Michael Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 1, September 1956

Rooftop by Norman Daniels

A second-generation killer with a gun, an isolated skyscraper roof on a Sunday afternoon, near zero weather — these were what Landin had to contend with if he was to escape with his life. His only weapons were wits.

I wondered when he was going to pull the trigger, but even more, I wondered why. In the first place, I’d never seen him before — in the second place, I had no enemies that I knew of, particularly none who looked to be little more than a kid.

I judged his age to be about nineteen, but if you studied his eyes and the twist to the left corner of his mouth, he could have been forty. I’m a structural engineer, and I come in contact with a lot of tough men, but this kid looked plain mean. Like someone who grew up in a slum and liked it that way, because its ugliness offered him an excuse for hate.

I said, “All right — if this is a stickup, I’ll give you my wallet.”

“This ain’t a stickup, Mr. Landin,” he said. “I’m just acting for someone else to get what she has coming to her — from you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but why do you need a gun?” I asked.

“Just to even things up,” he told me. “I’m a little guy, and you’re a big shot. They tell me you put up this building.”

“That’s true,” I said.

“And it ain’t finished yet, even if you got a nice office up here on the top floor. There ain’t nobody above the eighth floor yet. There ain’t even a super, except the engineer who runs the furnaces. Being Sunday afternoon, nobody’s likely to show.”

I kept wondering if I could maneuver so as to make a pass at that gun, but decided against it. At forty-two, my reflexes were good, but I doubted they’d be equal to this young punk’s. I was thinking that he appeared to be a particularly vicious and deadly little rat.

“Answer me,” he said. “Am I right or wrong?”

“You’re right. Now, tell me what you want.”

“Sure, but first I want you to know a couple of things about me. My name is Jigger Abbott. That mean anything to you?”

I said, “No. Why should it?”

He squinted at me. “Think again. Jigger Abbott — Jigger — oh, the hell with it. He was my old man, and he used to run a mob.”

I remembered then. “Yes,” I said. “I remember him. But I never met him or had anything to do with him.”

“Who says you did? He’d never bother with a square like you. I just want you to know that I’m like he was. Just like he was — only they won’t burn me, and I’ll be bigger’n he ever was. That’s why I’m here.”

I was getting sick of the gun, pointed at me by a kid whose father had been a deadly killer and had gone to the electric chair for murder when this boy couldn’t have been more than four or five.

I said, “Put that gun down and tell me what you want.”

He hefted the pistol, but he didn’t put it down. “It’s a nice gun, ain’t it? Know where this came from? Al Capone’s trigger man gave it to my old man. Get that? Al’s trigger man.”

“Fascinating,” I said.

“You’re a wise guy,” he told me. “I don’t like wise guys. Neither did my old man — he hated ’em. Okay, I’ll tell you why I’m here. Four months ago, a guy named Patsy Eaton fell off one of your damn buildings.”

“What’s that got to do with you?” I asked.

“Patsy’s daughter and me are like that. Her old man got killed on one of your jobs, and it’s your fault.”

I started to reach for the pack of cigarettes on my desk, but thought better of it. The kid had pale green eyes, flecked with yellow. I’d seen those kind of eyes on a cougar once — just before I shot him.

“Now hold on a second,” I said. “I don’t know what you want, but you might as well get the story straight. Eaton did work for me. He was fired two months before he got killed. The day it happened, he showed up on the job, and he was drunk. He was told to get out, but he didn’t go. Instead, he climbed up five stories and fell. The insurance company wouldn’t pay, and neither will I.”

“We figure,” the kid said, “that it’s worth seventy grand. Now all you gotta do is write a letter to Patsy’s kid and say you know she rates the dough. Then write a check, and we’ll just mail it to her. Date the letter and the check yesterday. How about it, Mr. Landin?”

I said, “If I don’t, I suppose I get shot.”

“That’s right,” he said cheerfully. “And I ain’t a patient guy. My pop used to say — you got a sucker on the hook, pull him in fast before something happens. So you write the letter and the check, beginning right now.”

He impressed me — even a kid with a gun in his fist can be impressive. The whole scheme was crazy anyway. I could stop payment on a check — though I supposed he had thought of that too. I used my stationery and wrote a letter in longhand. I made out a check, clipped it to the letter and put the whole thing in an envelope. After I addressed it, I pasted on the stamp. He watched me with those green-yellow flecked eyes, as if I might pull a gun on him at any moment.

“That’s fine,” he said. “Now I ain’t touching that, on account of fingerprints. We take a walk out to the hall and drop it down the mail slot, okay?”

“If you say so.”

“Then,” he said, “we go up on the roof. I want to see what the view looks like from there.”

I didn’t let him know that I realized his intention all too well. The crazy kid meant to throw me off the roof. That was his way of thinking it out. His girl would get this letter and the check — dated before my death. It would have to be honored. I’d just set myself up as a killer’s victim.

I said, “Why the roof? The temperature is about zero up there.”

“I want to see the view,” he repeated, and he drove the barrel of the gun into my ribs hard enough to make me wince.

I walked ahead of him to the corridor. There wasn’t a chance of anyone seeing us. I was beginning to give the kid credit for having more brains than I had realized. The mail slot was right next to the stairway to the roof — a steep, narrow stairway — and the door was held ajar by a couple of bricks, because the plaster on the walls wasn’t quite dry yet.

I dropped the envelope down the slot and wondered if I was dropping my life with it. I turned around. The kid was just a little careless. I suppose he thought the hard part of his self-assigned job was finished. He stood beside the partly open door, and all I had to do was reach out my hand and push the door into his face.

I used all my strength, and it was enough to send him reeling back, but not enough to knock him down. There wasn’t a chance to jump the gun. There was even less of a chance to sprint for the down stairway, so I did the only thing I could. I ran up the stairs to the roof.

It took him a few seconds to get his breath and his wits back, and then he started after me. I was at the top by this time, and I had the heavy door open. There was a key on the inside of the lock. I managed to get this free, and I was putting it into the outside of the door when he started shooting.

One slug missed me by a sixteenth of an inch. I didn’t need a ruler to measure its closeness — I could feel its wind on my cheek as it whined past. He had me right where he wanted me. The heavy door wasn’t easy to close. If I tried to duck behind it, he’d get me with the next bullet.

I just stood there while he climbed the stairs. He gave me a shove with the flat of his hand and then went by me. He turned and pointed the gun at my heart. I pushed the door closed, put my back against it and hoped he didn’t see me turn the key.

He said, “You got more nerve than I figured, Mr. Landin. I like a guy with guts, but it ain’t going to do you any good.”

I had to take a chance. I reasoned that he wouldn’t want to shoot me. The validity of the check might be questioned if I was unquestionably a murder victim. The same idea must have been stored away in that brain of his, because, when I lunged to the right to get away from the gun, he didn’t shoot. All he did was clout me over the head with the barrel — hard enough so that I was sent staggering back against the door.

“Okay,” he said, “it’s too cold to fool around up here. Start walking and keep right on going.”

“Going where?” I asked, keeping up the foolish pretense that I didn’t know what he was talking about.

“Right off the edge of the roof, pal. I don’t want that check stopped, get it? And what the hell — you put up this building, so it’s possible you were up here just to look things over, and you fell off.”

I said, “I don’t exactly feel like committing suicide.”

“Okay,” he told me. “I’ll knock you cold and roll you off. Hell I got nothing against you.”

I started walking. I made my way across the roof, stopped and looked around. This was the tallest building for maybe half a mile. It topped everything else, so nobody could possibly see us. Besides, it was far downtown, and and streets below were as empty on a Sunday afternoon as they were busy on a week day.

I moved along the edge — but didn’t let myself get too close. It was cold — only a few degrees above zero — and I was beginning to feel it. All I had on was my suit. The kid was more comfortable. He wore a heavy overcoat and a muffler.

He got sick of trailing behind me, although he stood for it longer than I’d hoped he would. He said, “Okay — make up your mind. How do you want it?”

I turned around and regarded him for a moment, wondering if that twisted little mind of his was going to be able to digest what I intended to tell him.

“I’m not going to jump,” I said. “And you’re not going to knock me out and push me over.”

His was an unexpectedly cunning brain.

He said, “Mister, you know something. What is it?”

I said, “You want the money that check will bring you and your girl. If I die up here on the roof, you’ll not only never lay your hands on the money, but you’ll be arrested for murder. What’s more, you’ll be convicted.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” he demanded. He looked around quickly as if he thought someone else might be up here with us.

I spelled it out for him. “There’s one door on this roof. There’s no fire escape, no other way to get off. The door happens to be a used one, installed temporarily until the new door is made up. It also happens to be a very strong door, and it locks with a key.”

“So what?” he asked. The kid was getting sore and worried. It was a bad combination for a man at the other end of his gun.

“It’s simple, kid. I locked the door, and I’ve hidden the key. You can’t get off the roof. If I go overside, the cops will come up here to investigate, and you’ll have a hard time explaining why you’re here and what happened. If you shoot me — the same thing — you’ll be here when the cops arrive.”

“Give me the key,” he said.

I shook my head. “That would be like giving my life away.”

He whipped me across the face with the gun before he ran to the door and checked. He pulled at the knob, he tried to break it down with his shoulder. Finally, he put the muzzle of his gun against the lock and fired.

I’d been afraid of that. Not because a bullet would smash the lock, but because it might foul up the mechanism so that even the use of the key wouldn’t get us off the roof.

I laughed out loud at him, and I turned up the collar of my coat and stood there, shivering. There was a sharp wind that high up, and it cut like ice.

The kid walked up to me. “You can’t get away with it,” he warned. “I’ll get that key if I have to kill you by inches.”

“You’re wrong, kid. I’m a dead man anyway — but when I die, so do you.”

He yelled at me, cursing me, while he searched my pockets. Then he began looking for the key all over the roof. I wished I had the pack of cigarettes that rested on my desk a floor below. Even the heat offered by a burning tip would be a comfort. I began to shiver harder. The cold went right through me.

But I laughed at the kid’s desperation and felt as happy as could be expected under the circumstances. He checked the rooftop, foot by foot. He even climbed the water tower, presumably on the theory that I might have thrown the key up there. It took him half an hour before he was satisfied that I hadn’t hidden the key — unless it was on my person, and his first search had missed it. He walked up to me, dangerously angry.

“I want that key,” he said. “I want it now.”

I told him then. “I’ll unlock the door when you give me your gun.”

He backed up a step. “Turn around,” he ordered. “You got that key on you, and I’m going to find it. I’m Jigger Abbott’s son, remember?”

I turned around and raised my hands. In so doing, I made my first bad mistake. He simply stepped up behind me and swung the gun butt. My knees buckled, and I went down, but there wasn’t quite enough steam in the blow to put me out.

I put the flat of my hand against the ice-cold roof to do a push-up. I saw his foot go back. I knew what he was going to do, but I was too dazed to do anything about it. He kicked me beside the right temple, and my push-up expired along with my senses. I had a vague feeling that I was already off the edge of the roof and on my way down.

That sensation changed after a while. I thought I was being tossed around in a polar sea. There were gigantic ice cubes all around me, and the water kept getting colder and colder until I felt like an olive, slipped by accident into the mixer instead of the cocktail glass. I knew I couldn’t survive this cold much longer. It would chill the blood in my veins until it became thin, crimson ice. It wouldn’t circulate any more, though it would make little difference, because my heart was already a block of ice.

There were bells too. The damnedest things were filtering through the black cloud of unconsciousness. Church bells! I didn’t have any business hearing church bells, because I hadn’t attended services for years, though at this moment, I thought it might be a good idea.

There was a driving pain, like a hot iron, in my side. It came again and again until I realized someone was kicking me. I opened my eyes and looked at the ash-grey surface of the rooftop. I wondered who had fished me out of the ice-filled sea.

“Get up,” he was saying. “On your feet!”

I didn’t have any feet. My being began somewhere near the top of my head and extended only as far down as the area of my jaw — mainly because my jaw was sore. Below the jawline, I didn’t exist.

The crazy kid got a handful of my hair and pulled me up to a sitting position. I sat there, staring down at my legs. I did have legs after all, I thought. The fact seemed odd. They were very white legs except for the parts where they were blue. I’d never heard of anyone with white and blue legs. I’d be patriotic as hell if I bled a little.

But how did it happen I could see all that skin? The last I knew, I was wearing pants. A hand went down, rubbed along my thigh. I barely felt it. Then I realized my arm and shoulder were naked, too. I shook my head, got some of my senses back. Damned if I wasn’t dressed only in shorts.

“How do you feel now, wise guy?” the kid asked.

Full realization came back to me. That little punk had knocked me out, searched me for the key and, not finding it, had stripped me down. He was going to freeze me into submission.

Somehow, I managed to get to my feet. I saw my clothes flung wildly over the rooftop. I staggered toward the big brick chimney and leaned against it. For a few minutes, I enjoyed the faint warmth the bricks gave off, but the kid soon sensed what I was doing.

“Get away from there,” he said. “You’re going to freeze until you tell me where the key is.”

“Maybe I threw it over the edge,” I said.

“The hell you did!” He had more brains than I’d given him credit for. “That’d be like killing yourself. Get away from that chimney.”

I didn’t move. “Go ahead and shoot,” I said. “What’s the difference? So you’ll kill me, but they’ll send you over the same route they sent that lousy old man of yours.”

“Shut up,” he screamed at me. “Keep that mouth of yours shut. I’m warning you...”

“They’ll carry you to the chair — like they carried him,” I said. “You’re all alike.”

He fired. I barely felt the bullet that plowed into my thigh — that’s how cold I was. But the shock made my leg buckle, and I fell. I lay there, damning him. I asked him for my shirt to use as a bandage, and I got sneered at and threatened some more. I put my hand down hard on the wound, hoping it would stop the bleeding. It didn’t — but the cold did.

I looked up at him. “We’re getting no place,” I said. “Without the key, you’re finished. Hear those church bells? That’s vespers, though I doubt that the word is familiar to you. I’ll explain — vespers is an evening service. That means it’s getting dark. As soon as the sun goes down, so will the temperature. Even that overcoat won’t keep you from freezing then.”

“You’ll freeze too,” he said, “if I don’t put a slug through your guts and sit here and watch you die.”

He was capable of it. I had to move carefully now — and, above all, avoid mention of his father. I said, “There’ll be no one to watch you die. You can’t attract attention up here. Nobody can see you, and we’re too high for shouting to do any good. If you’re going through with this screwball scheme, I’d advise you to keep a bullet in the gun. You’ll want it before midnight.”

“I’ll kick you to pieces!” he screamed, and the mounting, icy wind seemed to pick up his shrill fury and cast it around like an echo. “I’ll make you tell me where that key is.”

I reached down deep and found a smile I didn’t know I had. “So long, kid,” I said.

He pulled his foot back, but after a moment he relaxed, as if he realized there wasn’t any use. He walked around the rooftop — fast, stamping his feet — but I could see his face turning crimson as the cold bit into him. I was already numb. Maybe, I thought, I could stand it another hour. But not much longer than an hour — pretty soon I’d have to begin fighting to stay awake.

You just closed your eyes and fell asleep when you froze to death. Or did you have to be buried alive in a snow bank to earn such solace? I was damned well going to find out pretty soon. The wound in my thigh should have been aching badly, but I didn’t even feel it. I stretched the leg all the way out and wiggled my toes. They moved, but a bit sluggishly, and it took a lot of effort.

The kid was stamping around again. His overcoat was shoddy — it wouldn’t keep out the cold forever. It was a toss-up now — as to who could stand the most cold. I lay back, looking up at the darkening sky while the stars began to come out.

Cold, cold stars — Maybe there was something up there for me. All I had to do to find out was close my eyes and let myself go. It was as easy as that. I was shaking so hard I thought an arm or a leg might break off. The kid was standing there, looking down at me.

“Here it comes,” he said. “I’m sick of fooling around.”

I laughed. I suppose it was an unpleasant laugh, because the kid’s face grew drawn and anguished. I said, “Like father, like son — except he got burned to death, and you’ll freeze to death. But then, you can always jump.”

He shouted his shrill curses. He kicked me half a dozen times. I didn’t even feel it. I closed my eyes again. To hell with him, I thought. Then, far in the back of my mind, I found a small, lurking doubt. What if the kid got away with it! What if I died, and he somehow got off the roof? Nothing, I remembered, was impossible. If he did, he’d get that money — he and his girl friend would cash the check. Right there, the nucleus of a brand-new gang would be formed. What would I be turning loose on this city I had helped to build?

I managed to raise myself on one elbow. “Do you want to listen to me, kid, do you want to shoot me, or do I just lie back and let myself freeze to death?”

“Talk all you want,” he snarled at me. “Words won’t do you no good.”

If he didn’t care, he’d have refused to listen. I said, “What’s it getting you, kid? You said your old man was smart. What would he do in a case of this kind?”

“Blow your goddamn head off,” the kid yelled.

“Then he wouldn’t be smart — like you said he was. Look here, kid, nobody with brains fights what he knows he can’t lick. I can’t get off this roof unless you let me. You can’t get off unless I give you the key — and you know by now that I won’t.”

“If you’re talking a deal, forget it,” he said.

“Sure it’s a deal,” I said. “Why not? So far, you’re guilty of attempted blackmail and attempted murder. That isn’t actual murder. They can’t burn you. The choice is yours, kid. Die here or go to jail for awhile. You’ve got — at the outside — ten or fifteen minutes to make up your mind. I won’t last much longer.”

“How do I know you really got the key?” he asked.

Then I knew I had him.

“What would be the sense to all this if I didn’t have it?”

“It’s not on the roof, it ain’t in your clothes. Where is it, damn you?”

“Give me the gun,” I said.

He stamped his feet some more, flapped his arms, looked colder than ever. I didn’t feel a thing. I was numb from head to foot. All of a sudden, he sobbed. He blubbered like the nasty little embryo he was. Then he threw the gun down on the roof beside me.

I had a lot of will power and a little hope, but hardly any strength. The hardest thing I ever did was to turn over, so I could put my hand around the gun butt. I imagined it felt warm — from his hand.

“Get my clothes,” I told him. “Hurry it up — I’m almost finished.”

He was on the receiving end this time. He was so anxious to save his own life that he helped me into my pants and shirt and even took off his overcoat and put it around me.

I managed to stand up, with his help, but then I pushed him away. It was a weak push — a gnat could have done as well — but all the kid needed was the implication. He stepped away.

I staggered over to the door, let myself slide down. Now came the dangerous part. Once I had the key, he wasn’t going to be easy to handle. My fingers were numb, but I could still feel the metal pencil clipped to the pocket of my coat, and I got it free.

I put the end of the pencil under the door, tilted it, pulled it toward me. After a few hair-raising failures, I saw the key glistening like a diamond as I dragged it from under the door.

He was yelling something. My fingers closed around the key, clumsily, but I’d put my left hand inside the overcoat long enough to get the blood circulating sluggishly, and I could manipulate them. My other hand seemed completely numb and held the gun only because my fingers were frozen around it.

“You shoved it under the door!” he shrilled. “Damn you! Under the door! Under the door! It was there all the time!”

“You’re smart,” I said. “Like your old man, you’re smart. Why didn’t you find it, smart guy?”

He came toward me. I fired the gun. At least it went off, though I had no real sensation of pulling the trigger. The slug missed him, but it straightened things out in his mind. He had no desire to die.

I got the door open, and the warm air that came up felt like the blast from a furnace. I let it fan all around me until my skin started tingling.

“Mr. Landin,” the kid was saying. “Please, Mr. Landin — I’m cold! I’m dying I’m so cold!”

I let him go first, and not out of politeness. My thigh, my whole body, was giving me fits. The wound was beginning to bleed again. We reached the bottom of the stairs and went on out into and corridor.

I picked up one of the bricks that had held the door open, and I smashed it against his skull as hard as I could. A blow with the gun wouldn’t have been as effective.

I let him lie there, because there was nothing else I could do. I moved toward my office down the hall. I knew I had only a few seconds left. I made my legs travel faster. Miracle of miracles — I was inside! I picked up the phone. My finger found the slot for the operator, and I dialed. I thought the end of my finger was going to break off.

Then they came — as I thought they might — the shakes! I began shivering from head to foot. The police understood me, but it took what seemed like a long while to get the words around my chattering teeth.

They fed me whiskey from a bottle in my office — only after they got me to the hospital, was I given hot coffee. The wound wasn’t too bad. I’d be up and out of there in a few days — that’s what they told me.

As it turned out, the doctors were right. They put young Jigger Abbott in the prison ward of the same hospital, and he didn’t get out for two-and-a-half weeks. It seems he had caught pneumonia.