner. But he’s not in there now. Let’s break this up. You and Dick beat it back to your posts. Stay there until I send someone out to relieve you in the morning. We’ll go back downtown. Come on, boys, break it up.”
He climbed into the patrol car. Two or three others settled themselves in the rear seat. The car made a quick U-turn in the middle of the block and headed for the City Hall. No one said anything.
It was some twenty minutes before the phone rang at his desk.
He picked it up. “Wiedenbeck speaking.”
“Sergeant, this is Eisner. I—”
“Did Horne show?” the sergeant cut in quickly.
“No, sergeant. This ain’t got nothing to do with Horne. I just wanted to tell you all the lights are out, out here. The street lights and everything.”
Wiedenbeck controlled his voice. “Why tell me?”
“No reason, sergeant, no good reason. It was just curious, that’s all. I could see the street light from this window. It sort of dimmed down for several seconds, and then it went out. I looked out the window and all the street lights are out. Remember those people that drove up in the taxi? All their lights are out, too.”
“Oh hell, maybe they went to bed.”
“Don’t think so, sergeant. Just for luck I tried the ceiling light in this room. It don’t work, either. You might let the light department know about it.”
“All right. Keep your eyes open.”
Wiedenbeck hung up, waited a moment, and dialed the superintendent’s office at the municipal power house. In a few brief words he identified himself and said he had received a report the lights were dead on Mulberry Street, south of Main.
“Tell me something I don’t know!” that worthy complained. “Our circuit-breakers damned near jumped off the wall. The short is still there, too, ’cause the breakers won’t hold.”
“All right, all right. I just thought I’d tell you. I’ve got my own troubles.”
“You haven’t got anything, brother!” the superintendent disclaimed. “Me, I’ve got ’em. I’ve got to drag men out of bed. I’ve got to check every damned sewer and tunnel in that area. The short is still there.”