Death Sentence

40

People would have heard the noise but they wouldn’t have a fix on it and it wasn’t the kind of place where things were reported immediately to the Man. He glanced at the upper windows; the moving light had been extinguished. Certainly that one wasn’t going to report anything.

It came to him then in a moment’s crazy inspiration as he crawled to his feet and stood swaying. He felt an insistent hammering behind his eyes. It would work; he saw it full-blown in his mind and he was incredulous.

He took the Centennial from his pocket. He still wore the rubber gloves. He knelt by the dead man. The Luger was clutched in the outflung right hand. Paul slipped the Centennial, into Pyne’s left-hand coat pocket. Then he went back to his own car. He had a bad moment of shakes before he was able to turn the key but he knew he had to get clear before he could afford to let the reaction hit him and he forced himself, tightening up the muscles of his stomach and squeezing the steering wheel with all his strength until the dizziness subsided. He gunned the car away and didn’t put the headlights on until he was several blocks distant. He heard the approaching sirens but he never saw them; he stayed to the side streets until he was well away.

Then he parked and let himself slump with the back of his head on top of the seat-back, choking down the nausea and letting the shock wash over him, not fighting it, waiting it out.

There was still one thing to do. When he felt strong enough he started the car again and drove north into the Loop. It was nearly two in the morning; the city was dark and silent. He went north onto the Dearborn Avenue bridge and stopped the car in the middle of the bridge. Put the .25 automatic into the paper bag along with the gun-cleaning kit and stepped out of the car. He stopped briefly, his nerves prey to imagined dangers, but nothing stirred in the night and he took two quick strides to the railing and dropped the heavy bag into the Chicago River.

Then he drove home.