Роберт Беллем - Pulp Frictions

The two Railway Express men dumped their box inside the vestibule on the opposite side of the court, and turning, drew their guns. In the alley at the rear, three detectives on an odoriferous garbage truck and two more detectives on a junkman’s wagon, all became embroiled in a vituperative argument, which made it necessary for them to descend and gather opposite the back stairways.

A milkman came along the hall. He wore white and had an account-book, but his name was Detective Kerry. Silently the four other officers crept down the hall beside him. Kerry jangled bottles in the little wire basket he carried. ‘Git along, little dogies ,’ said Chet Hemingway’s radio, ‘git along—’

They were on each side of the door of apartment 327. Nick Glennan pressed the little pearly button; Ricardi motioned for Kerry to jangle his bottles again, and under cover of the musical tinkle he made ready with his machine gun.

They heard a distant, blatting of the kitchen buzzer; that was Horn.

‘Milkman,’ chanted Detective Kerry.

‘Laun-dry...’ droned Detective Horn, far around the corner.

‘...Laaast Round-Up... git along, little dogies...’ Somewhere inside there was a woman’s voice, and a man replied.

‘Who’s there?’

‘Milk-mannn...’

The door opened a crack. Cohen reached up with his foot and shoved it back; the man inside was Two-faced Tomsk, and if indeed he had possessed two faces he couldn’t have looked any more surprised.

‘Stick ’em up, Tomsk,’ whispered Glennan. ‘You haven’t got a chance.’

They heard Sergeant Dave Glennan’s voice from the kitchen door: ‘Look out, Horn!’ and they heard the sharp report of a small automatic. Lil wasn’t taking any chances, either — she must have carried a gun with her when she went to the door.

Two-faced Tomsk threw himself forward in a dive, wrenching out his revolver as he came. Scummy Heras had been lying flat on the high-backed davenport, out of sight, but he came up with a .45 in each hand.

Tomsk had fired once and his bullet went between Kerry’s arm and the side of his body, and then Tomsk continued forward to the floor with two of young Nick Glennan’s Police Positive souvenirs in his head.

Scummy Heras was more of a problem. The stool pigeon hadn’t lied when he talked about bullet-proof vests. Ricardi’s machine gun dusted the davenport in a quick staccato, but all it did was bruise Heras’ ribs. One of the gangster’s guns was empty by that time; he had put a bullet through Barney Flynn’s chest, and a lot more too close for anybody’s comfort.

Through the kitchenette and little hallway, Sergeant Dave Glennan and Laundryman Horn came roaring in a flank attack. ‘Drop it, Scummy,’ they were yelling, but Scummy didn’t mind worth a cent. He was backed against the French windows, and he kept going as long as he could. A fistful of slugs from Dave’s sawn-off mashed him back against the yielding windows — the panes went crackling to bits, and Heras’ body dropped, turning and twisting, to the paved court three storeys below.

But where was Mr Chester Hemingway, who had slain men in Chicago, Kansas City and points east and west? When the screaming roar of exploded cartridges died down, the little radio was still mourning about the lonesome prairies, but Chet Hemingway wasn’t around. Nick Glennan tripped over an upset chair and raced on into the sun parlour; his brother and Horn were diving into bedrooms, and from every stairway came a thunder of feet as the squads converged on apartment 327. But Chet Hemingway was not at home to receive them.

Nick flashed one baffled glance around the sun parlour. There was the radio, and there was Chet’s half-burned cigarette already scorching the carpet, and there was— Nick swore, heartily. He climbed up on the table and stepped from there on top of the radiator. A square hole had been sawn in the ceiling, and through that hole it was evident that Hemingway had gone soaring.

‘Two apartments,’ Nick sobbed to himself. ‘Two! And nobody had an idea about it — 327–427, right upstairs — to hell with that stool pigeon—’

He thrust his hands through the ragged opening and found solid wood still warm and slippery from the clutch of Chet Hemingway’s hands. He hauled himself up into apartment 427. A scraping sound, somewhere — and, sure, he might have had a bullet through his head if Chet Hemingway had lingered to give it to him...

The apartment was furnished, like the one below, but it was evident at a glance that no one lived here. They had rented it for only one purpose — the very purpose which it had served. With a little more warning, the whole gang would have climbed through that square hole and disappeared.

The door into the hallway was wide open — Nick ground his teeth. A ladder stood against the wall at the end of the hall, and a trap in the roof was opened. To think that those devils would have anticipated the whole thing — ladder and all! He paused only to bellow at the men below him, and then swarmed up the ladder.

He came out into a glare of cold sunlight, and a bullet screeched beside the trap door. Nick Glennan growled, and raised his gun. On the next roof but one, a slim figure in white shirt and black pants was vaulting over a three-foot barrier. Nick had one unexploded shell left in his cylinder. He spread his feet wide apart and took careful aim; the gun banged. The distant figure fell forward, recovered its balance, and sprinted ahead with tom shirt fluttering.

‘Those vests,’ sighed Nick, ‘those inventions of the devil... and to think he wore it under his shirt...’ All this time he was racing across the gravel and jumping narrow chasms and leaping low walls, like a runaway maniac. He came to the last building of the row, and looked over the edge to see that mocking figure dropping from the last rung of the fire escape. Nick whistled; he yelled and beckoned to the other cops who were swarming out of the distant trap door; he threw a perfectly good gun which smashed on the pavement, missing Chet Hemingway’s head by six inches.

But it was all too late, now. Hemingway went up on one side of a taxicab; he thrust his gun against the driver... The detectives started after him one minute later, but that minute made about a mile’s difference. And in crowded city streets, a mile is a mile. Still chewing and swallowing, Hemingway rode out of the detectives’ lives. Temporarily...

For all the secrecy with which this coup was planned, there had been a leak somewhere in the department. The press had been tipped off, and for once the press had not gummed things up. Men from the News Detail and Tribune came swarming eagerly into the building from Dorchester Avenue; already flashlight bulbs were flashing in the dim courts and alleyways, and reporters were clamouring.

Inspector Bourse and Chief of Detectives Moore fought their way through the crowd and up to apartment 327. With grim satisfaction they contemplated the prone body of Two-faced Tomsk and the shattered window where Scummy Heras had taken his last tumble. But when they looked around, hopefully, for another corpse — and found it — they were not so pleased. Miss Lily Denardo was the other corpse.

‘Well,’ said the old Inspector. He looked down at the pretty white face and the ridiculous folds of stained crepe-de-chine which swathed the slim figure. ‘How’d this happen?’

Sergeant Dave Glennan’s jowls trembled slightly. ‘I don’t know. I’m afraid it was me.’

‘Had a gun, eh?’ Bourse’s foot touched the little automatic. ‘I don’t think we’ll be blaming you for this, Dave me boy.’

The sergeant said, ‘That wasn’t it. She did take a crack at Horn and me, but her gun jammed or something. Just one shot and no more. She started in here — Scummy was shooting at the whole world, and I ups with my shotgun—’