Ed Lacy - The Best That Ever Did It
At that moment half a dozen “mailmen” suddenly came running down the ramp, all of them with guns drawn. One of them snapped, “Keep your hands in sight, or we'll drill you!”
The little cabbie went pale, asked, “What the hell is this?”
They were quickly frisked and didn't have any guns. Danny came tapping up the ramp, said, “Neither of them is Brown.”
The cabbies were explaining how and why they'd come, and the dicks herded them out, removed their cab. The last I saw of them, they were being hustled into the post office across the street.
One of the “mailmen” returned, said, “Don't be such a hero, Harris. This was a false alarm, but next time have your gun handy.”
“You bet,” I said, feeling for the holster. When the guy left I closed the overhead door, ran over to the Olds and picked up the holster and the .38 from the front seat.
I walked over to Danny and I was still sweating as I said, “That was almost it.”
He started to laugh, deep belly laughter. “Jeez, them two hackies must think the world has gone nuts! Mail carriers pulling guns on 'em! What they going to do with them now?”
“I don't know. Have to hold them, or the word will get out that the whole deal is a setup. Damn, my heart is still beating wildly.”
“I knew it wasn't them soon as I heard 'em,” Danny said. “Hey, got any beer hidden around here?”
I said no and he asked for a cigarette, and we smoked in silence for a few minutes. The phone rang. An FBI guy with a crisp voice told me Irv would drive into the garage at six-thirty. Two cars would escort me as I drove Irv home in the jeep. I told him to honk twice, and I'd open the overhead door for Irv. When I hung up, I got into the jeep, had just about turned it around when there were two cough-like sounds, and then the light tinkle of glass as the garage lights went out.
For a moment I didn't realize what had happened, that the lights had been shot out with silencers. I switched on the jeep lights and for a split second saw the two men on the ramp, then the orange flame flashes, and the sound of the headlights breaking as they went out. Another flash and the windshield splintered, and I dived out of the jeep and nearly kayoed myself on the cement floor. It took me a long second to come to, get my wind back. I tugged at the .38, finally got it out. The garage was pitch black and tense with silence. I heard the small noise of somebody crawling toward me, and a terrible chill filled my guts till Danny's big hand squeezed mine.
Now I heard steps slowly coming down the ramp as Danny put his lips in my ear, whispered, “Stay put, I'll get 'em.”
“The alarm buttons,” I started to say, but his thick fingers closed my mouth and I could taste the tobacco stains on his hand. He crawled away and I swear I thought he was chuckling.
My head hurt; I was bruised all over—maybe that's why it took me a moment to get things straight. In the darkness we were all “blind”—all except Danny. His ears could “see.” But even if he got his mitts on one of them, the other would be sure to plug him.
I tried thinking hard and fast, but for the life of me (and that wasn't any damn pun!) I couldn't remember in the darkness where the hell the posts were with the alarm buttons.
I hugged the floor as if I was trying to make a dent in the cement and waited. Then I told myself I had to help Danny— he sure couldn't take the two of them, and there was no point in my lying there like a dead duck. I got up on my knees—behind the jeep—found a wrench in my pocket that had cut my thigh when I dived on the floor. Gripping the gun, I threw the wrench with my left toward the far corner of the garage. When it hit I saw a spurt of orange over to my left and I fired at it and there was a shrill cry of pain and the sound of a body falling!
Two more angry flashes of flame split the darkness as the slugs struck the jeep, like two hammer blows. I hit the cement again, so surprised at my luck in hitting one of them I didn't know what to do. The last shots had come from a spot more to my right, but I wasn't certain exactly where and couldn't chance any wild shots. I might hit Danny. I could hear steps coming toward the jeep—the guy was off the ramp—slow careful steps. I got to my knees, got up in a half crouch, and waited.
The sound of the steps was slight but very clear in the heavy silence. The only relief from the blackness was the vague and dim squares that were the garage windows. The steps came nearer; the guy was walking very carefully and deliberately in the darkness. I raised the gun, pointed it in the direction of the steps... and then there was this terrible scream of agony that split the silence like painful thunder and Danny's yell, “Got the bastard!”
I stood up and fired three times at the garage windows—to call for help—and missed. The lights on the Olds should work —the new battery was still in—and I ran in that direction and fell flat on my face over something. I sat up, knew my arm and the side of my face were bleeding. My head felt as if somebody had sat on it. I yelled, “Looking for lights, Danny!” and climbed to my feet and limped forward. I walked right smack into the goddam Olds, cutting my right shin and knocking the wind out of my guts, but I got the door open, felt along the dashboard. Then the lights flooded the garage, washing out the darkness.
At the foot of the ramp a man was sitting up, a bald-headed man with blood running out of his right side, while a few feet from the jeep Danny had those tremendous arms wrapped around a little guy, who had the whitest face I ever want to see. I limped over, my gun covering him, told Danny to let go. The guy fell to the floor like he was dead.
Picking up his gun, I went over to the other guy, who was moaning softly, his legs kicking in pain. I got his gun. I fired at one of the garage windows again, my gun making a hell of a racket—although I hadn't heard it before—and missed. I felt awful dizzy, looked around wildly for the alarm buttons. Then Danny walked over to the ramp, and slowly started foot-tapping his way toward the overhead door. When he reached it, he jerked it up so hard he busted the door. He shouted once and a moment later “mailmen” with guns came running in. That was it.
I'd winged “Smith” with a lucky shot while Danny had jumped “Brown.” Of the two, it turned out Brown was hurt the worst—Danny had crushed five of his ribs in that bear hug. The rest I guess you read about—it was splattered over enough papers. Their real names were Martin Pearson and Sam Lund, a couple of ex-G.I.'s who tried to make it the easy way, only it turned out they spelled easy h-a-r-d. These two had met in Paris, worked out this passport scheme. They had picked up ten birth certificates, three in Boston, two in Newark, one in Chicago, and four in New York City, and already had eight passports ready for sale. They confessed—there wasn't much else for them to do. Andersun's luck turned their scheme from a quiet swindle into murder. Turner had walked into it; they didn't even know he was a cop when he stepped out of the dark of his car.
I guess you've seen Danny's ugly face on TV. He was picked to be on a TV show the night the case broke and he stole the show with a couple of corny strongman acts—breaking chains and all that. He was on various TV shows for quite a while, and, all told, picked up several grand.
As for me, Al Swan figured he could retire from the force and we'd open a big-time agency on the strength of all the publicity I got. He slipped me the pitch the day after the case was over, when for the first time in my life I was cut and badly bruised, felt sort of beaten up. So I told him I was sticking to fixing cars and skip-tracing and if he ever pushed another criminal case my way, I'd break his neck, or maybe hurt him worse by ripping one of his fancy suits to pieces. The hell with this rough stuff.
P.S.
“Will we get married? I don't know. I don't think so. Now wait, don't stiffen up like that. Honey, you've lived too much by the so-called rules of life—but the phony rules, not the real ones. I mean, are you even sure you really want to marry me? Don't give me a quick answer—remember what you've been through. You got married; therefore according to the rules of soap operas, books, TV, and the movies, all your troubles were over, because people who get married are supposed to live happily ever after.
“Now that you're single again, the idea is to get married as quickly as possible, for deep down you still believe marriage must mean happiness. And I'm the first guy that came along, and also you feel sorry for me because I seem to be such a noble creature raising my little girl all by myself.
“No, Betsy, don't get me wrong. I'm trying to tell you this as calmly and clearly as I can, and that isn't easy. I don't want us to make a mistake, because the way I see it, a wrong marriage is about the biggest mistake two people can make. I know, I'm not an old man, but I am settled and not ready to go through growing up all over again. Baby, you're young and full of a lot of corny, and even younger ideas. Well—I can be dead wrong about all this, and I'd be eager to get a license tomorrow if I was sure it would bring us happiness. But this is marriage you want, not my bringing up another kid.
“Wait up, honey, let me finish. Maybe in time we'll know we're really meant for each other, trite as that sounds. Understand, I'm not running you down. I admire your courage in going through with this, insisting upon learning if Ed was a suicide and if you were responsible. In a way that was another of your phony rules, but most people would have taken the easy out, kept quiet, forced the suicide angle from their minds. Took guts to do what you did. No, 'guts' is one of the phony words. It took sincere courage and honesty to do what you did, and I admire that.
“And that's what I'm trying to do, be honest with you—and myself. As of now, I like you and you like me. Only 'like' isn't love. I don't even want to use the word love, because I don't exactly know what that is—maybe another of the phony labels we use. But at least you know—we know—that something was twisted in Ed's mind. That's another of your rules that don't work—a man and a woman don't hit it off just because they are a man and a woman. A ...”
Betsy was listening with her eyes closed and now sat up in bed and said almost sharply, “All right, Barney, but please, let's not argue about that now. May Weiss will be furious if you're not home by midnight.”
