Ричард Деминг - Manhunt. Volume 1, Number 2, February, 1953

I dropped the hammer to quarter cock, put the P-38 back under my arm, nodded politely to Marty Swan, and stepped over the unconscious bodyguard.

My job was now completed, and anything which resulted was between the syndicate and the local mobs. Either Marty Swan would report to the syndicate the local setup would require too big a war to make taking it over worth while, or he would start importing gunmen. Either way the decision would be based on cold percentages, without revenge being a factor. I hoped the surprise of encountering apparently solid and organized resistance where he had expected to meet none would swing him toward the former decision.

I went to sleep on that thought, and awakened the next morning just in time to catch the radio report that Max Gruder and Harry Delanco had been killed and Frank Durant wounded in a triple gangland machine-gunning.

With the short hairs along the base of my neck standing straight out, I listened to how Max Gruder had gotten it just before midnight as he stepped from a night club, a few minutes later Harry Delanco had been sprayed through an open window while supervising one of his basement crap games, and a few minutes after that Frank Durant had been wounded by machine-gun fire on his own doorstep. According to the newscaster the latter, accompanied by his younger brother, Dr. Charles Durant, was just ascending the steps of the home where they both lived when a machine-gunner in a passing car fired with such accuracy he nailed the racketeer without even scratching his brother.

“Both Gruder and Delanco died instantly of the assassin’s bullets,” the radio reporter said. “Durant, struck in the leg, shoulder and chest, probably owes his life to the quick action of his physician brother, who carried him into the infirmary attached to the house, administered plasma to combat shock and immediately dressed the wounds. His condition too critical to risk removal to a hospital, Durant remains in his brother’s infirmary under heavy police guard.

“No motive is yet known for the triple shooting. Tentatively the police ascribe it to gangland vengeance, since all three victims are known to have underworld connections. So far the survivor’s condition has prevented questioning by the police.”

Still in my robe and slippers, I checked both the front and back doors of my apartment to make sure they remained soundly bolted, then consumed a pot of coffee while I tried to figure out where the shootings put me.

In the soup, was the first answer I got, but after further cogitation I began to wonder if they put me anywhere at all. If Marty Swan had swallowed my act, I should have been first victim on the list, yet I had slept next to an open window less than a dozen feet off the ground without even being bothered by a mosquito.

I was still ruminating over this oddity forty-five minutes later when I parked in front of the Durant home, a three story building as broad as it was tall.

A sign on the ten foot iron gate in front read Dr. Charles Durant, M.D. Beneath it was another sign simply stating Frank Durant, and beneath them both stood a uniformed cop.

The cop was just telling me no one was allowed in when a sleek convertible pulled up and a thin man got out, carrying a black medical bag.

The man peered at me in surprise and asked, “You Manville Moon?”

I admitted I was.

“I’m Dr. Durant, Frank’s brother. We must have passed each other, for I just stopped at your flat. Frank wants to see you.” To the cop he said, “It’s all right, officer. Friend of my brother’s.”

I followed him up a flagstone walk and into a wide front hall, noticing as we entered the scars of a half dozen machine gun bullets in the wood to one side of the entrance. A fat butler appeared, took the doctor’s bag and my hat and went away again.

“Generally use the side entrance into my infirmary waiting room,” the doctor said. “But now it’s full of police and reporters. This thing has played hob with my practice. Police won’t let patients past the gate, so I’ve had to make fifteen home calls already today, and it’s barely noon.”

He led me through a half dozen rooms to the rear of the house and opened a door into a small surgery. Two other doors, one on either side, led into the surgery, and from the drone of conversation coming through the one on the right, I judged this led into the waiting room containing the police guards and reporters Dr. Durant had complained about.

He opened the door on the left and motioned me into an infirmary containing two hospital beds. In one of the beds, sitting upright with his back against a pillow and smoking a cigar, was Frank Durant.

Before I could recover from the surprise of finding a man who was supposedly in critical condition so healthy, I got another surprise. The white uniformed nurse sitting in a straight chair next to the bed casually elevated her face and the doctor planted a preoccupied kiss on her lips.

The doctor’s preoccupation startled me as much as the act itself. I had an idea it was not a requirement of professional ethics for a doctor to greet the nurse on one of his cases with a kiss, but as long as he was doing it, I couldn’t understand his lack of enthusiasm. She was a flaming redhead with glowing green eyes and a torso which would have made her a menace to any patient with high blood pressure. When my eyes got down that far, I noticed she had nice legs too.

Dr. Durant immediately cleared up the mystery of the kiss by introducing the nurse as his wife.

“Ann doesn’t practice any more,” he said brusquely. “But she’s still registered, and under the circumstances I didn’t want to bring in a strange nurse.”

I turned my attention to the second mystery. “I thought you were half dead, Durant?”

He grinned at me. “Only about a quarter.” Unbuttoning his pajama tops, he exposed bandages strapped to his shoulder and across his chest. “Got another on my leg,” he said ruefully. “But they’re all three flesh wounds. Guess I’m the luckiest guy who ever got machine-gunned. Charlie says I can be up in a week.”

I asked puzzledly, “Why the report you’re knocking at death’s door?”

“To gain time. Keep the cops off my neck until we can plan out this war. That’s why I sent Charlie after you.”

“Plan it after I get out of here,” the doctor interrupted. “My wife and I don’t want to be accessories. Come on, Ann.”

Her green eyes gleamed up at him. “I’d love to be an accessory,” she said in a venomous purr. “I’d like any kind of excitement which might make me better appreciate the quiet beauty of our marriage. But you run along, darling, and keep your conventional little nose clean.”

Flushing, the doctor stared at her, then turned and left the room.

The patient frowned at his nurse. “Charlie’s going to surprise you some day, Ann, and bust you square in your beautiful mouth.”

“Shut up or I’ll give you another enema,” she said amiably.

Frank grinned at her and she grinned back. Apparently relations between the woman and her brother-in-law were better than between her husband and herself.

I said, “I don’t follow your reference to we a minute ago, Durant. I’m not planning to get involved in any war.”

Drawing on his cigar, he blew a calm stream of smoke toward me. “You’re already involved, Mr. Moon. With the syndicate believing you’re top man, you think they’ll be satisfied with less than a clean sweep?”

“I think they’ve already guessed it was a bluff. Or else someone spilled. If they thought I was really top man, they’d have come after me before shooting up you underlings.”

He frowned at me, rolled the cigar between his lips thoughtfully and muttered, “I been counting on you to really head up the resistance. You leave me in a spot if you walk out while I’m flat on my back.”