by Jerry eBooks
“Maybe you’ll be buying into trouble and don’t know it,” Pellini said evenly. “If a case comes up to you, say, today or tomorrow, I’m tellin’ you to keep out of it.”
“Will you get the hell out of here?” Larry said very softly.
“Sure! Sure! But we ain’t done talkin’.”
“You’ve talked too much already.” Pellini got deliberately to his feet, took a half-step back and started to pull something from his inner breast pocket. Larry saw a black, woven leather handle and came out of his chair! He made a quick stride forward, then stout arms clamped through his arms from behind. Pellini got his sap clear and stepped in.
Larry did a number of things all about the same time. His right heel dug back hard, struck something and slid down. There was a sharp yell in his ears. He ducked as Pellini swung! The sap came down over his head, landed on something with a thud and the weight began to leave Larry’s back. But already his long legs were churning and his shoulder was in Pellini’s stomach.
They shot across the room in a way that was old stuff to Larry. The partition stopped them, although it split from top to bottom.
Pellini’s right arm was flailing. Larry reached up both hands, grabbed the man’s swarthy face and began to pound Pellini’s head against the wood. It didn’t last long. Pellini slumped and Larry let him fall to the floor. He picked up the sap, pulled a pistol from Pellini’s pocket and was stooping over Krantz in the same occupation when Elsie Garland came in. For some reason which she probably didn’t know, she had both hands up fixing her hair. She goggled around.
“Hm-m-m,” she said. “Are you going to kick the goal?”
Larry grinned around at her. “That’s an idea,” he said. “Clear the goal posts.”
Krantz had got to a sitting position and was trying to put his feet under him. Larry lifted him by the collar with one hand, caught the slack of his trousers with the other and treated him to a Spanish walk to the outer door then swung his right foot hard. Krantz came down on his knees across the corridor. Larry caught a glimpse of another man in the corridor, but he had more business inside.
Pellini was already on his feet. He tried to slide around Larry, but Larry’s left hand caught him and twisted him around. His right fist slammed into the small of Pellini’s back, and he held it there until the bum’s rush ended at the outer door with another kick that landed Pellini beside his companion;
Larry saw a man disappearing into the washroom, but not before a yell of laughter came back to him. Larry wasn’t laughing when he went back to his desk. He scowled at Elsie perched on his desk and sizing up the damage.
“Never mind that, now,” he said. “Let’s think this thing out. Vivian Knapp offers me a job; these palookas tried to fix me so I couldn’t take it. I thought Pellini was talking to her downstairs. If I was sure he was or wasn’t I might make some sense out of it.”
Elsie cocked her head alertly.
“More customers,” she said and slid off the desk. Larry put the two pistols and the sap into a drawer and left it a little open.
“Show ’em right in,” he said grimly.
A moment later she came in with the opening door and let a solidly built man pass her. “Mr. Haynes,” she announced and went out.
Haynes looked to be thirty odd. He had an air of hard efficiency coupled with confident assurance.
“Got a little job for you, Mr. Clinton,” he said. “It needs a fellow who can kick a man ten feet if he has to, plus the lawyer end. I was in the hall, just now; you’re the man.”
“Who’s hiring?”
“Calso Processing Co.’s hiring me; I’m talking to you.”
“The job?”
“To take possession of a small test apparatus and the papers covering it. A chemist has been working for a long while on something of great interest to the industry. We’ve helped him financially and have rights, and, today, we learn he is finally successful.”
“Will he sell to you?” Larry asked.
“He’ll sell,” Haynes said slowly.
“Then why do you need me?”
“He’s been working in secret. No one knows where, but we’ll know in less than an hour now. We need a lawyer to pass immediately on the papers, and we’ll have to work fast.”
“Why the rush?”
Haynes laid an evening edition on the desk before Larry. It was the one he’d glanced at downstairs.
RECLUSE MYSTERIOUSLY
MURDERED
Horatio Farley done to death in impoverished home for no discoverable reason. He lived—
“What about it?” Larry asked, a little uncomfortably.
“All we know,” Haynes said, “is that Farley was working for years on the same idea. We don’t think he had anything, but that shows the push is on.”
Haynes extracted two one-hundred-dollar bills from a fold and placed them on the desk where Larry could read the numbers.
“On the full completion of your part in the matter, Mr. Clinton, a thousand dollars will be paid you in cash. You can forget this retainer.”
A thought flashed into Larry’s mind. This could be the case Pellini and Krantz were worried about and not what Vivian Knapp might be going to offer him. He couldn’t exactly figure the girl in with those hoods; but, if she were, then it did make sense. Both added up to the same thing. She wanted a promise for his time; they tried to get that time for nothing.
He started to reach out his hand for the bills when the phone rang, and he grabbed the instrument, instead.
“Your booth still on the list?” Elsie Garland asked in low tone.
“Uh-huh.”
“Then get inside.” Larry nodded to Haynes and stepped into the booth after cradling his desk phone.
“Somebody calling for your girl friend,” Elsie said. There was a click and another voice spoke.
“This is Jerome Knapp. I understand that my niece has engaged your exclusive services for a few days, Mr. Clinton, and I’m calling to confirm it.”
There was something oily and suave about the man’s tone.
“I made no promise,” Larry said. “I told Miss Knapp I’d have to check my engagements first.”
“I trust you have done so. Now, if you don’t mind coming to my office, I will take up the matter with you. I’m paying you five hundred dollars if it runs to three days; more if beyond that time.”
Through the booth window Larry could see the two bills. Besides he’d made up his mind about the Knapps.
“I have done so,” he said, “and I won’t be free until tomorrow at the earliest.”
“A thousand dollars.”
“I still won’t be free.”
The oily voice got sarcastic and hard.
“At least wait in your office until I get an urgent messenger to you. He could make you change your mind.”
“I’ve already seen two,” Larry told him.
“What do you mean?”
“Have you two men named Pellini and Krantz, Mr. Knapp?”
“Repeat the names, please.”
Larry did so.
“I have many employees,” Knapp said, “but I recall no such names. Why?”
“I was going to tell you that you’d have to do better than that,” Larry said and hung up. He went back to the desk.
“You wouldn’t expect me to pass on patent rights offhand?” he asked Haynes.
There won’t even be applications until we make them. Christopher Galt is an eccentric old fellow.” The name struck a faint chord in Larry’s memory, but he couldn’t place it. Haynes was still speaking. “But when he says it works, we are satisfied to put money on the line.”
“What next?”
“Fine!” Haynes stood up. He gave no address. “Meet me in half an hour. With luck, you’ll have your thousand in a few hours.”
“Are you paying that?” Larry asked.
Haynes laughed easily. “All in legal form enough to please you, Mr. Clinton. You’ll sign a receipt for it on delivery.”
Larry frowned over that as Haynes went out. Elsie Garland came in. He gave her one of the bills.
“Get Steve, downstairs, to break this,” he told her. She was back in a few minutes, a little out of breath.
“Steve said those two men waited down there; then a man came to them and they went out in a hurry.”
“The plot thickens,” Larry said and grinned. “Here—I’m taking fifty, you take twenty-five and bank the rest.”
He gave her the little information he had. She looked at him with quizzical eyes.
“Haven’t you begun to think why this sudden interest in you?”
“They probably like my style,” Larry said and grinned.
“You champions are all the same,” she said tartly. “There is a kink in this business and you are right in the kink. I know it! If you had any sense—” The ringing phone interrupted her.
“Not a call in a month,” Larry gloated, “and now see them come.”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you.” She picked up the phone, then cupped the mouthpiece. “Vivian Knapp, and there’s trouble!”
He took it from her and gave his name.
“I beg you”—her voice was low and strained—“not to take that assignment for any inducement.
“I don’t exactly like your method, Miss Knapp,” Larry said coldly. “Your friends like to play rough.”
“I can explain that.” He could hardly hear her words, but he got their tenseness. “But this is mur—” The rest of the word was smothered, as if a hand had been clapped over her mouth; Larry thought he had heard the slap. There was a sharp click on the wire.
“Are you going?” Elsie Garland asked.
“For a thousand?”
“Damn you!” she said. “You should have a nurse.”
Larry opened the drawer, considered the advisability of taking one of the guns or the sap, then decided against both.
“I’ll call you later,” he said, “and tell you what we’ll do with the thousand.”
She made a face at him.
CHAPTER II.
MURDER IN THE MAKING!
Going down in the elevator, he thought of Vivian Knapp. It didn’t get him anything, except to make him feel a little uncomfortable. There was a slight streak of stubbornness in Lawrence Clinton, Jr. When he headed in a given direction, he usually kept on going. Steve grinned at him from behind the cigar counter.
“Glad things are coming your way, Mr. Clinton,” he said.
“I could do without some of them,” Larry told him.
As he went toward the exit a man was standing near the door and in the middle of the passageway. Larry had to brush close to him. The man swung toward him and something under his coat jammed hard into Larry’s side.
“Le’s go back, bud,” the man said in a low growl. “We got something to talk over.”
Larry said: “Sure,” turned, struck down with his left hand and let his right fist fly. As it connected solidly with a chin, there was an explosion, only a little muffled by the cloth, and flame streaked close by Larry’s side. He saw the man falling forward, smoke coming from the smoldering cloth. He suddenly decided to let someone else put out the fire, turned and dashed out the entrance.
People on the sidewalk had stopped and were staring uncertainly at the doorway. Larry got behind a taxi, saw a traffic cop running up with waving arms, then slipped back along the line of cars, skipped behind a passing one and crossed over. He didn’t look back. He made the corner, swung into his long stride and thought that Jerome Knapp had been pretty fast on his messenger.
As he came up to the address Haynes had given him, a man leaned his head from a big sedan parked near the entrance.
“Hey, are you Clinton?”
Larry swung around and nodded. The fellow was hardly older than himself, smooth-featured, with a bold, hard stare.
“Cliff said you should get in here and wait.”
Larry glanced beyond him to the man behind the wheel and met the same cold, level look. This man was a little older, heavier built, with a nose that had once been broken and since received not too good plastic surgery. But both were of the same type—gunmen.
“Cliff?” Larry said to the first man.
“Haynes.”
“All right. I’ll wait.” He turned to pace slowly, and the young fellow called to him again.
“He said for you to get inside, where you won’t be a mark.”
Larry stopped beside him.
“You’re inside, aren’t you?”
“Sure, I’m inside. So what?”
Larry resumed his pacing.
The young fellow turned to his companion.
“For the love of—Smoke, d’you get this guy?” He swung around toward Larry. “Hey, fella—”
“Can it, Ches,” Smoke growled. “Here’s Haynes, an’ he’s in a hell of a hurry.”
Larry got in. He thought if these lads were going to play on his side, teamwork didn’t promise to be too hot.
Haynes was in a hurry. He got the idea, forcibly, over to Smoke, and the big car shot uptown.
Before long they were in the outskirts. The driver turned his head.
“Where you said, ‘Cliff is over by the shore. We gotta go ’way round. Ain’t but one road in.”
“It’s right on the water. Can’t help it. Get there as fast as you can.”
“We coulda come quicker by boat,” Smoke growled and turned back to his driving.
“Hope somebody else don’t get the same idea,” Haynes said and. relapsed into silence.
Larry, thinking of his coolness in the office, thought he was particularly nervous. “What do you value this thing anyway?” he asked abruptly.
“I wish I had it for half a million,” Haynes clipped. “But a thousand is good pay for your work,” he added quickly.
They soon left any semblance of a highway and struck into a hard dirt road. They had passed no cars, but before long a flivver rounded a curve into sight and came toward them, driven so shakily that Smoke had to slow and swing wide. He cursed volubly.
“Damned clam digger,” he swore. “Them an’ their Model T’s shoulda been outlawed twenty years ago.” He spilled a mouthful of oaths from his window and shot ahead.
Larry had a passing glimpse of a gray, old face, imperturbable. Mildly curious, he turned his head. 9T-79-8—he read, then the rest was lost in the dust kicked up by the sedan.
The road twisted, swung lower and skirted a low ridge of scrub hardwood with a brackish marsh close on their left. The sun had set and dusk was not far away.
“Must be getting close,” Haines muttered and sat more upright to peer ahead.
The single roadway was sandy, rough in spots where it was harder and plentifully filled with stones. The car bumped badly, and Smoke had to slacken speed. With the trees thinning and the way turning to their right, they came to a little dry wash that cut across the road. As Smoke throttled his motor to change gears, there came clearly to their ears a staccato putt-putt-putt.
“To hell with the car, Smoke,” Haynes exploded. “Shove her!”
“Sure, if you don’t mind walkin’,” Smoke threw back at him.
A half mile farther, the trees ended; but the ridge ran on, lower, narrowing to a point with the marsh to the left and beyond it and the sea to the right, visible away out but still hidden close to the shore. On the point, still a few hundred yards ahead, stood a low building; and, a short distance before it, the ridge dipped to a causeway which was probably filled at high tide. Boulders stood out on the top of the ridge and the road clung low to the marsh side until near the causeway, where it appeared to end. Smoke peered keenly ahead.
“Don’t see how we’ll ever get this tub around, Cliff.”
“Never mind that now, Smoke. Get her down there fast.”
The driver shrugged and sent the car along, but sand clogged at the wheels and it weaved under their drive. It edged up to the causeway and suddenly stopped. A bullet nicked the frame post near Ch
es and plowed a furrow across the glass.
The young gunman eyed it for the briefest fraction. Then he tore a big gun from its shoulder holster, and, resting his elbow on the window ledge, poured three shots in rapid succession across the flat ridge. The lead chipped splinters from a boulder where Ches had seen a hand disappear.
Smoke, the driver, snapped open his door and let himself fall sidewise to the running board, then to the ground. Flat down, he crawled under the car and put his gun in action between the spokes of a front wheel.
“Hey, you fools,” he called between shots. “Come outta there and get down here. We can pick ’em easy.”
Haynes had gone out of his door, whipping out his pistol. Sinking to one knee, he started shooting around the rear of the sedan. Bullets were whanging into the metal side of the car and smashing the windows. Larry, from the right-hand seat, followed Haynes out and went straight on to the edge of the marsh where the ground fell off a little. He turned in time to see Ches slide out of the driver’s door, jerk as a bullet nicked his arm, then get down low to join Smoke. Beyond him, the dark face of Pellini was just disappearing behind a big rock.
By keeping on his hands and knees, Larry was just below the line of fire and he didn’t hesitate. For one thing, he had no pistol; besides he wanted no part in the gunmen’s battle. Vivian Knapp had tried to warn him that murder lay ahead, and here he was in the midst of it in the making.
Larry had taken a good look at the surrounding area as they had come up. He was heading for the low building on the point. He couldn’t go back the way they’d come; couldn’t remain where he was. He had no choice, except to get into that building. His greatest danger point was in the causeway, which could be raked from behind the boulders where the other gang was sheltered. It was a risk, but he couldn’t avoid it!
He paused for a second as he reached the edge. The battle, now a little behind him, sounded at its peak, and he gambled that they were all too busy to notice him. Flat on his stomach, he started wriggling across the marsh. He had almost made it when a bullet seared his back. Under the impetus of the hot sting, he dived ahead, got to hands and knees again and crawled as fast as he could to the shelter of the building. He kept on to the rear, having no confidence that Haynes’ men wouldn’t shoot him if they saw him going where, for the moment at least, they could not follow.
