Тэлмидж Пауэлл - The Third Talmage Powell Crime MEGAPACK™ - 25 Classic Mysteries

“That really cuts it. Steel bars, hot wires, and huge safes are all beyond my calling.”

“You need another beer,” she said in that endearing, unpredictable way. She was up and back with the beer like a golden wisp.

She sat down and rested her head against my shoulder. “O’Leary unlocks his private office door, walks to the safe, opens it, and puts his money in. If someone quick and strong, like you, Freddie, were hiding inside the office, it would be simple to tap O’Leary on the head — not too hard so he isn’t seriously hurt — as he walks through the door. Then someone quick and strong could take the money and walk right out that door, quiet as a little old kitten.”

“Yeah, if someone could melt his way through steel window bars and burglar alarm wires and be inside the office when O’Leary entered.”

“Just slip into the short hallway that leads to the office, Freddie. You could do it, easy, with that late, noisy crowd in the bar. Then unlock O’Leary’s office, close the door so the lock clicks, and be waiting in there when the unsuspecting little hamster comes in with the loot.”

“Let’s forget the impossible right now,” I said, nuzzling her cheek. “With the beer and rest, I’m feeling like a new man. Also I couldn’t pick the lock on a piece of discount house luggage, much less the lock O Leary s bound to have on that office door.”

She didn’t move away from my nuzzling, but it didn’t have the desired effect on her chemistry either. As if her mind was elsewhere, she said, “Freddie, a girl working in a place like O’Leary’s learns to keep her eyes open. She meets all kinds of people, too.”

I shifted position, taking a swallow of beer, “So?

“So she knows where Mr. O’Leary keeps his bundle of keys, beside the automatic gun under the counter,” Clemmie said. “She knows how to make an impression of a certain key in a piece of wax in a few seconds when nobody is looking. And she knows a fellow or two who will make a key from that impression for a twenty-dollar bill, no questions asked.”

She stirred, sitting up and wriggling her fingers into the slash pocket of her hotpants. She slipped out the duplicate key to O’Leary’s office.

Dangling in her fingers, bright new metal catching the fire of reflected light, it positively hypnotized me.

One thing O’Leary had failed to put in his office was air-conditioning. Or maybe the sweats came from the waiting there in the darkness.

From the bar came the muted sounds of the last customers leaving, guys shouting good night to O’Leary, a character with too many under his belt singing a mournful song.

The song was cut off in the middle of a flat note and I knew O’Leary had closed the door behind the customer.

Silence.

Nothing, except this vacuum sucking at my ears and trying to stifle my breath.

I stood pressed close to the wall beside the office door, the length of old pipe in my gloved hand.

Distantly, I heard Clemmie say good night.

“See you tomorrow, Clemmie,” O’Leary responded in his high, thin voice.

More silence.

All of them were gone now, except O’Leary and the bartenders. The bartenders would be rinsing the last of the glasses, shucking their barman’s jackets, gulping tired yawns. O’Leary would be taking the last of the receipts from the cash register.

Time was the slow crawling of hot lava.

A few more muffled words out there that I couldn’t make out. O’Leary seeing his barmen off. O’Leary closing the front door and springing the lock, alone in the bar now. Giving the place the final glance for the night. Cutting the lights to night-dim.

The sudden rattle of his key in the office door lock almost jarred me out of my shoes.

The door swung open, and too suddenly almost, he was there, a scrawny silhouette in the very faint night light filtering from the bar.

I suddenly felt so clumsy and awkward that I almost panicked. The pipe weighed half a ton. He surely knew I was there.

I didn’t realize it was over until I heard the pipe thunk against his crown. He folded without a whisper, and I stood looking at the dim shadow of him, too scared to move. Was it I who actually hit him?

The pipe bumped on the floor. I kneeled beside O’Leary. I’d padded the pipe with a wrap-around rag, and the skin on O’Leary’s scalp wasn’t even broken. He looked for all the world like a little kid dreaming happily as he lay there. His breathing was steady, and I figured he wouldn’t be unconscious for more than half an hour. It was time enough for our purposes.

He’d carried a heavy brown paper bag into the office. I opened it just long enough to make sure it was full of money.

When I crossed the bar and reached the front door, I clung to shadows, looking at the street. A car slipped past, then the wee-hours desertion returned to the street.

I worked quickly, going out, making sure the door spring-locked behind me, and then, the money stashed under my jacket, I strolled along innocently whistling a Bacharach tune until I had rounded the corner. There, I moved faster, using the next twenty minutes to put me into Clemmie’s apartment.

We had to tone down the celebration somewhat to keep from waking other tenants in the grubby old building. I spilled the bread in a lovely green mound on the coffee table. We laughed. We hugged. I picked her up and we went round and round. We kissed and kissed again. Then she popped the cork on a bottle of champagne she’d bought for the occasion.

We were just lifting the glasses when, quite without warning, a big brute in the hallway put a heavy heel against the door and kicked it open, tearing the lock into several dozen pieces.

The open doorway framed Sam Lagin, and Clemmie and I stood looking at him, two frozen stills cut from a movie by a film editor.

Lagin was breathing hard, and his eyes had color now. Deep pink was the hue, almost blood red.

I moved then, trying to shield the money from Lagin’s sight. But he’d seen it already. He heeled the broken door closed, crossed to Clemmie and me, and strangely enough, instead of touching the money, he picked up the champagne bottle and looked at the famed label.

He had his breathing steadied down. He set the bottle slowly on the table.

“Celebration’s kind of premature, isn’t it, kids?”

“Whoever you are,” Clemmie said angrily, “you can’t break in here and—”

“I can’t?” Sam Lagin said. He looked at the broken door lock, then all around the room. “But it seems I have, doesn’t it?”

“Throw the nut out of here, Freddie,” Clemmie’s voice was a suppressed shriek. “I’ll call the police and—!”

It was my turn to interrupt her. “Easy, baby. He’s Sam Lagin.”

“Your parole officer?” she choked.

“Awakened by a telephone call at an unearthly hour, which I don’t like,” Lagin added in venomous complaint. He cut those chilling eyes at me. “I told you, boy. I always keep close tabs on new members of the club.”

I looked from Sam Lagin to the money, and I went over to the couch, clutched the arm weakly, and sat down.

“How?” I asked. “You haven’t been around.”

“Spies, boy. I keep the club shot full of spies. You haven’t made a move without my knowing.”

My teeth clicked together. Feeling surged through me. Almost as great as my sense of loss was the anger I suddenly felt for Porter Attics. The rotten stoolie! Tipping Lagin off to everything I did or said.

Grizzly mean, Lagin stood before me, hands on hips. “I see you guessed about Porter Attics, boy. Now there’s a man who values his parole, just as you should. You lifted a few with him tonight.”

“You know I did!” I said, my throat filled with the bitterest frustration.