Len Deighton - Twinkle Twinkle Little Spy

‘I’ll look after her,’ I said.

‘And I’ll say good night,’ he said. ‘It was a real pleasure playing against you, Miss Bancroft. I just hope you’ll give me a chance to get even sometime.’

Red Bancroft smiled and nodded, and then she smiled at me.

‘Now let’s get out of here,’ I whispered.

She gripped my arm, and just as the man looked back at us, kissed my cheek. Whether it was nice timing, or just impulse, was too early to say but I took the opportunity to hold her tight and kiss her back. Tony Nowak’s domestic servants found something needing their attention in the lounge.

‘Have you been drinking buttermilk?’ said Red.

It was a long time before we got out to the landing. The intruder alarm man was still there, fuming about the non-arrival of the elevator. It arrived almost at the same moment that we did.

‘Everything goes right for those in love,’ said the alarm man. I warmed to him.

‘You have a car?’ he asked. He bowed us into the elevator ahead of him.

‘We do,’ I said. He pressed the button for ground level and the numbers began to flicker.

‘This is no city for moonlight walks,’ he told me. ‘Not even here in Park Avenue.’

We stopped and the elevator doors opened.

Like so many scenes of mortal danger, each constituent part of this one was very still. I saw everything, and yet my brain took some time to relate the elements in any meaningful way.

The entrance hall of the apartment block was brightly lit by indirect strip-lighting set into the ceiling. A huge vaseful of plastic flowers trembled from the vibration of some subterranean furnace, and a draught of cold wind from the glass entrance door carried with it a few errant flakes of snow. The dark brown floor carpet, chosen perhaps to hide dirty footmarks from the street, now revealed caked snow that had fallen from visitors’ shoes.

The entrance hall was not empty. There were three men there, all wearing the sort of dark raincoats and peaked hats that are worn by uniformed drivers. One of them had his foot jammed into the plate-glass door at the entrance. He had his back to us and was looking towards the street. The nearest man was opposite the doors of the elevator. He had a big S & W Heavy-Duty .38 in his fist, and it was pointing at us.

‘Freeze,’ he said. ‘Freeze, and nobody gets hurt. Slow now! Bring out your bill-fold.’

We froze. We froze so still that the elevator doors began to close on us. The man with the gun stamped a large boot into the door slot, and motioned us to step out. I stepped forward carefully keeping my hands raised and in sight.

‘If it’s money you want,’ said the alarm manufacturer, ‘take my wallet, and welcome to it.’ He was frantically reaching into the breast pocket of his camel-hair overcoat.

The alarm manufacturer’s voice was such a plaintive whine of terror that the man with the gun smiled. He turned his head so that the third gunman could see him smiling. And then his friend smiled too.

There were two shots: deafening thumps that echoed in the narrow lobby and left behind a whiff of burned powder. The man with the gun screeched. His eyes popped wide open, he gasped and coughed blood. There was a brief moment before the pistol hit the carpet with a thump, and its owner slid slowly down the wall, leaving a long smudge of blood. Red Bancroft gripped my arm so hard that it hurt. The second shot hit the man watching the stairs. It went in at the shoulder, and smashed his clavicle. He threw his gun down and grabbed his elbow. They say that’s the only way you can ease the pain of a fractured collar-bone. He couldn’t run very fast with that sort of wound. That’s why the alarm manufacturer had time enough to put his gun up to eye level. He got him in the spine with the third shot. It was enough to tumble him full length on to scattered particles of impacted snow and the plastic sheet that had been put down in the outer lobby to protect the carpet. He died with his head resting on the word ‘Welcome’. There wasn’t much blood.

It was the body of that second man that obstructed me as I opened the glass door. It had an electric solenoid lock. I had to push the override.

The intruder alarm man collided with me in the doorway but we both scrambled out into the street in time to see the third man running. He was hatless now and halfway across the avenue. I heard a car being started. The alarm man raised his gun for a shot at him but slid on the ice and lost his balance. He tumbled. There was a clatter and a curse as he fell against a parked car. I ran out into the empty roadway. On the far side of the avenue the door of a black Mercedes opened to receive the gunman. The Mercedes leapt forward while the door was still open. I saw a flurry of arms, and one leg trailed, and cut a pattern in the snow, before the man was inside and the door closed. As the Mercedes reached the cross-street intersection, the driver switched his lights on.

‘Fulton County plate,’ said the voice of the intruder alarm man. ‘Did you see that? It was a car from Fulton County. Did you get the number?’

He was breathless from the tumble he’d taken, and I was breathless too.

‘Three digits and FC,’ I said. ‘It was too dirty to get it.’

‘Goddamned weather,’ said the man. ‘I would have plinked him but for that damned patch of ice.’ He turned and we walked back to the lobby.

‘I think you would,’ I said.

He slapped me on the back. ‘Thanks for taking his attention, young feller,’ he said.

‘Is that what I did?’

‘Raising your hands and acting scared … that took his attention. And that was cool.’ He stepped over the body that was sprawled in the doorway. I followed him.

‘Spread that around,’ I said. ‘But just between the two of us – I wasn’t acting.’

The alarm man laughed. It was the strangled sort of laugh that releases a lot of suppressed tension. He toyed with the .38 revolver that was still in his hand. It was a blue-finish Colt Agent, with the hammer shroud that prevented it from snagging when drawn from a pocket. He must have thumb-cocked the hammer, for there had been no time for double action between the movement of his hand and the sound of his shots.

‘I’d put that away,’ I said. ‘Put it out of sight before the cops arrive.’

‘I’ve got a permit,’ he said indignantly. ‘In fact, I’m president of my local gun club.’

‘They come down the street and see you standing over two corpses with a hot shooter in your hand they are likely to shoot first and check the permits afterwards.’

He put the gun away but not before bringing the next loaded chamber into position. He unbuttoned his overcoat and jacket, to place his gun into a highly decorative Berns-Martin spring-grip shoulder-holster. As we got back to the lobby Mann arrived with Tony Nowak.

‘You stupid bastard,’ said Mann to the alarm manufacturer although I had the feeling that some overfill was intended to splash on to me.

‘What am I supposed to do,’ said the alarm man, looking in a mirror and combing his hair, ‘let those punks drill me? I’d be the laughing-stock of the whole intruder alarm business.’

‘They’re both dead,’ said Mann. ‘You shot to kill.’

The alarm man turned to look at Mann. Then he looked at the two corpses and back to Mann again. For a moment I thought he was going to express satisfaction at what he’d done but he knew too much about the law to do that. ‘Well, that’s something you’d better talk about with my lawyer,’ he said finally. Some of the bubbly elation that always follows such danger was now fading, leaving him flat and a little frightened.

Mann caught my eye. ‘No, I’m getting out of here,’ he said.

‘I’m not Wyatt Earp,’ said the man. ‘I can’t shoot guns out of guys’ hands.’