In the hotel he flung himself on the bed, but he could not rest.
IV
He knew very little about such matters, but he imagined that once a notorious criminal was at large, the police must keep an eagle eye upon him. If Lefty came to that meeting place, there might very well be a whole corps of observers on the watch from hidden places, and they might follow Lefty and note the interview with Merchant. But then again it was very doubtful if Lefty would make his appearance at all. He had $100 in his pocket for which he need not make an accounting. There was only one thing to which Charles Merchant trusted, and that was, having made such a little stake of easy money, the killer might continue on the trail.
He wasted the two hours that remained before him with difficulty and then went out and took his place at the head of Times Square, in the full rush of the late-afternoon crowd. Eagerly he swept the heads of the crowd, but there was no Lefty. Presently he felt a light jerk at his coat, and then a stocky, little man hurried past him and shouldered skillfully through the mob. It was Gruger beyond a doubt. The rear view of those formidable, square shoulders was almost as easily recognizable as the face of the criminal. Merchant followed unhesitatingly.
Gruger opened the door of a taxi waiting at the curb and stepped in, leaving the door open. Merchant accepted the silent invitation and climbed into the interior. The abrupt starting of the engine flung him back to the seat, and the driver reached out an arm of prodigious length and slammed the door. It seemed to Merchant that he was trapped and a prisoner. An edge of paper in his own pocket caught his eye as he looked down. He drew out his own envelope and saw, as it bulged open, the money. He shoved it into an inside coat pocket and then for the first time turned to Lefty. The latter wore a faint, ugly smile.
“But I intended this …” began Merchant, oddly embarrassed.
“I know,” said Lefty, “but I don’t take coin till after I’ve done a job, and then I want spot cash.”
There was something so formidable about the way he jerked out these words that it made Merchant feel as though the gunman had already done a killing and now demanded payment. He moistened his lips and watched the stocky, little man.
“But I thought you might be in need of a little stake,” he ventured again.
“I ain’t never broke,” declared Lefty in his positive manner. “I got friends, mister. Now what you want?”
“I want in the first place to go where we can talk.”
“You do, eh? What’s the matter with right here?”
“But the driver?”
“Say, he’s all right. He’s a friend of mine.”
“But suppose we were seen to have entered this cab and were followed?”
“Pal, nobody ain’t going to follow him, not through this jam.”
The driver was weaving through the press of traffic with the easiest dexterity, seeming to make the car small to slip through tight holes, and keeping in touch with his motor as though it were a horse under curb and spur.
“In the first place,” began Merchant heavily, “I don’t know how to let you know that you can trust any promises I make in regard to …”
“Money? Sure you can. You’re Charles Merchant. You come out of the West, you got a big ranch from your old man, and your bank account would gag a mule. All right, I know you.”
Charles Merchant swallowed. “How in the world … ?”
“Did I tumble to that gag? I’ll tell you. You didn’t think I let you do a fadeaway after you passed me the bunk, do you? Nope. I ditched the gang, done a sidestep, and slid after you to your hotel, grabbed your name off the book, and the rest was easy.”
“How?”
“How? Why I got friends. They looked you up inside half an hour, and there you are. Now what’s what?”
There was something startling in this abrupt way of brushing through preliminaries and getting down to the heart of things. Merchant had expected long and delicate diplomatic fencing before he even broached the aim he had in mind. He found that he was brought to the heart of his subject inside the first minute.
“In a word,” he said, breathing hard, “it is a task of the first magnitude.”
Lefty studied him, not without contempt and just a touch of bewilderment.
“Guess I get you. Somebody to be bumped off? When and where, and what’s the stake?”
Merchant gasped. Then he answered tersely: “As fast as you can get to the place. That place is Martindale, and it’s a good two thousand miles from New York. The price is what you think it’s worth.”
“I don’t like out-of-town jobs,” said Lefty calmly. “They get me off my feed a little, and two thousand miles is pretty bad. Seeing it’s you, ten thousand ain’t too much to ask.”
He said it in such a businesslike manner that, although Merchant was staggered by the price, he did not seriously object. A moment’s thought assured him that $10,000 was cheap, infinitely cheap, if it brought him to his goal.
“And when do you want me to start, governor?”
“At once. About the money, what part will you want?”
“Ain’t I told you that I’m never broke? I don’t need any.”
“The whole thing after … after … ?”
“After I deliver the goods? That’s it.”
“But how do you know … ?”
“That you’ll pay? Easy! You think it over a minute, and you’ll see why you’ll pay.”
And Merchant knew with a shudder that this was the last debt in the world that he would try to dodge.
“Now that we’ve settled things,” he said, “I want to tell you about the man in the case.”
“He don’t matter,” said Lefty largely. “He don’t matter at all. All I want is his name.”
Charles Merchant rubbed his chin in thought. It was strange that sectional pride should crop out in him in this matter of all matters. He looked coldly upon Lefty Gruger.
“Ever have a run-in with a Western gunfighter?” he asked.
“Me? Sure. Went as far West as Kansas City once and got mixed up with a tough mug out of the hills. They told me he was quick as a flash at getting out his cannon. Bunk! A revolver is pretty fair, but an automatic is the medicine for these Western gunfighters! They shoot one slug, standing straight up. I spray ’em by just holding down my finger. Fast draw? I don’t draw. I drop a fist in my pocket and let her go!”
“Was that how it went with the gunman you met in Kansas City?”
“Sure it was. The boob didn’t have a chance. He stood up straight like a guy getting ready to make a speech and grabs for his gat. I jumps behind a table and begins zigzagging. He didn’t have a chance of hitting me. While I was jumping back and forth, I turn on the spray. Seven slugs, and they all landed. He wouldn’t’ve held a pint of water, he was so full of holes when I finished with him.”
Charles Merchant wiped his forehead. What he had looked upon as a forlorn hope changed to a feeling of far greater certainty.
“Now,” he said, “listen to reason. You may be very good with a gun. Of course you are. But this fellow, Lanning …”
“First name?”
“Andrew. This Andrew Lanning is good with a gun, too. He’s beaten the best men of the mountains. With rifle or revolver it doesn’t seem that he can miss. You may be almost as good, but, if you stand up to him, you stand a fine chance of being killed, Lefty. Don’t take the chance. Make a sure thing of it.”
“Shoot him in the back?” said Lefty coldly. “That what you mean?”
“Why not? You’ll get ten thousand just the same.”
The voice of Lefty changed to a snarl. “Maybe you think,” he said furiously, “that you’re talking to a butcher? Maybe you think that?”