Джонатан Крейг - Manhunt. Volume 1, Number 12, December, 1953

Liddell shook his head. “I’ll be all right, doc.”

“I’ll take him up to my place. I live right here,” Lois volunteered.

The interne shrugged. “You’re the boss, mister.” He ran his eyes appreciatively over the contours revealed by the blonde’s tight dress. “But,” he said, grinning, “I wouldn’t try anything strenuous for a while, if I were you.”

Johnny Liddell opened his eyes slowly and looked around. The blinds in the room had been drawn, making it dim and cool. He tried to sit up, groaned at the sharp pain that shot through his chest, slumped back on the couch.

“Take it easy, Johnny.” The blonde got up from an armchair across the room, walked over to the couch, sat on the edge of it. “How you feeling?”

“I’ll live.” He took a deep breath, gritted his teeth, pulled himself up. “How long’ve I been sleeping?”

Lois consulted her watch. “A couple of hours. It’s a little before four.” She reached across him, snapped on a light. “That better?”

Liddell grinned crookedly. “All I need now is a transfusion.”

“Bourbon?”

“Bourbon.”

She got up, headed for the kitchen. She had changed from the tight-fitting blue dress to the gown she had been wearing when he first came to the apartment. When she returned with the glasses and ice, the light of the lamp revealed a fine network of lines under her eyes, a tired droop at the corners of her mouth.

She set the glasses down, tried a grin that almost made it. “I sure didn’t think I’d be having a drink with you tonight when I saw you sprawled out on the sidewalk.”

Liddell watched her put the ice in the glasses, fill them half way with bourbon. “Disappointed?”

She stopped pouring, looked up at him through her lashes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

The detective struggled up on one elbow. “You can’t bat 1.000 all the time, baby. You’re doing all right with two out of three.”

The blonde set the glass down, straightened up. “I still don’t know what you’re talking about. Maybe you should have let them take you to the hospital. You’re delirious.”

“That’s the trouble with killing. You’ve got to keep it up.” He reached over, snagged a cigarette, stuck it in the corner of his mouth where it waggled when he talked. “Was what they paid you worth it, baby?” He didn’t take his eyes off her suddenly white face. “Or did you start thinking that maybe they can’t stop until they get rid of everybody that can put the finger on them — including you?”

She backed away from the couch, her make-up garish blobs against the pallor of her skin. She said nothing.

Liddell touched a match to his cigarette, tried to take a deep drag, grunted with pain. “The police will start putting two and two together, too, baby. You’ve made a lot of mistakes.” He leaned back, blew a stream of smoke at the ceiling. “See if I’m right. Barney Shields turned up some important evidence. He managed to get it into your hands to turn over to Devon. Instead, you sold it out to the mob he was investigating, didn’t you?”

The blonde backed up until the table at the far side of the room caught her in the back. She reached down, pulled open a drawer, took out a snub-nosed .38. “Go on.”

Liddell took another drag on the cigarette, rolled his eyes to where the girl stood. “You won’t use that. You might be able to set a man up for a kill, but you haven’t got the nerve to do your own killing.”

“I didn’t know they were going to do that to him,” she protested. “I... I was scared. I realized he’d know I didn’t give the report to Devon. He might even call Devon.”

“So you set up a meet in the back row of the movie. Only you told Barney that Devon wanted to meet him at 7. The guy with the pick kept the date. You had Devon show up a half hour later. Who killed Barney, Lois?”

“The man you killed downstairs. I don’t even know who he is. Just that his name is Denver.” She shook her head. “I didn’t know they’d want to kill you, Liddell. I thought they’d be satisfied with Monti.”

Liddell managed to prop himself up on his elbow. “I sure pulled a bonehead on that one, baby. But so did you. The minute the mob killed Monti I knew it had to be you that tipped them off. When? When you pretended to call Monti?”

The blonde licked at her lips. “I called Denver. He told me to stall you until midnight. I thought it was supposed to scare you off and that’s as far as it would go.”

“Nice stalling,” Liddell grinned humorlessly. “Who were you working for? Who bought the report?”

“I don’t know. The night I got it, I read it. It mentioned Denver. I called him at the union hall and read it to him. He called back and made an offer. No names. Just an exchange of packages. Mine was the report. Theirs was money. Lots of money.” She stared at him. “Why shouldn’t I? Why should I keep on living in this rat trap, scratching for pennies when I could get all that money? Just for one report! Why not?”

“Because it meant men had to die.”

“So what? Shields was on his own. We’re all on our own.” The hand with the gun started to shake. “You think they’ll kill me, don’t you? Well, they won’t. They’ll give me a lot of money for telling them about Monti. They’ll give me a lot.”

“Maybe more than you figure, baby. Those boys don’t leave loose ends laying around. And we’re loose ends. Real loose! You’d better—”

“Shut up.” The blonde’s face was contorted with rage. She crossed the room on the run. The barrel of the gun flashed up, caught Liddell across the side of the head, slammed him back against the couch. A thin trickle of blood ran down the side of his cheek.

Lois stuck the gun in her robe pocket, ran into the bedroom. When she emerged a few moments later, she was fully dressed, carried a small overnight bag. She ran for the door, hesitated with her hand on the knob as she heard Liddell groaning his way back to consciousness. She slammed the door behind her, ran down the hall to the elevator.

Painfully, Liddell pulled himself to his feet. He stood swaying for a moment, tottered toward the door. He reached it just as the elevator started downward. He called after Lois, his voice echoed hollowly down the hall. Doggedly he started for the stairs. He was on the second floor landing when she left the elevator, ran across the lobby toward the street.

Liddell’s convertible stood at the curb where he had left it. The blonde pulled his keys from her pocket, threw her bag in the back, slid behind the wheel. She could hear Liddell yelling to her.

She turned on the ignition, jammed her foot down on the starter. There was a shattering blast as the windshield seemed to disintegrate in her face. A bright yellow flame shot from the dashboard, the heavy car seemed to lift from the street, then settled back, a shattered pile of twisted, smoking metal and splintered glass.

Liddell ran out onto the sidewalk, followed by a white-faced night clerk. “Send for an ambulance,” he tossed over his shoulder. As he reached the car, he shook his head. “Never mind that ambulance.”

Windows were going up in buildings on both sides of the street, heads were appearing cautiously. Somewhere a siren moaned.

The night clerk followed him across the sidewalk, stared at the smashed body of the blonde. “What was it? How did it happen?”

Liddell shook his head wearily. “It was just the boys keeping their word. They paid off in full.”

Now that you’ve finished reading this Johnny Liddell novelette, you’ll have discovered that Liddell hasn’t even scratched the surface of the waterfront rackets Barney Shields was investigating when he was killed. He’s got the person who murdered Barney — but that’s only the start of things.