Росс Томас - Cast a Yellow Shadow

I studied the houses next to it as Magda and I walked down the sidewalk. They were built from the same plans, but their windows were blank and staring. They were vacant. Some old newspapers were piled on their porches. A broken green tricycle with only one rear wheel rusted in the bare earth yard of the house on the right.

Concrete steps led from the sidewalk up the terrace. We took them, Magda going first, holding her purse with both hands. I looked back. Nineball and Johnny Jay were walking down the other side of the street making a show of looking at house numbers. Hardman and Tulip were doing the same thing on our side of the street, about thirty feet behind us.

We climbed the four steps to the porch. There was no bell, so I knocked on the door, standing to the right of Magda. There was no answer and I knocked again. Louder. The door opened about three inches.

“I beg your pardon,” Magda said, “but I’m to pick up some furniture and I’m having trouble locating number 1537.”

The door opened wider and a man’s voice said: “This is 1523.”

She took the gun out of her purse quickly and pointed it at him and said: “Open the door all the way and move back.”

I reached for the screen door, but it was fastened. I had the revolver out of my coat pocket. “Unfasten the door,” I said.

The man made no move to do so, and I had to open the screen door by jerking the hook and eye that held it shut out of its fastening. I got the screen open and hit the wooden door with my shoulder. I went through fast. A heavyset man in shirtsleeves with long brown hair was backing away from me, his right hand moving towards his right hip pocket. He was backing down a hall.

I waved my gun at him and said: “One more step and it goes off.” He stopped. The hall ran to the rear of the house. To the left, along the wall, a flight of stairs led up to the second floor. To the right was what seemed to be the living room. Two men broke quickly out of it, both carrying guns.

“Watch your right,” Magda snapped and shot one of the men in the stomach. He looked surprised and dropped his gun. It was an automatic. Then he sat down on the floor and held his stomach. The other man stopped and stood with his automatic in his hand, looking down at his friend on the floor.

“You shot him,” he said, and there was a note of incredulity in his voice. Something flashed by my left side and I turned in time to see Hardman’s big back with “Four-Square Movers” stitched across it in red thread going in low at the heavyset man with the long brown hair. The man had a gun out of his hip pocket by then and he tried to bring it down on Hardman’s head, but the knife in the big Negro’s right hand went into his side and the man screamed instead and dropped the gun.

Hardman got up and looked at the knife in his hand and shook his head slightly. Then he looked around as if for something to wipe it on and when he didn’t find anything he knelt down and wiped it on the man’s trousers. The man was moaning.

I turned to the one with the gun in his hand. He still held it, but it was pointed at the floor, dangling as if it were forgotten.

“Where are the two women?” I said.

“You shot him,” the man said to Magda. “He was my friend.” He had an accent like Darragh’s and Boggs’s. The man that Magda had shot lay on the floor and twitched. He was still holding his stomach, but he made no sound.

“Johnny Jay, you and Tulip get out on the porch and yell if you see somethin,” Hardman told them. They moved through the door.

“Where are the two women?” I said again.

“Upstairs,” the man said. Nineball reached out and took the gun away from him. The man didn’t seem to notice.

“Anyone else upstairs?” I said.

“No.”

“I’ll go with you,” Magda said.

I nodded and started up the stairs. They were covered with a grey carpet that was worn through on the edge of the risers. The wallpaper was of impossibly pale roses with faded green stems and leaves. Only the thorns looked real.

I kept the revolver in my right hand as we went up. At the top, I turned right. There were three doors, one of them open and leading into a bathroom. I tried the second door; it opened into an empty bedroom. The third door was locked, but there was a key in it. I turned the key and pushed the door open wide and moved into the room quickly.

Sylvia Underhill sat in a chair between twin beds. She had a washcloth in her hand. She looked up, her eyes wide with fear and perhaps anger. Fredl lay on a bed, fully clothed except for her shoes. Her eyes were closed. She seemed asleep.

“Is she all right?” I asked.

“She’s drugged,” Sylvia said. “It’s been awful and I got so frightened.” She twisted the washcloth nervously in her hands. I moved to the bed and looked down at Fredl and put my hand on her forehead. It was too warm.

“I think she has fever,” Sylvia said.

I put the revolver in the pocket of my topcoat and sat on the bed and held Fredl’s wrist. I could feel her pulse and it was slow but steady enough. Her face was pale and her blond hair was spread out on the pillow.

“Are you all right?” I asked Sylvia.

“Yes,” she said, but her voice didn’t sound convincing.

“It’s over now,” I said.

“Not quite, McCorkle.” It was Magda talking to me from across the room. I turned and looked at her. She stood by the door with the automatic in her hand. It looked like a Beretta. She held it steadily; there was no tremor in her hand.

“We’re going to stay here for two more hours — you, me, your wife and Miss Underhill. You’ll send the others away.”

I just kept sitting on the bed. “You’ll notice my gun is not aimed at you,” she said. “It’s aimed at your wife. If you try anything, I’ll shoot her. And if you’re still moving, I’ll shoot you in the kneecap which is quite painful, but most effective.”

“In two hours, Van Zandt will be dead, right?”

“Right.”

“You teamed with Dymec,” I said. I made it a statement, not an accusation.

“There was so much money involved.”

“Why shoot the guy downstairs?”

“He didn’t know who I was. Why should he?”

“Now what?”

“Now you walk carefully over to that door. Open it and call down to your friends. Tell them that you’ll take care of your wife and the Underhill child. Tell them to leave and to take the unwounded man with them. And to keep him safe.”

“Anything else?”

“If they ask about you, tell them that the girl and I are helping to dress your wife. We’ll take her in the Cadillac when she’s dressed.”

I continued to sit on the bed.

“Move,” she said. The automatic didn’t waver. I got up and walked over to the door and opened it. Magda backed so that she had me in full view. I was in front of her, Fredl was to her left. Sylvia was to her left and slightly behind.

“Hardman,” I called.

“Yo!”

“They’re getting Fredl dressed.”

“She O.K.?”

“She’s O.K. You four take off. Take the guy that’s not hurt with you. Leave the others. I’ll meet you at Betty’s. You got it?”

“What you want me to do with him?”

“Keep him someplace safe.”

“You need any help with Fredl?”

“No.”

“We’re leavin then.”

Magda nodded. “Keep the door open,” she said. “I want to hear them leave.”

I kept it open until she could hear the front door downstairs close.

“Now you may go over and sit in the corner, McCorkle, like a good boy.”

“Which corner?”

“The one just behind you. But first, you have a revolver in your coat pocket. I want you to take it out very slowly and put in on the floor.”