Doug Allyn: Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 131, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 799 & 800, March/April 2008

“Shadows?... I don’t get you.” He swallowed. “I’m not having you shadowed.”

Dalmas stared at him. After a moment he nodded. “Okay, then. I’ll backtrack on the next one and see if I can make him tell who he’s working for... I’ll find out.”

Walden said very quietly: “I wouldn’t do that, if I were you. You’re — you’re monkeying with people that might get nasty... I know what I’m talking about.”

“That’s something I’m not going to let worry me,” Dalmas said evenly. “If it’s the people that want your money, they were nasty a long time ago.”

He held his hat out in front of him and looked at it. Walden’s face glistened with sweat. His eyes looked sick. He opened his mouth to say something.

The door buzzer sounded.

Walden scowled quickly, swore. He stared down the room but did not move.

“Too damn many people come here without bein’ announced,” he growled. “My Jap boy is off for the day.”

The buzzer sounded again, and Walden started to get up. Dalmas said: “I’ll see what it is. I’m on my way anyhow.”

He nodded to Walden, went down the room, and opened the door.

Two men came in with guns in their hands. One of the guns dug sharply into Dalmas’s ribs, and the man who was holding it said urgently: “Back up, and make it snappy. This is one of those stick-ups you read about.”

He was dark and good-looking and cheerful. His face was as clear as a cameo, almost without hardness. He smiled.

The one behind him was short and sandy-haired. He scowled. The dark one said: “This is Walden’s dick, Noddy. Take him over and go through him for a gun.”

The sandy-haired man, Noddy, put a short-barreled revolver against Dalmas’s stomach and his partner kicked the door shut, then strolled carelessly down the room toward Walden.

Noddy took a .38 Colt from under Dalmas’s arm, walked around him and tapped his pockets. He put his own gun away and transferred Dalmas’s Colt to his business hand.

“Okay, Ricchio. This one’s clean,” he said in a grumbling voice. Dalmas let his arms fall, turned, and went back into the room. He looked thoughtfully at Walden. Walden was leaning forward with his mouth open and an expression of intense concentration on his face. Dalmas looked at the dark stick-up and said softly: “Ricchio?”

The dark boy glanced at him. “Over there by the table, sweetheart. I’ll do all the talkin’.”

Walden made a hoarse sound in his throat. Ricchio stood in front of him, looking down at him pleasantly, his gun dangling from one finger by the trigger guard.

“You’re too slow on the pay-off, Walden. Too damn slow! So we came to tell you about it. Tailed your dick here too. Wasn’t that cute?”

Dalmas said gravely, quietly: “This punk used to be your bodyguard, Walden — if his name is Ricchio.”

Walden nodded silently and licked his lips. Ricchio snarled at Dalmas: “Don’t crack wise, dick. I’m tellin’ you again.” He stared with hot eyes, then looked back at Walden, looked at a watch on his wrist.

“It’s eight minutes past three, Walden. I figure a guy with your drag can still get dough out of the bank. We’re giving you an hour to raise ten grand. Just an hour. And we’re takin’ your shamus along to arrange about delivery.”

Walden nodded again, still silent. He put his hands down on his knees and clutched them until his knuckles whitened.

Ricchio went on: “We’ll play clean. Our racket wouldn’t be worth a squashed bug if we didn’t. You’ll play clean, too. If you don’t, your shamus will wake up on a pile of dirt. Only he won’t wake up. Get it?”

Dalmas said contemptuously: “And if he pays up — I suppose you turn me loose to put the finger on you.”

Smoothly, without looking at him, Ricchio said: “There’s an answer to that one, too... Ten grand today, Walden. The other ten the first of the week. Unless we have trouble... If we do, we’ll get paid for our trouble.”

Walden made an aimless, defeated gesture with both hands outspread. “I guess I can arrange it,” he said hurriedly.

“Swell. We’ll be on our way then.”

Ricchio nodded shortly and put his gun away. He took a brown kid glove out of his pocket, put it on his right hand, moved across then took Dalmas’s Colt away from the sandy-haired man. He looked it over, slipped it into his side pocket and held it there with the gloved hand.

“Let’s drift,” he said with a jerk of his head. They went out. Derek Walden stared after them bleakly.

The elevator car was empty except for the operator. They got off at the mezzanine and went across a silent writing room past a stained-glass window with lights behind it to give the effect of sunshine. Ricchio walked half a step behind on Dalmas’s left. The sandy-haired man was on his right, crowding him.

They went down carpeted steps to an arcade of luxury shops, along that, out of the hotel through the side entrance. A small brown sedan was parked across the street. The sandy-haired man slid behind the wheel, stuck his gun under his leg and stepped on the starter. Ricchio and Dalmas got in the back. Ricchio drawled: “East on the boulevard, Noddy. I’ve got to figure.”

Noddy grunted. “That’s a kick,” he growled over his shoulder. “Ridin’ a guy down Wilshire in daylight.”

“Drive the heap, bozo.”

The sandy-haired man grunted again and drove the small sedan away from the curb, slowed a moment later for the boulevard stop. An empty Yellow pulled away from the west curb, swung around in the middle of the block and fell in behind. Noddy made his stop, turned right, and went on. The taxi did the same. Ricchio glanced back at it without interest. There was a lot of traffic on Wilshire.

Dalmas leaned back against the upholstery and said thought-fully: “Why wouldn’t Walden use his telephone while we were coming down?”

Ricchio smiled at him. He took his hat off and dropped it in his lap, then took his right hand out of his pocket and held it under the hat with the gun in it.

“He wouldn’t want us to get mad at him, dick.”

“So he lets a couple of punks take me for the ride.”

Ricchio said coldly: “It’s not that kind of a ride. We need you in our business... And we ain’t punks, see?”

Dalmas rubbed his jaw with a couple of fingers. He smiled quickly and snapped: “Straight ahead at Robertson?”

“Yeah. I’m still figuring,” Ricchio said.

“What a brain!” the sandy-haired man sneered.

Ricchio grinned tightly and showed even white teeth. The light changed to red half a block ahead. Noddy slid the sedan forward and was first in the line at the intersection. The empty Yellow drifted up on his left. Not quite level. The driver of it had red hair. His cap was balanced on one side of his head and he whistled cheerfully past a toothpick.

Dalmas drew his feet back against the seat and put his weight on them. He pressed his back hard against the upholstery. The tall traffic light went green and the sedan started forward, then hung a moment for a car that crowded into a fast left turn. The Yellow slipped forward on the left and the red-haired driver leaned over his wheel, yanked it suddenly to the right. There was a grinding, tearing noise. The riveted fender of the taxi plowed over the low-swung fender of the brown sedan, locked over its left front wheel. The two cars jolted to a stop.

Horn blasts behind the two cars sounded angrily, impatiently.

Dalmas’s right fist crashed against Ricchio’s jaw. His left hand closed over the gun in Ricchio’s lap. He jerked it loose as Ricchio sagged in the corner. Ricchio’s head wobbled. His eyes opened and shut flickeringly. Dalmas slid away from him along the seat and slipped the Colt under his arm.