Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 19, No. 99, February 1952

Bank Job by Karl Detzer[2]

Are you one of those fortunate people who get an enormous kick out of browsing in second-hand bookstores? — and the mustier, the dustier, the better? If you are not, you are missing one of the really great pleasures of living. There are few thrills in life comparable to that of finding a long-sought bibliophilic treasure, nestling unwept, unhonored, and unsung in some cobwebbed, sleepy corner of an old bookshop, or in some dark, dank cubbyhole of ancient volumes that have not felt the caress of sunlight since the original owner, perhaps generations before, stacked the books helterskelter in that forgotten nook... We shall never forget the day, early in our collecting career, when we pounced on a copy of Conan Doyle’s MEMOIRS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, the New York Harper edition of 1894, turned breathlessly to the contents page, and found listed there the story titled “The Card-Board Box” — and realized that we had in our hands a copy of the suppressed first edition, a rarity that has been quoted to us as recently as December 1948 for no less a sum than $87.50 — and here was this copy clearly marked by a dealer who obviously did not know the fine points of Sherlock Holmes first editions at the unbelievable price of 50 cents! Needless to say, we handed over four bits in coin of the realm, and dashed out of that store with the book clutched fervently and with the deeply satisfying knowledge that for once we were offsetting an occasion when we had paid through the nose for an overpriced book that we had been unable to resist...

The next time you go a-browsing, look on the shelf marked D (if the dealer is systematic enough to arrange his stock alphabetically), and try to pick up a book by Karl W. Detzer called TRUE TALES OF THE D.C.I. — a book that used to be fairly common but now has gone the way of most books over twenty-five years old. This volume of short stories will repay your searching and reading: it concerns that special branch of the A.E.F. which undertook to found up ten thousand international criminals swarming over Europe just after the armistice of World War I — “the greatest crime wave in history.”

Karl Detzer has always been particularly interested in “official” detectives — the result, unquestionably, of his unremitting efforts to depict realism. Here is the story of a Michigan state trooper, written by someone who obviously knows the real-life mechanics of manhunting on a grand scale — the story of a professional policeman whose professional problem is also a personal one...

The radio under the dash had been silent for five minutes except for the low, continuous bustle of static. The patrol car splashed ahead at a steady forty-five, its headlamps burning a shallow hole in the rain. It was rolling north again on U. S. 31, once more covering the same ten-mile sector it had been patroling since four o’clock. Somewhere over to the right, in one of those cold, wet swamps, the bank bandits probably were hiding.

Trooper Jim Smith shifted uneasily behind his wheel and stared through the spattered windshield at the darkness. He was only four months out of recruit school and this was his first bank job. If he’d ever guessed that it would turn out this way, that he’d be called so soon to choose between wanting to do his job right and... he swallowed hard, trying to dislodge the plug in this throat.

Sergeant Casey, who rode beside him, yawned. He warned, “Keep to your side of the yellow line, ree-cruit. Can’t drive all over the road, even if there ain’t traffic. What’s eatin’ you?”

Jim shrugged and didn’t answer. Usually Casey hadn’t much to say. He was an oldtimer as state troopers go, forty-six his next birthday, and fighting hard against his waistline. In this kind of weather he often got grouchy when the dampness began to sink into that big shrapnel scar on his shoulder. This wasn’t his first bank job by a good many dozen. For twenty years he’d been chasing hoodlums all over Michigan, ever since he got mustered out of the Rainbow Division and first pinned on a trooper badge. But this time he insisted on an answer, repeating, “What’s eatin’ you, anyhow?” and grunting, and turning in his seat to look hard at Jim Smith by the reflection of the dashboard light.

“Nothing’s eating me, Sarge,” Jim replied. “I’m okay. Nothing wrong at all.” But his voice didn’t sound right, even to his own ears. It sounded sort of choked. He knew that Sergeant Casey was nobody’s fool. He’d been a cop long enough to spot a phony voice when he heard one. But Casey didn’t say anything, just grunted again and looked ahead through the windshield, and after a minute began to swear quietly to himself about the rain.

Smith drove with his left hand, with his right dipped into his tunic pocket for cigarettes. He offered one to Casey.

“No, thank you kindly,” the sergeant refused, and rummaged in the dash compartment for his pipe. He found it and was stuffing the bowl from his pouch when the radio blared.

“Attention all cars on bank job. The woman customer who was shot in the chest by the bandits has regained consciousness. Her descriptions are as follows: Number One, six feet, one hundred sixty pounds, age about eighteen, dark brown hair, medium complexion, very nice looking, scar on left cheek...”

Jim gripped the wheel tighter. That was the third witness who’d noticed the scar. The radio still was talking, telling what the other two bandits looked like. Jim swallowed again. But he wasn’t listening. His own kid brother fitted that first description to a T... height, weight, age, hair, complexion, scar... young Charley, who didn’t like the farm any more than Jim had, who had to stick there when Jim got picked for drill school, who didn’t want to take his turn at planting potatoes and looking after stock. Charley knew all about this bank in Pineville that had been stuck up. It was only twenty miles from home. The Smith family never had banked there, never had banked much anywhere, but Charley knew all about it just the same.

Not that he was the kind of kid to stick up a bank. He wasn’t. He was a good kid. But his pockets always were empty. Whose weren’t, just working on a farm? And he’d taken to hanging around town half the time, days as well as evenings. Jim had talked to him about it just last Sunday when he was home for two hours. He had seen young Charley when Car 88 rolled through Pineville on Saturday night patrol. The kid was loafing on the corner right beside this same bank, waiting for the nine o’clock show to start. Anybody, passing, would see him. He was just too good-looking to miss.

The scar on his cheek where the horse kicked him once didn’t spoil his looks. It just made folks glance at him twice. Jim didn’t know the two fellows with him that night; round-shouldered little guys they were, and dressed sort of flashy. But Charley got mad when Jim mentioned them.

He argued that he was old enough to do as he pleased, wasn’t he? To pick his own friends, too. He was eighteen.

Jim shrugged. Sure, Charley was eighteen. Lots of boys were that age. What matter if the rest of the description fitted, too? Must be plenty of nice-looking, six-foot boys with brown hair and scars. Plenty of them. Sure there were. It couldn’t be Charley! Couldn’t! It had been a mistake ever to start worrying.

“Can’t be any mistake about it,” Casey suddenly said, as if he were reading Jim’s mind.

“What you mean, no mistake?” Jim roared. “Sure it’s a mistake!” Jim stopped short, realizing that Casey had turned again and was giving him one of those long looks.

“Well, for gosh sakes, try keepin’ your shirt on,” he advised. “No mistake, I’m thinkin’, none a-tall. Easy to get the one guy. No chance for mistake when three eye-witnesses... cashier before he died, little kid that got shot in the leg, and now this here lady... when all three of them give the identical same description. You can just close your eyes and see this one tall guy...”

“Mebbe,” Jim said, and cleared his throat. “Mebbe that’s right.” But he need not close his eyes. He could see plainly enough, just staring ahead at the rain. See Charley, tall and good-looking in spite of that scar. See him doing his chores down by the barn. See him driving the team at potato-digging time, hauling the crop to the root cellar. See him dressed up for town. See him the way he used to be, a nice little kid with big eyes. And see him the way he was last Sunday, mad clear through at everybody, slouching even when he walked, wanting some money of his own. Talking about nothing else.

“Hey,” Casey warned, “you got two wheels off the concrete.” He waited till Jim straightened out the car again. “Most times,” he said, “preserve me from a flock of eyewitnesses. Bankers and women is worst. Can’t see straight when they’re scared. Give you three or four descriptions of the hoodlums afterward. You can’t tell whether to look for the Governor or Shirley Temple...”

The radio interrupted. “Car 17,” it directed, “on U.S. 25 south of Muttonville, an accident. First repeat.”

Jim settled back... one message, at least, that had nothing to do with the bank job. Casey was talking again, which again was unusual.

“Yes, sir, ree-cruit, it’s goin’ to be easy. Good description to start on, and we know enough else about these hoodlums...”

“What else?” Jim asked quickly.

“Why, we know just what sort of birds they are. Small-time punks. Not been at it long. Shoot hard as anybody else, but don’t know how to get away as easy.”

“How you know they’re punks?”

“First place ’cause they took off this here little one-horse bank. ’Cause they pull a job up here in the sticks where there ain’t many roads or bridges and we can blockade ’em nice. ’Cause afterwards they lam north ’stead of south. If they had sense to pour sand out a boot, they’d know we’d corner ’em up north. They ain’t got a chance. Now this kid with the scar...”

“What about him?” Jim asked.

“Well, I was wonderin’. Seems like I’ve seen a kid answers that look-out, kid hangin’ around somewheres...”

Jim turned his head. The sergeant wasn’t even glancing at him, but certainly there was something suspicious in his voice. The rain drummed noisily on the top of the car and the tires made a continuous sucking sound against the pavement. Roaring across muddy fields between black patches of pine woods, where the soggy snow still hid in little pockets, the squally northeast wind found the car and pummeled it.

“If I could just get to a ’phone,” Jim said.

“You ’phoned twice already. What’s so almighty important?”

“Nothing important,” Jim said. He had telephoned home twice. And Charley was out both times, had been away since early morning and the folks didn’t know where he was. Hadn’t even come home to do his chores. That last call was at seven o’clock. It was past nine right now; he might be there...

The radio awakened. A bell struck three quick taps. Then the dispatcher’s tired voice said: “Signal seven-one-one. Signal seven-eleven. Signal seventy-one-one.”

“Huh!” Casey said. “Something comin’ up?” His tone was almost enthusiastic. “That signal’s for the skipper. Want him to ’phone his office. Think maybe them satchel-pants district detectives decided to go to work, after all? Turned something up? Hope so. I sure want some shut-eye.”

“Not me,” Jim said. “Not sleepy a-tall.”

He wasn’t. His nerves were too tight for sleep. He’d been driving since noon when the first radio dispatch came in. The bandits still were in Pineville Bank then. They’d gone in shooting like amateurs, one with a tommy-gun, and the cashier hadn’t a chance. But as he dropped with four slugs in him he tripped the new silent alarm. That gave the law a break. It registered not on the front of the bank, where it would warn the robbers to hurry, but in the sheriff’s office, so the blockade got started while the hoodlums still were scooping the money into sacks.

Within five minutes eighty cars had started to close in, blocking crossroads and bridges as the radio directed them. They had made a ring of men and guns fifty miles from the bank that no bandits, neither smart old hands nor dumb young punks, could hope to break. That ring still was holding. Twenty other cars, like this same number 88, had sped inside the circle and begun to cruise, shaking down everything they met, raiding shacks, putting the bee on farmers who might think it smart to shelter a bank mob. In the hunt by now were sheriffs of a dozen counties, police of a hundred small towns, checking every car at their city limits.

“Them posses of Legionnaires and farmers must be gettin’ plenty wet,” Casey suddenly remarked. He turned up the radio. It reported railroad detectives in Grand Rapids were searching all southbound freights; game wardens in Manistee and Benzie Counties with portable transmitters were out in the swamps; at seven o’clock the four coast guard stations along Lake Michigan had sent out surfmen in pairs to watch the dunes. “Gettin’ lots of free help.”

Jim nodded. Just before dark the dispatcher had reported that even country telephone operators were spreading the alarm, grinding out long and short rings on party lines, warning farmers to keep eyes and ears open and doors locked. The dispatcher signed off and immediately Casey said:

“Lots o’ talk but no news. Don’t tell nothing. Nary a word whether they found fingerprints.”

Jim felt a sudden relief. At least Charley never had been printed. Never any reason to be. He was a good kid, wasn’t he? No matter what, they’d not find him in those green steel cases in the record room down at East Lansing.

“One fingerprint’s worth a dozen scars,” Casey said.

Jim turned and looked at him this time. Why didn’t Casey come right out and mention Charley, instead of hinting around about scars? It was Jim who had introduced Charley to old Casey, that Sunday when the kid came down to visit recruit school and Casey had been in charge for the day. But the sergeant didn’t say anything more, just kept on growling about the weather. The weather would help, eventually. Twice already police cars had flushed out the bandits, and twice, thanks to luck, they’d got away.

But they weren’t riding now. They were afoot, in the rain. The Seventh District captain had shot it out with them over west of Manton, and they’d ducked into the woods, leaving their sedan with its rear end full of holes, like a pepper box, in the middle of a gravel road.

“They won’t stay out long,” Casey said. “Not them birds.”

“Why not?” Jim asked.

“Ain’t got the guts. Mud an’ dark in the woods, why, it’ll give ’em the creeps. They’ll run for the concrete. I know their kind. I seen it happen...”

The radio bell rang. Jim slowed the car to listen. Creeps? Mud and dark wouldn’t give Charley the creeps...

“Attention everybody!” the radio warned. “Three armed men stole black sedan near Karlin forty minutes ago. Headed north.”

“What’d I tell you?” Casey demanded. He grunted and lighted his pipe.

The radio was directing: “Car 14, join Car 106 at Fife Lake corner. Car 72, go to Betsie bridge on Highway 115. Car 46, meet Sheriff White at Maple City. Car 19, go to filling station at Buckley. See the man. Information. Cadillac sheriff, please hold your bridge guards, and thanks. Car 88...”

“That’s us!” Jim shouted.

“Shut up an’ listen,” Casey barked.

“Car 88, go to M22 and County Road 76 in town of Empire. Shake down everybody...”

“Empire!” Jim exclaimed.

“What about it?”

“Why, he’s got... I got... a cousin lives there,” Jim said. “That’s all.”

His voice dwindled off, but it wasn’t all. Charley went up to Empire every summer to pick cherries on the cousin’s farm, knew the country like his own barnyard. If Charley, trying to get away...

“Empire’s to hell an’ gone from here,” Casey grumbled. “Twenty-thirty miles.”

Jim tramped the accelerator and headed north. Scattered farmhouses showed only dark windows on the wet empty road. Bandits or no bandits, most folks were staying home in such weather and going to bed early. At the crossroad in Benzonia, another patrol car stood with bomb flares burning and a sign that ordered, “Halt. Police Blockade.”

Jim touched his siren and slowed momentarily, till the trooper beside the other car lowered his shotgun and waved him on. Jim recognized him, a fellow from Manistee post. Looked like he needed a cup of coffee. Jim roared down the hill into Beulah.

“Hey,” Casey said. “Eighty’s too fast.”

“Too fast?”

“Slow down,” Casey said, and then he remarked, for no reason, “Me, I’m sorry for their family.”

“Family!” Jim exclaimed. He looked at Casey quickly, then back at the dark wet road. Hang it all, why didn’t Casey come out and say what he thought? Why didn’t he ask where Charley was supposed to be right now? Why didn’t he...

“Take no chances!” the dispatcher was warning. “These men are desperate!”

“Something comin’ up now,” Casey said quietly. “Look. Parked car ahead.”

Jim slowed. He hadn’t seen it. Eyes right on the road, and he hadn’t seen it. But there it was, standing on the shoulder without lights.

“Pull in behind ’em,” Casey directed. “I’ll shake ’em down. You stay at the wheel.” He reached for the shotgun and jerked it from its clamps against the roof. “Keep your shirt on, kid.”

As their lights picked out the wet details of the machine ahead, Jim suddenly wanted to yell. Wanted to shout that it was all a mistake. That there wasn’t any need checking that car. That they’d better go on patroling. For if this wasn’t his kid brother’s jalopv... same make and model, same dirty color, same bent fenders, same empty spare tire rack, same...

“Keep your shirt on,” Casey repeated. Patting his pocket to make sure the extra shells were there, he climbed out. Jim took a long breath, gripped his pistol, lifted it slowly, and took aim through the windshield. He waited while Casey splashed for ward, the shotgun cradled in his arm... waited while the sergeant jerked open the door of the jalopy.

Casey’s lips were moving. Jim could see that much, even though the storm wiped out the voice. He could see, too... he took a long breath, and his fingers shook. Why, he could see the license now! Of all the dumb recruits he was dumbest! He’d been staring all the time at the license. It wasn’t Charley’s number. This was a Kent County plate. It wasn’t Charley...

And Casey had slammed the door. He was tramping back.

“Now, ain’t young love wonderful?” he asked.

A deputy sheriff with a small badge pinned to his wet overcoat and three drenched men in Legion caps waited at the crossroad in Empire. Two of them carried deer rifles, one a stout club, the fourth a flashlight. They signaled the patrol car to halt.

“Better stop quick,” Casey warned. “Posse can get awful enthusiastic. When it does, it starts shootin’.” He leaned hurriedly from the window and yelled, “Hiya, sheriff. It’s us. State police.” He made his voice jovial for once.

The deputy advanced cautiously on soggy shoes. With his flashlight full in Casey’s face he halted. Then he came on and put one wet foot on the running board.

“Three hours and ain’t nary a cat tried to get past!” he said glumly. “I got chores to do at home...”

Jim reached for a cigarette, nervously offered one to the deputy. Chores. Charley hadn’t done his chores. Not at seven o’clock. But there might be a chance now... he might be home by now. If he were, it would mean he wasn’t running from cops...

“Listen, Sarge,” Jim said. “I got to ’phone! I’ll be just a minute!”

“ ’Phone?” Casey yelled. “Now? Right in the middle of a chase? Good Lord, no!”

“ ’Phone right there in the filling station.” The deputy was pointing across the road, and Jim seized the chance.

“Take me only a minute, Sarge...”

Casey turned and stared at him. Then he chuckled suddenly. “That’s a new one,” he said. “Ree-cruit havin’ to ’phone! Well, go on. Get it over with. Tell her it breaks your heart these here bandits spoiled your date.” He chuckled again.

Jim was pressing the door handle as the radio bell struck. The deputy quickly thrust his head into the car window and his hat brim dripped on Jim’s knees. There was excitement this time in the dispatcher’s voice. He bit off his words and spit them at the microphone.

“Attention, all cars! Special attention, Car 88! Machine with one headlight believed to be bandits went north through Lake Ann five minutes ago. Eluded posse at crossroads there. Traveling fast...”

“Get going, kid,” Casey said.

“... Car 88, go east on county road 76 for three miles. Head ’em off.” The dispatcher’s voice still was excited. The deputy sheriff jerked back his head. “Sheriff at Maple City, hold your crossroad. Car 92, start west on county line road. We’ve got these babies cornered... hold on...” the radio paused, then added, “That’s right. Car is positively identified as belonging to bandits!”

“Step on it,” Casey said. His voice was calm. He leaned out and shouted back, “Thank you kindly, men, thank you kindly.”

“... took a shot just now at a farmer begging a lift. Car 91, hold your post. Car 18, take bridge at Cedar. Traverse City police, send your car west on Long Lake road. Car 164... wait a minute, here’s something else... bandit car is headed for Empire...”

“What’s that you say?” Casey demanded.

“Nothing,” Jim answered. He hadn’t meant to say anything, didn’t believe he had said anything. Empire. Couldn’t it have been any car but this one dispatched tonight to Empire...?

The dispatcher was continuing: “Remember, 88, bandit car has one light. You’ll meet it, 88. Bound to, if they keep on coming...”

Jim’s foot went down to the floorboard. They were climbing a hill. Beyond it, this hill or another, they’d meet a jalopy. Jalopy or something better. It didn’t matter what. Didn’t matter one light or two, Charley Smith would be in it. And they’d shoot it out. Sergeant Casey and he himself, Charley Smith’s brother, would take their guns and shoot it out with a green kid who didn’t know any better... who did know better... who didn’t...

They were swinging a curve into a down-grade. Jim saw the sergeant reach for the shotgun. Straight ahead, beyond the next rise, there it came... a blur of white light soaking upward in the rain...

“Car coming,” Jim managed to say.

“Yeh,” Casey agreed. He was fussing with a handful of shotgun shells. “If it’s them... um... we’d best stop right here. See that culvert ahead? Straddle it.”

Jim stepped on the brake. His car wobbled, halted at last.

“That’s right,” Casey said. “Turn her a little. Block the road. You get in the ditch.”

Once more the oncoming light flashed against the rain, brighter this time. Casey snapped off their own headlamps. Then he climbed out.

“In the ditch, kid,” he repeated, “never mind the water.” Something made him chuckle. “No rats in this war, anyhow. Keep your head down.”

“It’s him!” Jim shouted.

The car flashed over the hill. It was roaring toward them.

“Yeh, it’s them,” Casey agreed.

That had been a single headlamp lighting the sky. It was coming fast. Too fast to mean anything except chase... or escape. Jim ran for the ditch. One headlight... trying to get to Empire... not home for chores... scar... tall... nice looking...

“Head down!” Casey repeated.

The car was only a quarter-mile away. An eighth of a mile. Jim could hear it roaring down the grade. It wasn’t a jalopy. Came too fast. Charley always did like to go fast...

“Aim steady, kid!” Casey sang out. “If you got to shoot, do it quick!”

The car was two hundred yards away and doing sixty when Jim heard the yell of its brakes. He looked quickly over his shoulder. Casey waved his flashlight once, snapped it off, grabbed his shotgun, and took aim.

The one-eyed car was screeching, twisting, trying hard to stop. They knew they were trapped. Jim raised his pistol. It was awfully heavy. His fingers felt numb, holding it. Numb, like his knees in this cold ditch water. Aiming at Charley, was he? Aiming to shoot him? He let the pistol waver. The oncoming light swept its beam crazily across the road, right and left, wiping a brief white streak in the night, touching old Casey, standing there, with the shotgun in his hands.

Then the light went out. The car had halted, thirty yards away. For an instant there was only wet darkness. Then a dozen quick flashes spurted from the black bulk of the bandit car and Jim heard the ping of the slugs. Someone was shooting at Casey. Someone with the tommy-gun. A tall young fellow, nice looking, with a scar. Voices shouted and a car door slammed. Casey didn’t fire. What was he waiting for? Jim yelled, “Sarge!” No answer. “Sarge!” he cried.

He found Casey on his knees beside his car. The shotgun lay on the wet pavement. Casey was holding the fender with both hands, trying to get to his feet. He was being sick.

“Let... ’em get me...” he said. He tried to laugh. “Let... them punks... get me...”

Old Casey wasn’t as heavy as Jim had imagined. Only the car door was too narrow. But he got him in. A slug was in his shoulder.

“Hurt a lot?”

Casey tried to laugh. “Not... a lot.”

Jim staggered up. It couldn’t matter now whose brother that was. “Give me the shells,” he heard himself yelling. He took them, snatched up the shotgun. “Be right back, Sarge,” he promised.

Running, he didn’t think to bend low. Didn’t Charley know he’d catch him? Hadn’t he always caught him, ever since they were kids? Even in the dark he could see where the gang had raced down the muddy bank. A snag of somebody’s raincoat hung on the barbed-wire fence. Jim ducked through it and halted, listening.

They were over that way, down the hill. He ran, following the sound.

Back on the road he heard a police siren coming. Some other car, that meant. It would find Casey. He ran on: He needn’t turn back now. For anything. Needn’t turn till the job was done.

A voice shouted: “Dropped it in the mud. Busted it.”

“Let it go,” someone answered. “Don’t need it.”

Jim didn’t recognize either voice. They were too far off. It didn’t matter, anyway. Didn’t matter, either, what they had dropped; even when he tripped over it, the tommy-gun, he didn’t pause. He didn’t want it, any more than they did. He still could hear them. But they didn’t hear him. Or else they didn’t care.

“Where the hell we goin’?” one of them yelled. “Me, I want the road. Get another car. Hell with the woods.”

Jim slowed, and moved forward more silently. Casey had said they would find the swamp too tough. Jim could hear them arguing. He tried to make out the voices. But still he couldn’t. He could see them, though. Suddenly, in the darkness of the woods, his wet eyes made out the three darker shadows. He knelt in the swamp water and carefully lifted the shotgun. What would his mother say, if they brought bad news about Charley?

The three plunged toward him, still crashing through the brush. Going hack to concrete, were they? He couldn’t tell which was tallest. Couldn’t see what they looked like. Whether any of them had a scar. But one did have a scar. Three witnesses had said...

“Halt, you!” he sang out.

The three halted.

“What’s this, a gag?” a voice demanded.

“I’ll shoot,” Jim said. He felt very calm. Nothing mattered. If he had to shoot, he had to shoot. If that was Charley nearest him, it was Charley.

“Shoot, then,” one of the figures said.

“If I could see him,” another muttered.

So they couldn’t see him, here on his knees. He had that advantage.

“Who the hell are you, anyhow?” the voice demanded.

“Drop your gun, you,” Jim bade. “Drop it.”

There was a flash, instead. So they wanted to shoot him, too, did they? Jim’s finger closed on the trigger. Slowly. Squeezing the way he’d been taught on the range. The fellow who’d tried to shoot at him sang out as he fell.

“Rest of you want the same?” Jim asked. They didn’t.

“How many guns?” Jim asked. “Throw ’em in the brush!” He heard one crash.

“Pick up your man,” he bade them. “Carry him. Face into the rain. It’ll take you to the road.”

They did not resist. But it took both of them to lift the man Jim had shot. He was tall, seemed heavy, and they kept tripping.

“I’m right behind you,” Jim warned. “Now, which of you is Charley?”

“Huh?” the voice asked. “Another gag? No Charley here.”

At the edge of the woods Jim met the corporal from the Traverse City post and a couple of troopers coming to help him. Two new police cars and the sheriff’s sedan stood at the road by the culvert. Casey still was there, propped up in his own seat. He was smoking his pipe, swearing, while two of the hoys, who had taken his tunic off, were binding the hole in his shoulder. He wasn’t being sick any more. When he saw Jim, he said, “Three dirty punks, kid, just like I said.” He shouted at the hoodlums, “Where you birds from?”

“Chicago,” one answered. He was a hungry-looking guy. All three looked hungry. And scared. And dumb. One did have a scar. But he didn’t look like Charley. Not a bit.

“What’d I tell you, kid?” Casey demanded. “City punks. Anybody’d know it, way they done the job. No farm kid would make all them mistakes.” He paused. “Ouch!” he said. “Just punks.”

“Sure,” Jim said. “That’s right.”

He was feeling easy. Over to the west a flock of cars were rushing down the hill. Posse men tumbled out. Troopers were patting him on the back, calling it nice work to bring in all three. One of them shouted, “Come on, boys. Get Casey and this lug to the hospital.”

“Me?” Casey said. “Oh, all right. Only first, on the way, leave Jim here get to a ’phone. He’s been havin’ an awful time. Something awful important to call about.” He chuckled.

“Thanks, Sarge,” Jim said. “Never mind. Nothing to call about now...”