Brett Halliday - Armed… Dangerous…

Shayne hit the detective a token blow, and the detective staggered backward, sitting down hard. Billy wrenched himself up and fell on him.

“Go on!” Billy cried over his shoulder at Shayne. “Go!”

The detective was flopping around, pretending to be trying to free himself. Shayne hesitated.

Billy shouted again and Shayne leaped into the cab. He let the truck’s acceleration slam the door for him. He headed for the dividing wall on the property line, and hit it squarely. Sure enough, it went down with a clang.

Through another delivery alley, almost a continuation of the one he had just left, he saw Twenty-eighth Street. There was another wooden barrier at the mouth of the alley. Being in less of a hurry now, he removed it by hand, and turned east on Twenty-eighth.

At Broadway he stopped following the route that had been laid out for him. The excavation site where the cargo was to be transferred was on Twenty-first, seven blocks downtown. He turned uptown on Fifth. At the Empire State Building he turned left, staying on Thirty-fourth as far as Eleventh Avenue.

At this point he pulled in to the curb, raised the hood and removed three spark plugs. After prying up the points so they would no longer fire, he put them back and slammed down the hood.

The engine took hold haltingly and he went into the Sanitation Department Motor Shop on five cylinders.

One long wall of the shop was lined with big yellow trucks waiting for repairs. Two mechanics were working on a truck without a front wheel. There were other workmen around the grease pit in back. A small man in oil-spattered overalls came out of a little office and listened while Shayne raced the motor.

“Could be a bearing,” he said. “Pull in over there.”

Shayne maneuvered the truck into an open space in the rank, shut off the motor and came back to the office. The official wrote down the truck’s serial number and the name Shayne gave him, which was that of the regular driver.

“How soon can you go to work on her?” Shayne said.

“Christ, look at the jobs we got lined up. Maybe next week.”

Shayne nodded indifferently. Outside, he tossed his cigar away, shut himself in a phone booth and dialed the LaGuardia number.

Michele answered promptly.

“What do you think,” Shayne said. “Trouble.”

“Trouble! Ziggy said everything was fine. Where are you?”

“Stop asking questions and listen. It may still be OK. I think I broke the gas line when I went over that fence. Gas all over the street. Now here’s the thing. A guy I know has a truck and he’ll be here in a minute. We’ll transfer the load on the street. I’ve got the uniform on. Nobody’ll bother us. If the son of a bitch only hurries.”

Michele forced herself to be calm. “And you will drive from there to Twenty-first Street?”

“Hell, no. We’re going to be hearing the sirens in a couple of minutes. I want to get all the way out of the neighborhood. And they got Billy. He knows the Twenty-first Street address, so better call them and tell them to clear the hell out.”

“I wait here.”

“No, go to your apartment. There’s my guy now. Yeah. Now don’t worry about him, he’s OK-There’s the siren!”

“But-” He slammed down the phone, grinning.

He had checked his suitcase at Pennsylvania Station. He changed into his new suit in the men’s room and checked his appearance in the mirror. The men in the Brooks Brothers cutting rooms had allowed for all the usual possibilities, but they hadn’t expected any of their customers to wear a shoulder holster under one of their suits. There was a definite wrinkle.

He hung the Sanitation Department uniform in a cleaning closet, and put the suitcase into another coin locker. After paying his way into the subway, he studied the map and decided on the Eighth Avenue uptown express. The train he wanted pulled in a moment later. The trip took only a few minutes. Michele’s apartment was several blocks from the subway station, and Shayne walked rapidly. He wanted to be the first to arrive.

He picked his way into the inner lobby, using the small set of burglar’s tools which he carried wherever he went. Ascending to the twelfth floor, he rang the bell at 12-H. There was no answer.

He lit a cigarette, looked at his watch thoughtfully and went back down the hall to the door of the incinerator. This was a small closet with a bin in the inner wall facing the door. The landlord, an aluminum company, had posted a notice telling tenants what articles not to throw down the chute. Shayne ripped the notice off the wall and scrawled across its back: “Out of Order Use Incinerator on 11th Floor.” He punched a hole in the cardboard and hung it on the outer doorknob. Then he shut himself in.

A few minutes later a woman’s high heels clicked toward the incinerator. A voice said wearily, “Oh, the bastards,” and the heel-clicks went to the elevator. An elevator picked her up and in another moment brought her back. She returned to her apartment.

Shayne went on waiting.

The next time the elevator stopped at that floor he heard Michele’s voice, low and guarded.

“He may be already here, so be careful.”

When footsteps passed, Shayne cracked the door and looked out. He saw Michele, in the stylish suit she was wearing today. She had Brownie with her. She motioned to Brownie to stand so he couldn’t be seen through the one-way peephole, and slid a key into the lock. “Merde,” she said. It was the wrong key.

Shayne opened the door and stepped out, the. 45 in his hand. Two long strides ate up half the intervening space. Brownie whirled, his hand stabbing toward his jacket.

“Hold it, Brownie!” Shayne snapped. “This isn’t Russian roulette. I’m carrying a full clip. Hi, baby,” he said to Michele. “I thought you might pick up somebody on the way in. Now I want both of you to do this my way. Don’t panic. It’s going to cost you some money, but I’ve got everything under control.”

“Darling!” Michele cried. “Why should I not bring somebody? We could not handle it alone, the two of us.”

Shayne grinned savagely. “Couldn’t we? Brownie, turn around. Keep your hands out where I can see them. Open the door slowly. Very slowly.”

She put the key in the right lock and did as he told her, after a puzzled glance at the. 45. Inside, they bunched up in the little foyer. Shayne kicked the door shut. He disarmed Brownie, touching the small of his back with the. 45 while he went inside Brownie’s coat to get the pistol in his waistband.

Shayne herded the French girl into the kitchen space and handcuffed her to the door of the refrigerator, using one of the two pairs of handcuffs that had been meant for the driver of the Sanitation truck.

“My God,” she said.

“What the hell’d you expect?” Shayne burst out. “Do you know what that truck was carrying?” he asked Brownie. “Junk! Heroin, coke, reefers-you name it. Cartons of the stuff. And that makes a difference, kid,” he said, touching Michele’s shoulder lightly with his gun. “OK, Brownie. We’re going for a walk.”

“Nobody told me!” Brownie cried. “All I got so far is five bills. I’m with you, man. Anything you say.”

“The first thing to do is shut up,” Shayne told him.

Sweat had broken out on Brownie’s forehead. “OK,” he whispered. “What do I care?”

Shayne jerked his head toward the door. He locked the bolt in the open position and flicked the spring lock so he could get back in without a key. Brownie walked down the hall ahead of him, taking deep breaths as though each one was his last.

“Right here,” Shayne told him at the door of the incinerator.

“I really didn’t know about it,” Brownie said. “This is funny as hell.”