Стивен Хантер - G-Man

“There’s an old hunting saying that might figure in here,” Charles said. “Hunters say, ‘Get as close as you can, then a little closer.’ So that’s what I’d do, outside the theater, still plenty of street light, no suspicions about him. I’d move a small team in from behind, get almost within contact distance, then, guns drawn, call him down. Hands go up or triggers are pulled. So close in, we won’t hit nobody else, unless it’s a through and through, but it probably won’t be with handgun velocities. So what everyone else has to commit to is discipline. If you see him, don’t draw and shoot, don’t jump for him or move aggressively. He’s as touchy as a jackrabbit. Let the arrest team move in quietly until they’re almost in his pocket. Even if he’s fast, he can’t beat a drawn gun.”

Sam’s decision was more political than practical.

“When he’s in and seated and the show is on, Mel will wander in and see if he can be located. If he’s near an aisle and there’s some maneuver room, then we’ll go that way. If he’s not, then we’ll wait.”

So now they stood, smoking, trying to keep their feet from falling asleep, handkerchiefs out to wipe the accumulated sweat from the brow. Zarkovich kept up a steady chatter, mostly about what he was going to do with the reward money, what kind of big car he’d get, maybe one of the new auto transmissions where there was no clutch, you just pushed a button or pulled a lever. He also thought maybe not black. Cars weren’t all black anymore. You could get any color you wanted, any color of the rainbow. Why not a nice yellow car?

But at that point — it was about 8:45 p.m. — it was a black car that pulled up, a government Ford. Clegg was behind the open window on the passenger side.

“Cowley just got a call from the Sage woman. They’re not coming here. They’re going to another one, the Biograph, on Lincoln. Get in, we’ll hop over.”

“Where’s the Biograph?” said Charles.

“A couple miles away. On Lincoln. Come on.”

Of course that meant all the plans were atomized. No one had seen, much less mapped, diagrammed, thought critically about, the Biograph. It means the whole thing would have to be made up on the fly.

“We’ll leave a few here, just in case, and in the meantime try and drop fellows over at the Biograph in ones and twos. I don’t know how much time we have.”

“Fewer might just be better,” said Charles.

“I’m dropping you a half block away. Sam’s in Brewer’s Menswear, the back room, with his people. You check in with him, see how he wants to play it.”

“Where’s Purvis?”

“He’s already there. He’s seen Sage, so he’s a key. He can make her out and get the ball rolling, one way or the other.”

Charles didn’t say: I saw her too. I smelled her.

“How about Hollis and Hurt?”

“I haven’t got them yet.”

“Get them next. I want them close by,” said Charles, and as a consequence got a sharp look from Clegg, who didn’t like his tone, his assumption of command, his closeness to Sam, and, presumably, Charles himself, and his taciturn sheriff ways.

Clegg left them off on Lincoln, and like Madison, it was a jam-up on Saturday night, in the dead summertime, with traffic clogged, lots of pedestrian action, a batch of bars all busy and smoky, and the marquee of the Biograph— Manhattan Melodrama , Charles noted — blaring brightly, filling the night with its brightness. COOL INSIDE, it said on a banner hanging from the front of the marquee.

The whole scene had an odd not-Chicago feeling to it. The buildings on both sides of the street were but two stories tall — all manner of bars, retail, honky-tonks — all aswarm, but there was nothing of that looming-city sense of tall towers closing out the sky. It could have been Saturday night in a Texas cattle town, with all the cowboys in for a night of hard drinking and, if lucky, soft rubbing. People milled and jostled, smoked, bumped, smiled, tried to find space at a new bar, celebrated the death of Prohibition by acquiring a happy, drifting buzz no matter the heat. Cow town all the way, with cars instead of horses, octane instead of methane.

Charles and the momentarily quiet Zarkovich slipped into the menswear place, walked between aisles of coats and piles of shirts, and slipped in the back, where they found Purvis and Sam, five or six others, gathered around a blackboard on which an awkward map of the theater had been inscribed.

“Okay,” said Sam, “glad you made it.”

“Ready to get this done,” said Charles.

“We’ve got a real solid ID, with a girl and Mrs. Sage buying tickets for the eight-thirty show. I saw them from the car,” said Purvis. “He was big as life. He looks a little, uh, different. The face is sort of blurred, but it’s still him, you’d have to be drunk not to see it.”

Charles nodded.

“What time does the show end?”

“Ten-thirty.”

All checked watches, saw that the movie had little more than an hour to run.

“Mel, what about taking him inside?” asked Cowley.

“I walked in and didn’t spot him. I can’t say where he’s sitting. I could go in again and get an exact location.”

“No sir,” said Charles, out of order but sound enough. “Too much hunt in that dog. He’d spook easy and then we lose our surprise and the whole thing goes into the crapper.”

“I think Charles is right,” said Sam. He paused, to think on it a bit, as the gathered agents — a few more had come in — waited. Finally Hurt and Hollis showed and moved toward Charles.

“Best thing,” Sam said, having worked it out, “is to take him on the street when the show lets out. I see it like this, but please improve on it if you can. Mel, you are up near the box office, maybe a little to the left. You’re eyeballing the crowd. When you spot him, you light up a stogie, and we’ll see that and from that we can locate him. With two women, one young, one middling, him being in straw hat, white shirt, tan slacks, white suedes, we should have no trouble. I’m guessing he turns left and begins to amble down Lincoln. Charles, I want you to the immediate left of the theater with Hurt. Is Hurt here yet?”

“I’m here, sir,” Hurt said.

“Okay, you move in on him from the rear. I’ll put Hollis there too, and he can join the two of you as you get in close for the collar. Guns away, please. I’m afraid someone will see the gun too early and scream and it’ll go bad. So the guns don’t come into play until the very last second.”

“If he sees us, he might draw. I’ll have to draw against him,” said Charles.

“Is that a worry? Are you fast enough?”

“Charles is so fast, it seems to be over before it starts,” Hollis said, and there was some laughter.

“Fine,” said Sam. “Good to have the gunfighter on our side, for a change. Anyhow, I’ll be across the street with Detective Zarkovich and reinforcements en masse. I’ll put two men in the alley about forty yards down from the theater, but I want them alert, and when they see your little parade approaching, they break cover and start moving against the crowd toward Johnny. When you converge, you call him out, Charles, and hopefully his hands go up and all of you can get him cuffed before he gets anything out of that pocket.”

He paused, still thinking.

“My one worry is the Chicago guys. They don’t know we’re here, and if anyone notices a lot of us, they might show up. So you cannot get into it with them. If they show, you have to play it cool. And refer them to me, if necessary. We don’t need five hundred uniforms with shotguns showing up in the middle of our arrest. Anybody got any questions?”

Nobody did.

It was now around 10. In ones and twos, the agents deployed themselves at the designated spots along the street, in the alleys and doorways, across from the Biograph and in parked cars along the busy road. The heat hadn’t broken, but it had fallen off its perch a bit and, at 97, it now seemed cool. Above, no moon, but clear black sky, ribbons of dim stars bleached out by the hot lights of Lincoln and its spangled array of nighttime action.