Armed... Dangerous...

by Brett Halliday

  Brett Halliday

  Armed... Dangerous...

  CHAPTER 1

  The taxi pulled up in front of a big, blank-faced apartment complex on New York’s upper West Side. The single passenger, a striking blond girl named Michele Guerin, leaned forward, puzzled by the reading on the meter.

  She was wearing a beige suit, a good copy of an original from one of the Parisian dress houses, not much jewelry and little makeup. She was in her middle or late twenties. Her eyes were smoky blue and humorous, as if she considered her good looks and elegance a lucky accident which might just as well have happened to someone else.

  “One dollar thirty,” she said, too precisely. “I must give you one seventy-five. No?”

  “OK,” the driver said with a smile. “I’ll let you get away with one seventy-five.”

  He took the two singles she handed him, made change, and leaned across to unlatch the door, a service New York taxi drivers don’t do for everybody. He had been wondering about her. He couldn’t quite fit her into any pigeonhole. Her accent was French, and her slowness in reading the meter probably meant that she hadn’t been long in this country. Nevertheless, she had none of the earmarks of a tourist. He had checked her for rings. She was unmarried. Maybe a professional model, he thought, except that those girls tend to be skinny, and in her case there was no question at all that there was a real woman inside the expensive clothes. Another thing he had noticed about models—their expression was often vaguely dissatisfied and sulky, as though they didn’t like having to show off clothes they couldn’t afford to own. And there was nothing sulky about this girl’s expression. An actress, he thought? But no, that didn’t seem to fit either.

  He watched her click up to the big glass double doors. She was just as attractive going as coming. He sighed heavily, a reasonably contented married man with three small children, put the cab in gear and drove away.

  Michele could have stayed at a much sleeker apartment, at a more fashionable address on the other side of the Park, but she had liked the anonymity of this place, with no doorman or concierge to notice when she came in or went out. One drawback was that she had to unlock the door herself, and after two weeks in New York she still didn’t have the knack. While she was struggling, a man came in behind her and pressed one of the doorbells in the long double column.

  “Hey,” he said good-naturedly after watching her for a moment, “you’ve got it in upside down.”

  “I haven’t!”

  “Sure you have. Let an expert.”

  A voice spoke from the mouthpiece beside the bells. “Yes?”

  “Jake Melnick,” the man replied. “I’ve got a couple of stones I’d like to show you, Mr. Evans, if it’s all right to come up.”

  “Why not?”

  The buzzer unlocked the door. Melnick pushed it open with his foot, then took the girl’s key, turned it right side up and slid it into the lock.

  “The trick is, don’t force it.”

  She smiled gratefully. “I am absolutely no good at machinery of any kind.”

  He gave her a speculative look. It was a familiar look to Michele, though she hadn’t received it as often in this country as she did in her own. The men in New York, many of them, seemed to have other things on their minds. She measured Melnick with a quick appraising glance. He was carelessly, almost sloppily, dressed, which she knew by experience didn’t mean he couldn’t afford anything better. He was thin to the point of emaciation. A lighted cigarette dangled from his lips. There were amused lines around his eyes, cynical lines around his mouth, a combination that always interested Michele. Not that she had time to do anything about it now.

  They skirted a sofa and a low ornamental barrier of rubber plants. The lobby was empty except for a man opening an envelope at the end of a bank of mailboxes. Smooth, characterless music came from hidden outlets in the walls. Michele was sure that no one ever actually heard this music, just as she hadn’t ever seen anyone actually sitting on the lobby furniture.

  An empty elevator was waiting. She pressed the button for the twelfth floor.

  “I hear they give you a two-month concession when you sign a lease here,” Melnick said. “The wife and I have been thinking about it. How is it, not too noisy?”

  Before she could reply, the man at the mailboxes turned and entered the elevator with them. He captured her attention instantly, and the thought jumped into her mind that under the pretense of reading his mail, he had actually been waiting for them to appear. That was impossible, of course. He was tall and broad-shouldered. His rumpled gabardine jacket was unbuttoned and the knot of his necktie was loose. The tiny button of a hearing-aid showed in one ear. He was dark-haired and ruggedly built, and he moved with the lounging grace of a professional athlete in top condition.

  “Aren’t you in the diamond business?” he asked Melnick.

  “Yeah,” Melnick said, surprised.

  “Jake Melnick, sure. Melnick and Melnick.”

  The door of the elevator closed, shutting them in. The big man glanced at the signal panel. There were eighteen floors in the building. A red light burned beside 12, Michele’s floor.

  “Which for you, Jake? Eight?”

  “Listen,” Melnick said, “I don’t know you and I don’t know what this is all about, but whoever you are—”

  The car had barely got underway when the big man threw the emergency switch. The brakes grabbed with a sudden violence that sent Michele back against the wall.

  “Sure you know what it’s all about,” the big man said easily. “Larry Evans in 8-C wants to give a dame a diamond. If you waited till tomorrow somebody else might beat you to the sale.”

  “Let me out,” Michele said urgently. “Please let me out.”

  “Keep in that corner, kid,” the big man told her quietly, without taking his eyes off Melnick. “Nobody’s going to get hurt but the insurance company. Now I show him the gun so he knows it’s serious.”

  His big hand snaked under his left arm and came back with a heavy automatic. Michele’s hands were pressed to her mouth. Please, no resistance, she begged Melnick silently. Do what he says. She was carrying quite a bit of money herself—he could have it and welcome. And when he was gone she would have to persuade Melnick to leave her out of it. She couldn’t afford to be questioned by police. There might be photographers. This was fantastic! It couldn’t be real.

  The cigarette still dangled from Melnick’s lower lip. It was trembling as his jaw trembled. He tried to say something.

  “Wh-who—”

  The big man gave a sudden barking laugh and looked at Michele for the first time. His eyes were hard and dangerous. A tiny reckless spark burned in each.

  “I was calling somebody and they gave me a crossed line. How do you like that? The best tip I ever had, and it didn’t cost me a cent.”

  Getting down to business abruptly, he let the ugly muzzle of the automatic give Melnick his orders. The frightened diamond dealer raised his arms and the big man touched his pockets from the outside. The wallet was in an inside jacket pocket, attached by a short length of fine chain to a heavier chain around Melnick’s body. The big man jerked at it angrily, bringing Melnick up on his toes.

  “Cautious bastard.”

  He took up hard on the chain, twisting the diamond dealer against the wall. He laid the taut chain across the metal hand-rail and brought the butt end of the .45 down smartly. A link broke and the wallet came free.

  “Now let’s see how much cash you’re carrying, Jake.” The diamond dealer fumbled out a smaller wallet. “One of those stones,” he said weakly, “I didn’t insure it yet. I’ll give you a better price than the fence would.”

  “Sure, sure, send me a check. Let’s have the watch.” Melni
ck stripped off his gold wristwatch. The bandit dropped it into his side pocket. Giving no warning, he stepped in close against Melnick and slammed him in the stomach with a fist the size of a small ham. Melnick caved forward, making a sound like a popping balloon. He grabbed out at the big man to keep from falling. For an instant they were in a kind of clumsy embrace, and all Michele could see was the diamond dealer’s hands and wrists. The big man pushed him away with a vicious low-voiced obscenity and, as he fell, chopped at his head with the butt of his .45.

  Melnick pitched to the floor. The big man whirled on Michele. She shrank back.

  “Any remarks, baby?” he said savagely.

  “No,” she said in a weak voice, and thrust her purse toward him.

  The left side of his mouth and his left eye worked in a convulsive half-wink, half-twitch. It frightened her. She could see that he was on the verge of going out of control. “I have money,” she faltered.

  He ripped the purse out of her hands. She knew exactly how much she was carrying—eight hundred and three dollars, eight hundred of it in new fifties and hundreds. It put him in a better humor.

  “Green,” he observed. “My favorite color.” He took her watch and a bracelet. After dropping them in his pocket with the rest of the loot, he threw the emergency switch back on and pressed the lobby button. The car continued upward. Its electronic brain had been told to take them to the twelfth floor, and it had to clear that out of its memory before it could start down. He watched the lights, his head on one side as though with the help of the hearing-aid he could listen to his own thoughts.

  “You will let me get off?” she said. “Please, I am French. I go home in two days’ time. I can prove this to you. I can show you my passport. If I should talk to the police about this I would miss my plane. That is not my desire.”

  The car stopped at 12. She made a slight movement and he snapped, “Stay where you are.”

  The door opened and closed. She said in a small voice, “It is true, you know.”

  His eyes jumped to the lights. The car was slowing for an unexpected stop at nine. He moved over into the doorway. The door slid back to show an overweight lady in an elaborate hat.

  He said brusquely, “We’ve had an accident. Next car.”

  Her coquettish smile vanished as she looked down. Melnick’s long legs had jackknifed under him, and he looked as though he had been flung down violently from a great height. One entire side of his face was covered with blood. The woman’s mouth came open. The bandit stabbed angrily at the Close button, and the door obeyed him.

  He made a scornful noise. “Give the lady some smelling salts. Now relax. I hardly ever smack a doll with a .45 when we haven’t been introduced. I’ve got to dump this bastard. Then I’ll tell you what I want you to do. Just do me one favor, and maybe you’ll catch your plane.”

  “Yes,” she breathed.

  “I may have picked up a tail. I had that feeling. Let’s not hurry walking out of here. Like we’re husband and wife and I’m taking you to dinner. We’ll walk over to Central Park West and pick up a cab. I’ll let you get out after a couple of blocks, and you can forget the whole thing.”

  “All right, I shall try.”

  “Do better than try, baby. That’s the best advice I can give you.”

  The little giveaway muscle was jumping again in his cheek. They were passing the fourth floor. He punched for three, and when the car stopped he looked out carefully, then dragged the unconscious man to the corridor. Melnick’s arms and legs seemed totally uncoordinated, as though they were fastened to his body with cotter pins. She found herself thinking, oddly, of a line from Macbeth, a play she had studied in her last year at the lycee: “Who would have thought the old man had so much blood in him?” Melnick’s face was so bloody that it might have been flayed. His clothes were sodden. He groaned heavily as the man responsible for his wound kicked his foot out of the doorway so the door, would close.

  Michele was sorry, but someone else would have to find him. As soon as she was released she meant to hide in the nearest movie, coming back only after all the excitement had died down.

  As the car slowed, approaching the lobby, the big man gripped her arm above the elbow and moved her to face the door. She tried to force a smile.

  “You don’t have to smile,” he told her. “We’ve been married a long time.”

  “That hurts.”

  “Too bad.”

  The door opened and he walked her out into the lobby. She was surprised to hear the hidden musicians still picking away at the same Rodgers and Hammerstein number. All her plans had been turned upside down in the time it took a dance orchestra to play thirty-two bars. Thank God there was no one in sight. Then her breath caught. There was movement behind them and a voice called suddenly, “McQuade!”

  The big man turned, keeping his hold on Michele’s arm. The man who had come out from behind the second bank of mailboxes was short and pugnacious-looking. He needed a shave and he seemed very tired. His eyes were bloodshot.

  “Where’ve you been keeping yourself, Mac?” he said.

  “Wrong number,” the big man said, his voice easy and unflurried. Michele felt the tension in his grip. “My name’s Carl Williams.”

  “Like hell your name is Carl Williams, honey,” the short man said. “It’s been a couple of years, but I don’t forget faces that easy. I do forget what we had you down for. A payroll in Brooklyn, wasn’t it? About seventy-five G’s?”

  “You are drunk!” Michele said sharply.

  “I’m a little drunk,” the detective agreed. “But then I’m off duty so it’s OK. What I like to do is knock back a few and then ride the subways looking at faces. When I spot one that’s familiar I follow the guy, like I followed Mac here. It’s kind of a hobby.”

  He started toward them. “And who are you, sweetheart?” he said to Michele. “Mrs. Carl Williams or Mrs. Francis X. McQuade?”

  An elevator arrived behind him and let off the plump lady in the big flowered hat. Seeing the tense little tableau she stopped short. Her eyes, Michele noted incongruously, were the pale blue of souring milk. Her mouth opened and the scream she had swallowed upstairs came out, with plenty of pressure behind it. The detective looked away from McQuade for only an instant, but when he looked back the .45 had appeared in McQuade’s big hand.

  The detective congealed, both hands well forward. His tired look was gone.

  “I see I made a mistake,” he said. “You don’t look anything like McQuade. And even if you did, nobody was killed in that stickup, so God bless you. Take off. Till we meet again.”

  The scream from the woman at the elevators rose in pitch until it cut out abruptly as she dropped to the floor in a faint. McQuade and Michele still had fifteen or twenty feet to travel to the door, and they didn’t hurry. The detective remained fixed, as though he found himself playing the child’s game of statues, and would have to pay a forfeit if he was seen to move. But he was tense and ready. He wouldn’t have been a detective without a gun inside his coat. McQuade had pulled Michele in against him so she partially screened his body, but would the detective let that stand in his way when the shooting started? Michele knew better.

  McQuade said softly in her ear, “When we get to the door I’m putting a slug in his knee. After that you’re on your own. If you ever see me again, start running.”

  She was breathing in quick shuddering gulps. McQuade stopped with a muttered obscenity. Something on the other side of the front window pulled at Michele’s eye. Luck had been fairly good to her lately, but now it had turned on her with bared teeth. A uniformed policeman was making out a summons for a car too close to a fire hydrant. His horse looked in at Michele.

  McQuade could handle one armed man, but hardly two. He hesitated. The momentary stitch in his concentration gave the off-duty detective his chance. He broke for a low sofa, reaching for his gun. McQuade fired. The recoil of the heavy automatic against her side almost twisted Michele out of his grasp. The detective la
nded on the nubbly carpet with a strange little moan, and grabbed at his thigh. McQuade took a half step toward him, tightened his hold on the struggling girl and fired again. The impact of the heavy slug flipped the detective over.

  One of the potted rubber plants rocked crazily and fell, spilling dirt on the carpet. The big scalloped leaves camouflaged the upper part of the detective’s body. Something about the angle and position of his feet told Michele that he was dead.

  CHAPTER 2

  McQuade came around fast, in a half crouch. Michele’s shoulder was against his chest, and she felt the heavy thump of his heartbeat. Through the front window she caught a flash of the mounted policeman’s face. The horse, too, had twitched around, startled by the shots.

  McQuade ran for the elevators, dragging Michele with him. The plump lady had fallen on her back, her tight skirt riding up to show the underpinnings of her girdle. McQuade propelled Michele into the elevator and heaved the unconscious woman out of the doorway. He jabbed the button for the basement.

  “Please let me go now,” Michele said. “You think if you hold me in front of you the police will not shoot. No, no, you are mistaken.”

  He said nothing. When they reached the basement he walked her out into a cement-block corridor which came to a dead end to the right of the elevators. In the other direction two workmen were trying to ease an upright piano, riding on a dolly, into the freight elevator. The corner of the dolly had caught on the door, and until the workmen could back it off there was no way to get by.

  McQuade yanked Michele back into the elevator and pressed the button for the twelfth floor.

  “Twelve,” she said. “We are going to my—”

  “Shut up.”

  He watched the lights, his gun ready. If they stopped at the lobby there would be more shooting. They went by without stopping and he released her at last.

  “An off-duty cop on the subway!” he said in disgust. “Eight million people in New York, and I had to get on the one train with that guy. You know I don’t have a single conviction? I mean that. Not even for carrying a weapon. And now all of a sudden the breaks start going the other way.” He appealed to her, as though he really wanted an opinion. “Why did those bastards have to be down there with that goddamn piano?”