Ричард Деминг - She’ll Hate Me Tomorrow

Ross flicked his head sidewise to let the fist whistle by, grasped the man’s shoulder with both hands and pulled to increase his forward momentum beyond what the bodyguard had intended it to be, shifted himself out of the way and thrust out a foot. As Krzal tripped and started to fall forward, Ross brought a lightning-quick judo chop down alongside his neck. When the man hit the sidewalk, face first, he stayed there.

It all happened so fast, the gambler had spun to face the other two gunmen before they started toward him. The barrel-shaped driver reacted first, rushing in with his right arm drawn back to swing a roundhouse blow.

Ross’ right knee came up to his chest, both hands grasped the sole of his foot, then he thrust the foot forward with the force of a power-driven battering ram. It caught his assailant squarely in the stomach, crushing the wind from him and driving him back into his companion so hard, both men tumbled to the sidewalk.

As the driver rolled to one side, gasping and holding his stomach, Ross took a quick step forward and his foot came up in the fluid arc of a fullback placing a drop-kick. It landed solidly beneath the chin of the remaining gunman as the man attempted to scramble to his feet, lifting him nearly erect before he tumbled over backward and lay still.

A woman pedestrian passing from one direction and a man from the other, stared down at the three prone men and hurried on, presumably deciding that anything happening so close to police headquarters must be all quite legal.

The man Ross had kicked in the stomach continued to make wheezing noises as he lay doubled up on the sidewalk. The other two were out cold. Bix Lawson, left alone, backed another step, his gaze darting about wildly in search of police protection.

Ross glanced about, too, noting that with the exception of the two pedestrians who had just passed and who seemed to have assumed that Ross was a detective subduing unruly prisoners, everyone in the vicinity was still impervious to what was going on. Smiling bleakly, he thrust his hand beneath his arm.

“Cops never seem to be around when people need them, do they, Bix?”

Lawson gasped, “I told you I ain’t armed, Clancy. Honest, I ain’t.”

When Ross purposefully strode toward him, Lawson backed another step and rammed into a light pole. He came to a jarring halt, his arms groping out at his sides in a ludicrous attempt to feel the object he had backed into.

Ross’ gun came out and the barrel smashed alongside the racketeer’s jaw, bouncing his head against the light pole. Lawson slid down the pole to a sitting position, stared up blearily and tumbled over on his side.

Ross’ gun twinkled out of sight beneath his arm. Doing an about-face, he walked the few paces to his parked Lincoln and climbed under the wheel. As he shifted into “drive” and pulled out from the curb, a pair of uniformed officers came from the police building.

They had come to a halt and were gazing down open-mouthed at the four recumbent figures on the sidewalk when he drove away.

When Ross got back to the club, M.DuBarry had departed and Sam Black was seated disconsolately at the wrecked bar. A couple of workmen were boarding up the shattered front window.

“The mail came,” Black said, lifting a stack of envelopes from the bar and separating a single air-mail special-delivery envelope from it to hand to Ross. “This is all that’s personally addressed to you. The rest’s business correspondence and bills.”

Glancing at the envelope, Ross thrust it into his inside coat pocket. “Come on upstairs and I’ll buy you a drink in pleasanter surroundings.”

“All right,” Black accepted. “This place depresses me. Wait till I dump the mail.”

Carrying the stack of envelopes into the downstairs office next to the bar, he tossed them on his desk and rejoined Ross. They moved together toward the elevator.

Getting off at the second floor, Ross led the way to his office. The silence of the second floor seemed to depress Black further. He glanced gloomily into the empty gaming room and the two empty poker rooms as they passed them.

As Ross mixed drinks at the small office bar, Black said, “We’re really out of business, aren’t we?”

“We’ll open again.” He handed Black a bourbon highball and began making a weak Scotch and soda.

“What’d the cops have to say?” Black asked.

“Redfern thinks some out-of-town mob is trying to muscle in on both Bix and us. Neither of us gave him much help.”

“Bix was there, too?”

“Uh-huh. Surrounded by three guns, which I took as an oblique compliment. Afterward he waited for me outside and delivered an ultimatum. When I threw it back in his face, he got mad and ordered his goons to take me.”

Black choked on his drink. When he had coughed his throat clear enough for speech, he said, “Right in front of police headquarters?”

“Why not? He practically owns the joint.” Ross took a sip of his drink.

Black looked him up and down. “I don’t see any bullet holes. What happened?”

“I left the four of them lying there.”

Black closed his eyes, opened them again and drained his drink. “Dead?” he asked faintly.

“No, just resting peacefully. Funny thing, Sam. Pedestrians were all over the place, cars were passing, a traffic cop was no more than fifty feet away, and in the middle of things a cop came out of headquarters, spoke to us and walked on. And nobody at all noticed what was going on.”

Black closed his eyes again. “That’s why I won’t play you head-to-head stud. Nobody deserves your luck.” Reopening his eyes, he thrust out his glass. “A refill for my nerves, please.”

When Ross had replenished his drink, Black said, “What happens now?”

The gambler shrugged. “The next move is up to Bix.”

“Oh, fine,” Black said. “We just wait, huh? Suppose he drops an atom bomb on the club?”

“More likely he’ll just put a price on my head,” Ross said cheerfully. “I’ll have to start checking my car for bombs and taking a few other simple precautions, I guess.”

“My God, he’s going to take a few simple precautions!” Black said to no one. “He’s getting old.”

The phone rang.

Walking behind his desk, Ross picked it up and said, “Club Rotunda.”

“Clancy?” Christine Franklin’s voice said in his ear.

“Yeah. How are you?”

“I’ve finally recovered from the other night, but just barely. You leave a girl exhausted.”

“That was my intention.”

“You accomplished it. I just heard over the air about your club being bombed. I called to offer sympathy.”

“Thanks,” Ross said. “We’ll be closed down for repairs for a couple of weeks.”

“Oh? Then you’ll be free nights for a time.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Shall we have a return engagement?”

“Why not? Want to drop over tonight? We’ll have the whole building to ourselves.”

“Um, that sounds interesting. But why don’t you come out here instead? You have a car and I don’t.”

“All right,” he agreed. “What time?”

“About nine all right?”

“Sure.”

“Better bring your own Scotch. I still have nothing but bourbon.”

“I’ll bring some more of that, too. But in case we have any more bombings between now and then, what’s your phone number out there?”

“Just a minute. It’s on the plate here.” There was a pause before she said, “Capitol three, two, six, oh, one.”

Jotting the number on a scratch pad, he tore off the sheet and thrust it into his side pocket. “Okay. Unless I phone back, I’ll see you at nine.”

“I’ll be waiting, wearing your favorite outfit,” she said softly, and hung up.