Broadway Bounty

Chapter Twenty

“You what?” Tally asked.

“Cut myself shaving.”

“Very funny,” the lieutenant said. “Where’s the body?”

“What makes you think there’s a body?”

“I can smell blood in the air,” Tally said, “and from what I can see, a lot of it is yours.”

“Can we get this man to the hospital?” Linda Hamilton asked irritably…

Decker had asked Linda if she knew anyone who would go for the police, and she said that the woman on the next floor up had a teenage son who had a crush on her. He’d go out if she asked him.

“Ask him,” he’d said.

“You’re bleeding—” she’d said, but he’d cut her off.

“Get him on his way, and then we can do something about that.”

“All right.”

“Where are your extra sheets?”

“In there,” she’d said, pointing while dressing.

He took out a sheet while she was gone and covered the body of the razor man. When she returned, she took a pillowcase from a pillow and pressed it to the cut on his back.

“It’s not as bad as I thought,” she said. “All that blood fooled me. But you’re still going to have to be sewn up.”

“After the police arrive,” he’d said. Now that they had, she wanted to get him taken care of…

“In a moment, Miss…”

“Hamilton.”

“Miss Hamilton.”

“The body’s over there,” Decker said, pointing to the lump beneath the sheet.

Tally walked over, lifted the sheet, took a look and then dropped it.

“You know him?” he asked Decker.

“No.”

“But he tried to kill you.”

“Yes.”

“But you killed him first.”

“By accident.”

“Miss?”

Linda gave Tally a withering look before answering. She also pulled another pillowcase over and replaced the first one, which had soaked through with blood.

“We were asleep,” she said, “and that man came through the window. He threatened to…to cut my—to cut me, and Decker jumped him. While they were struggling, Decker got cut, and then I heard a gun go off, and the other man was dead.”

Tally looked at Decker.

“That’s how it happened.”

“I’m sure it did,” Tally said as several other men entered the room. “Remove that one,” he said, pointing to the body.

As they began to remove the body, Decker asked Tally, “Do you know who he is?”

“Of course,” Tally said. “I know every killer and reprobate in New York.”

“And which was this?”

“This was a definite killer,” Tally said. “He was called Razor.”

Decker flinched as Linda put more pressure on the wound and said, “I wonder why.”

“Look at this,” she said, looking at his shoulder. “You’ve started the other one bleeding, too. Lieutenant, we have to get him to the hospital.”

“All right,” Tally said. “Get up and get dressed. We can finish this there.”

“All right,” Decker said. When he stood up, the loss of blood suddenly took its toll. The next thing he knew he was falling down a dark well, and Linda was shouting his name…