A. Fair: Owls Don't Blink

“Okay.”

We started with a jerk. The signal at the corner changed as we got into motion, but Miller managed to skid around the corner just in advance of the oncoming avalanche of cross-street traffic. We had a run of three blocks before another signal changed against us, and Miller made a screaming turn to the right, caught an open signal at the next block, turned to the left, and gave it the gas.

Once he had to stop for a closed signal and a stream of traffic pouring against him. The rest of the time it was nonstop.

He pulled up in front of a little apartment house, an unpretentious, two-storied affair only some fifty feet in width, but running the length of a deep lot — the usual type of brick building with a half-hearted attempt made at freshening up the front by the use of white stucco and red tile.

“This is the joint,” Miller said.

I handed him a five-dollar bill.

“Want me to wait?”

“No. It won’t be necessary.”

I consulted the directory. It was all filled up. Most of the cards, however, were slightly soiled. Some of them were printed.

There was no name anywhere on the board which remotely resembled that of Edna Cutler, no card which seemed absolutely fresh.

I pressed the button for the manager. After a while she came to the door.

I gave her my most ingratiating smile. “Two young women who just moved in telephoned me about some automobile insurance. I’m from the Auto Club of Southern California. They wanted to get fixed up with driving licenses and insurance.”

“You mean the New Orleans women?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you ring them? They’re in two-seventy-one.”

I said, “I’m sorry. I must have had the wrong apartment number. I didn’t take down the name, just the number of the apartment. I must have transposed the figures. I had two-seventeen. It didn’t answer.”

I gave her my best smile while she was thinking that over, and climbed the stairs.

It was dark in the corridor. A ribbon of light was coming from under the door of apartment 271. I closed my fingers over the handle on the door, twisted the knob gently and noiselessly. When I felt the latch had freed, I tried a little pressure.

The door was locked on the inside.

I held the knob in my hand and knocked.

Nothing happened.

I knocked again. There was a sound of motion from behind the door, then shuffling steps, Edna Cutler’s voice sounding low and subdued saying, “Who is it, please?”

“Lighting inspector checking up on your wiring installation.”

“Well, you can’t come in.”

I said, “It’s a city ordinance. I have to check up on your wiring before you can use the lights.”

“Well, we’re using them now.”

“It’ll only take a minute. If I can’t inspect them, I’ll have to turn them off.”

She said, “Come back in an hour,” and walked away.

I knocked at the door three times after that, and got no answer.

I looked around the hall and found a fuse box halfway down the corridor; I did a little experimenting, then unscrewed a fuse and put it in my pocket. I went down the corridor. There was no ribbon of light coming out from under the door of 271.

I gently closed my fingers about the doorknob, pushed it in my hand, and held it.

For almost a minute there was silence from the inside of the room; then I heard voices. The voices came nearer to the door.

Edna Cutler said, “Why, that mug! I thought it was just a bluff. I’ll bet he did shut our lights off.”

I heard the sound of a bolt on the other side of the door.

I didn’t wait for anything else. I gave the door the shoulder, and felt it strike against something yielding as it came open.

The room was dark, but enough light came in through the open windows from a red neon sign on the corner to bathe objects in a peculiar indistinct ruby-colored illumination.

Edna Cutler had been thrown off balance by the opening door. She was just getting her balance. She had on a pair of shorts and a bra. Back in the far corner of the apartment was another indistinct figure. When I heard her exclamation, I knew that it was Roberta Fenn.

I said to Roberta, “I told you not to get in touch with Edna.”

“I — you don’t understand, Donald. I had to get in touch with her.”

Edna Cutler said, “My God, is this that detective again?”

“The same.”

“What have you done to our lights?”

“Pulled out the fuse.”

“Well, go put it back again.”

“And find the door locked when I come back? Nothing doing.”

“What do you want?”

I said, “You know what I want. I—”

“What is it?” Edna Cutler asked almost in a whisper as I abruptly ceased speaking.

“Take it easy,” I said, quietly. “I was afraid he’d followed you.”

There were steps coming down the corridor, slow, steady steps as calmly remorseless as the steps of an executioner approaching the cell of a convict in condemned row.

Edna Cutler said, “I haven’t any—”

“Shut up!”

I started for the door, trying to close it. I stumbled over a footstool.

The steps were very near now.

I could hear a slight inequality in them, the walk of a man with a limp.

He reached the door before I did, a man wearing an overcoat with the collar turned up, and a hat with the brim turned down. He didn’t seem to be particularly tall, nor particularly thick. The overcoat hid the lines of his figure.

Roberta Fenn screamed.

The man started shooting before I was close enough to do anything about it. One shot at Roberta; then the gun swung toward Edna. By that time I was too close. He knew he couldn’t waste that shot. He swung the muzzle of the gun around toward me, and I heard the roar, felt the blast of flame in my face. He missed me, and I was clutching for the hand that held the gun,

I got it.

My old jujitsu lessons came in handy. I whirled so that my back was toward him, holding the wrist, twisting his arm, pulling it over my shoulder. I bent sharply down. The leverage I had gave me everything I needed to throw him over my head and halfway across the room.

There was a commotion in the hallway. Women were screaming. Within the apartment Roberta Fenn was sobbing quietly, and Edna Cutler was swearing.

As the man went over my head, the gun slipped from the nerveless fingers and remained in my hand.

A man’s voice in the corridor behind me said, “What’s the matter? What’s happening?”

I ran past the inert figure on the floor, leaned out the window, and looked down into the pulsing red darkness, illuminated by the neon sign at the corner.

There was more commotion behind me. I heard the sound of a siren a block away.

One of the more venturesome men was coming in the room now.

“What’s happening?” he demanded. “What’s going on here.”

I said over my shoulder, “Someone tried to kill these women. The lights are all off. I think he must have got a fuse in the corridor. See if you can get some lights, will you?”

I leaned farther out of the window and looked up.

There was a brick ledge about three inches wide, running along over the top of the windows. I climbed up on the sill, extended my hand above my head, and gently placed the gun on top of the bricks. Then I slid down and back into the room. A moment later the lights came on.

The man’s voice called down the corridor, “Does that fix it?”

I shouted, “Okay, that fixes it.”

The man who lay on the floor was sprawled out awkwardly. His soft felt hat lay some six feet beyond the crumpled figure. The arms were outflung, and the skirts of the overcoat had doubled up when he fell so that they were up beneath his head.

The man was Marco Cutler.