Эд Макбейн - Learning to Kill - Stories

There was a third man, and a third gun. The third gun was a Luger. The man behind it was short and squat.

“This the one who shot Sam?” David asked.

“Yep,” Williston said pleasantly, and smiled. “Meet Ralphie. Come on, let’s find that broad.”

They walked through the grass almost leisurely. On Pass-A-Grille Way, they stopped beside a black Cadillac. Freddie and Ralphie climbed into the front seat, Williston into the back beside David.

“Cruise, Ralphie.”

Ralphie nodded, started the car.

“Why’d you kill Sam?” David asked him.

He didn’t turn from the wheel. He drove hunched over it, peering through the windshield. “He wouldn’t tell me what I wanted to know,” he said.

“So you emptied a Luger into him?”

“He was helping them,” Williston said. “That’s good enough for me.” He leaned forward. “You see her, Ralphie?”

“Not yet.”

“Helping them to do what?” David asked.

“Helping them get away.”

“From what?”

“From us! ” Williston said sharply. “There’s a town a little ways north of here, Coe. A nice town. A real nice town. It’s our town. You know what I mean? Our town. Put it this way. We got it sewed up real tight. There ain’t nothing goes on in that town, we ain’t got our finger in it. It’s wide open in a quiet way. That means you can get any kind of action you want there, without having the cops crawling all over you, because the cops is in our pocket, too. You can cool off in our town, you can do anything you want in our town because we control it, and we like the way it’s run. Put it this way, Coe. We don’t like anybody coming in and fouling up the china closet.”

“So?”

“So okay, we’re doing what we always do. We’re respectable businessmen. I run a pool parlor. Ralphie here owns a candy store. Freddie’s a tailor. All respectable. The rest of the boys, too. We learned all that from Georgie Phelps, who was one of the best guys alive. Some jerk from Kansas City come down with a grudge, though, and cooled Georgie. We took care of him, all right. But what I’m saying, when Georgie was alive, and even now, we do things right. Put it this way. The local cops get paid plenty to look the other way. What the state cops don’t know ain’t gonna hurt them. Right?”

“I’m still listening.”

“Sure, listen hard. So there’s maybe a little gambling, and maybe a little dope, and maybe a little woman business, and maybe the poor slob ain’t getting a fair shake, but we’re making dough, and that’s the way we want it. So we get a tip from New York. From New York, a guy we know makes a phone call. He tells us we’re sittin’, we’re sittin’ on a volcano and the lid is about to blow off. You see her yet, Ralphie?”

“No. This damn rain...”

“Keep lookin’. She couldn’t of vanished. This guy in New York tells us there’s a big-shot writer in our town. Tells us the writer’s been snooping for close to six months, and has enough stuff to blow the town wide open. That’s no good, Coe. In six months, you can learn a lot of dangerous things. So we ask our New York friend what the writer’s name is, and he tells us Leslie Grew. And he tells us Grew is in our town with a secretary, writing this book, which is gonna break in a national magazine.”

“So you started looking for Grew?”

“Sure. Our town ain’t exactly a chicken coop, Coe. It took us a while to find what we were looking for. Only trouble is, Grew took off first. Carrying enough notes to fill ten books. Enough notes to bring in not only the state cops, but the Feds as well. That ain’t good, Coe. Put it this way. Grew and friend had to go.”

“And that’s why you came here.”

“Why else? But when we come down, there was a few things we didn’t know. We didn’t know, first of all, that Grew knew a newspaperman named Sam Friedman. We found that out later. By that time, our cops were getting to work, too. We figured if we could get those two back to our town on some phony charge, the rest would be easy. Our cops teletyped the Sun City Police. I sent Ralphie over to see Mr. Friedman. But their wire told me something else, too. All the while we was looking for Grew, we thought—”

“There she is!” Ralphie yelled.

The Cadillac was a more powerful car than the taxi Wanda was in. But the cabdriver knew the roads well, and Ralphie didn’t. The cab kept a comfortable lead as they sped out of Pass-A-Grille and through Don Ce-Sar Place, and Belle Vista Beach, and Blind Pass, and Sunset Beach, and Treasure Island, and Sunshine Beach. The big Caddy went over the bridge at John’s Pass, made the turn, and then squealed into Madeira Beach.

“There she goes!” Freddie yelled. “Into that joint!”

Ralphie pulled the car over and screeched to a stop.

“Come on, Coe!” Williston yelled, reaching into the backseat and pulling David out into the rain with him. Up ahead, David saw Wanda duck into the aquarium exhibit.

The building was a two-story affair. Upstairs was where the two porpoises were fed every day while spectators goggled and cheered. The downstairs level was a dimly lit stone-and-concrete dungeon, where lighted glass walls showed the other big fish.

A porpoise was in the closest tank. The downstairs level ran for a hundred feet and angled off in an L showing the other side of the second tank, the tank in which a giant turtle, a sand shark, and a giant grouper were kept. The aquarium was dead silent. The fish drifted past silently and eerily. The tortoise pressed against the glass. Behind him the shark flashed into view.

“Upstairs,” Williston shouted, pointing to the stairway at the end of the corridor, running for the steps.

Freddie’s gun was in his hand. He was standing on David’s left, and David could see the wad under his suit jacket near his right shoulder. His wound. As they approached the steps, David gripped the railing and brought both feet up, jackknifing into the air, aiming his heels at the wad on Freddie’s right shoulder.

Freddie’s scream pierced the air, echoed down the passageway as he dropped to the floor. David charged up the steps. Freddie was still screaming behind him.

“Wanda!” he yelled.

Behind him, Williston leveled the .38 in his fist, and fired. David heard the shot, felt searing pain in his right leg, stumbled forward. Wanda was huddled against the wall at the far end of the aquarium, near the open porpoise tank. A sign behind her read: FEEDING TIME — 2:30 AND 7:00 P.M. Two empty buckets lay on the feeding platform. The porpoises kept breaking the surface of water, coming up for air. David started to run toward her, but he felt suddenly dizzy and weak, and he slipped to the floor, close to the railing near the open lip of the first tank.

Wanda dropped the suitcase, and came running toward him. She was still carrying the Luger. He heard Williston’s heavy footsteps on the stairs, and then he saw Williston’s head appear, and then the hand with the gun came into view.

“Okay,” he said, grinning. “End of the road, Miss Grew. Give me those notes!”

“I think not,” she said, and fired.

She fired four shots in a row. The first two shots sailed over Williston’s head. The third one caught him in the chest, and the fourth one caught him in the stomach. His own gun went off, and then he staggered back toward the railing around the tank. He hung poised over the railing for a moment, and then folded over it into the tank. He was a big man. Water splashed up and over the lid of the tank. In an instant, the grouper darted from one corner, and the sand shark lunged from the other. Both of them made it to Williston’s body at about the same time.

Wanda ran to where David lay on the floor.