Тэлмидж Пауэлл - The Corpse in the Crystal

The shadow passed down the walk. As the chief had assured, it was Hobbs and he was going somewhere. A light topcoat with the collar turned up and a hat brim pulled low almost obscured his face. He didn’t want anyone to know where he was going, not even his chauffeur.

He turned right at the sidewalk. Murder and I gave him a moment, then cut across the lawn and fell in behind him.

It wasn’t an easy job, this task of shadowing. Hobbs was leery, cautious. His head kept jerking around, the movement freezing Murder end me in shadows.

Hobbs walked a block, turned. He approached a small park, stopped, looked around. He stood at the edge of the sidewalk for what seemed to be five dragging minutes. The chief and I inched closer to him until we could have whispered to him from the shelter of twin willow trees just off the sidewalk behind him.

Then up the street twin lights flashed. Automobile headlights. The ear was parked a block away at an intersection. Even I didn’t miss that carefully planned detail. The car could have gone in any of four directions should anything go wrong.

Those headlights snapped on and off again, then on once more and stayed lighted. Old Wendel Hobbs reached beneath his coat, pulled out a long, flat package and tossed it on the edge of the street. The car’s motor was roaring and the headlights raced closer. Hobbs turned quickly and started walking back in the direction he had come.

Murder bawled some kind of order to me. Things happened so fast that, even though I didn’t catch his command, I fell in step behind him as he came hurtling from the shelter of the willow tree. His body was bent, his feet pounding. He was headed directly toward the street.

It was a hop and jump; it was nip and tuck. Murder reached it without breaking stride and scooped up the package Wendel Hobbs had tossed in the street. Those headlights were glaring, right on top of us it seemed. My heart was trying to tear its way out of my throat

I heard Hobbs yell. The roar of the car’s motor as the quick-thinking driver gave it the gun.

He twisted the wheel, slashed across the street toward us. If we had paused to turn and take the short way out of the street, he would have got us. Instead, we just kept right on going like the devil was lashing our heels, into the broad, vacant lot directly across the street.

The looming headlights missed us by inches. I heard Hobbs yell again as the chief and I plunged into undergrowth. Murder clutched that long, flat package in his hand. I hoped it was worth all this.

Tires shrilled behind us as brakes were slammed. Car doors opened and shut. The quiet, widely separates estates of elegant Cedarwood Forest had never seen tire like of this.

Half a dozen rough voices rose in the night. Footsteps charged into the undergrowth behind us. Somebody back there ran into a tangle of brambles and cursed.

Somebody else was too much on edge. He fired three quick shots. The man is the brambles cursed some more. “Cut it you fool! Wait’ll we get our hands on them, then we’ll slit their eyes out!”

The chief and I reached a clearing. He drew up short. We’d be spotted in the dim moonlight in the cleared space. And we couldn’t turn back. Personally I valued my eyes too much.

I stood panting during a second that seemed like an eternity. Then Murder shoved me, grabbed a low branch on a tree, swung himself up. I followed suit, easting up on the limb beside him. We pressed against the trunk of the tree, trying to make ourselves a part of it, and waited.

The half dozen men back there would have been tops in their trade in a dark alley with knives in their hands, but they weren’t woodsmen. They made too much noise as they beat the underbrush, coming steadily toward tho clearing. Then they were silent. I knew they had drawn up, ringing that side of the clearing not a dozen feet from our tree.

They were more cautious now. Seconds ticked away and the chief and I saw dim blobs moving out into the clearing. One shadow passed beneath our tree. I could have spit in his eye if he had looked up.

But he didn’t. They worked their way to the other side of the clearing. Somebody said, “There’s another street over here. They musta got away that way.”

“Nice going, nice going, ain’t the boss gonna like this?” somebody else said bitterly.

A third voice added, “We better scram outta here. They got away. Some of the dudes living around here might have heard Duvarti shooting and called the bulls.”

So Duvarti was in that group of men. That meant Krile probably would be, too.

The dim shadows below turned and came back across the clearing. Moments later the motor of the car started. We listened to the sound die away. Our playmates were gone.

Murder and I dropped out of the trees. “Scooped their prize right from under their noses, eh, Luke? I guess old man Hobbs is back home by this time, quivering in his slippers.”

“And what did we scoop?” I asked.

In answer, Murder shielded his light, flicked it on. He handed me the package. I ripped open the end. It was more money than I’d ever dreamed I would see in one time in my whole life. It was a package of thousand dollar bills. There must have been at least a hundred of them.

We didn’t get to enjoy it. A voice in the darkness behind us said, “One move, gentlemen, and I can promise you that you’ll never move again!”

The light of a flashlight spread over us. We turned slowly. “Drop the package.” Murder dropped it.

I’d heard the voice before. It was the voice of Nostra, the guy who owned the crystal.

He chuckled over the gun in his hand. “Did you really think we would give up so easily, Mr. Murder? I guessed you would be hiding somewhere close around. You really didn’t have time to make a getaway. So I stayed behind with a couple of the boys. Two friends of yours. Rick Duvarti and Burt Krile.”

Duvarti and Krile moved up out of the darkness to stand beside Nostra.

“I thought you were in jail,” the chief said.

“It was easy enough to get out,” Nostra said. “I’d committed no real crime. I paid my bond and will have to appear in police court next Tuesday because I slapped the cop. You know as well as I that they had nothing to hold me on.”

Duvarti gave his short, nasty chuckle, came forward and warily picked up the package of money at Murder’s feet.

“You have some admirable traits, Mr. Murder,” Nostra said. “Few men would have thought of trailing Wendel Hobbs and snatching the package from under oar noses. Few men will be so honored in their manner of dying. We will retire to the street. I’ll signal with my light. The car, which is now parked down the street, will turn, come back, and pick us up. If you want to die suddenly, make a break. If you want a few hours more of life, remember that the crystal never lies.”

“You mean—” I gulped.

“I mean,” Nostra explained coldly, “that I have a friend who owns a slaughter House. You ape aware of the refrigerating systems in slaughter houses, of course? Refrigerators that can hold a ton of pork or beef and freeze it solid. We will strip you, gentlemen, and do our best to keep you from being cozy inside the refrigerator. When you have finally expired, about dawn, we’ll smuggle you to a hotel room. A post mortem will prove definitely that you froze to death in August in a hotel room you apparently spent the night in. Quite cunning, don’t you think?”

He laughed, and I was feeling that refrigerator already.

It was crowded in that heavy seven-passenger sedan. But there was no chance to make a break. These lads had been recruited, because they were fast on the trigger, knew their business, and would shoot their own brothers for a grand note.