My Gun Is Quick

Chapter Thirteen

Pat arrived seven minutes after the patrol car. By that time, Lola had caught up to me and stood to one side catching her breath. As usual, the curious had formed a tight ring around us and the cops were busy trying to disperse them. Pat said, "It's a hell of a note. You didn't get the make of the car?"

I shook my head. "Only that it was a dark one. The doorman didn't notice either. Goddamn, that makes me mad!"

A reporter pushed his way through the cordon ready to take notes. Pat told him tersely, "The police will issue an official statement later." The guy wouldn't take it for an answer and tried to quiz the cops, but they didn't know any more than the police-call told them; to close in on the Albino Club and hold anyone from leaving.

I stepped back into the crowd and Pat followed. I couldn't press my luck too far. I was still dead and I might as well stay that way for a while if I could. I leaned up against the fender of a car and Pat stayed close. Lola came over and held my hand.

"How's it going, Pat?"

"Not good. I'm catching hell. It's coming at me from all directions now and I don't know which way to turn. Somebody has one devil of a lot of pull in this town, They're talking, too, enough to put the papers wise. The reporters are swarming around headquarters looking for leads. I can't give them anything and they jump me for it. The publicity is going to cause a lot of eyebrow-lifting tomorrow."

There was a determined set to his jaw anyway. Pat could dish it out, too. His time was coming. "What are you doing about it?"

His grin wasn't pleasant. "We staged a couple of raids tonight. Remember what you said about the police knowing things... and still having to let them go on?" I nodded. "I used handpicked men. They raided two fancy houses uptown and came up with a haul that would make your eyes pop out. We have names now, and charges to go with them. Some of the men we netted in the raid tried to bribe my officers and are going to pay through the nose for it!"

"Brother!"

"They're scared, Mike. They don't know what we have or what we haven't and they can't take, chances. Between now and tomorrow the lid will be off City Hall unless I miss my guess. They're scared and worried."

"They should be."

Pat waited, his tongue licking at the corner of his mouth.

"Nancy had been working at a scheme. Oh, it was a pretty little scheme that I thought involved petty blackmail. I think it went further than that."

"How much further?"

I looked at Lola. "In a day or two... maybe we can tell you then."

"My legs have a long way to go yet," she said.

"What are you getting at?" Pat asked.

"You'll find out. By the way, have you got things set up for tomorrow night?"

Pat lit a cigarette and flipped the burnt match into the gutter. "You know, I'm beginning to wonder who's running my department. I'm sure as hell not."

But he was smiling when he said it.

"Yeah, we're ready. The men are picked, but they haven't been told their assignments. I don't want any more leaks."

"Good! They'll pull their strings and when they find that doesn't work they'll pull their guns. We beat them at that and they're up the tree, ready for the net. Meanwhile we have to be careful. It's rough, Pat, isn't it?"

"Too rough. The city can be damn dirty if you look in the right places."

I ground out my butt under my heel. "They talk about the Romans. They only threw human beings into a pit with lions. At least, then, the lions had a wall around them so they couldn't get out. Here they hang out in bars and on the street corners looking for a meal."

The crowd had thinned out and the cops were back in the car trying to brush off the reporter. Another car with a press tag on the window swerved to a stop and two stepped out. I didn't want to wait around. Too many knew me by sight. I told Pat so-long and took off up the street with Lola trotting alongside me.

I drove her to the apartment and she insisted I come up for the coffee I didn't have before. It was quiet up here, the absolute early-morning quiet that comes when the city has gone to bed and the earliest risers haven't gotten up yet. The street had quieted down, too. Even an occasional horn made an incongruous sound in that unnatural stillness.

From the river the low cry of dark shapes and winking lights that were ships echoed and re-echoed through the canyons of the avenues. Lola turned the radio on low, bringing in a selection of classical piano pieces, and I sat there with my eyes closed, listening, thinking, picturing my redhead as a blackmailer. In a near sleep I thought it was Red at the piano fingering the keys while I watched approvingly, my mind filled with thoughts. She read my mind and her face grew sad, sadder than anything I had ever seen, and she turned her eyes on me and I could see clear through them into the goodness of her soul, and I knew she wasn't a blackmailer and my first impression had been right. She was a girl who had come face to face with fate and had lost, but in losing hadn't lost all, for there was the light of holiness in her face that time when I was her friend, when I thought that a look like that belonged only in a church when you were praying or getting married or something--a light that was there now for me to see while she played a song that told me I was her friend and she was mine, a friendship that was more than that, it was a trust and I believed it... knew it and wanted it, for here was a devotion more than I expected or deserved and I wanted to be worthy of it. But, before I could tell her so, Feeney Last's face swirled up from the mist beside the keyboard, smirking, silently mouthing smutty remarks and leering threats that took the holiness away from the scene and smashed it underfoot, assailing her with words that replaced the hardness and terror that had been ingrown before we met, and I couldn't do a thing about it because my feet were powerless to move and my hands were glued to my sides by some invisible force that Feeney controlled and wouldn't release until he had killed her and was gone with his laugh ringing in the air and the smirk still on his face, daring me to follow when I couldn't answer him. All I could do was stand there and look at my redhead's lifeless body until I focused on her hands to see where he had scratched her when he took off her ring.

Lola said, "The coffee's ready, Mike."

I came awake with a start, my feet and hands free again and I half-expected to see Feeney disappearing around the corner. The radio played on, an inanimate thing in the corner with a voice of deep notes that was the only sound in the night.

"Thinking, honey?"

"Dreaming." I lifted the cup from the tray and she added the sugar and milk. "Sometimes it's good to dream."

She made a wry mouth. "Sometimes it isn't." She kissed me with her eyes then. "My dreams have changed lately, Mike. They're nicer than they used to be."

"They become you, Lola."

"I love you, Mike. I can be impersonal because I can't do a thing about it. It isn't a love like that first time. It's a cold fact. Is it that I'm in love with you or do I just love you?"

She sipped her coffee and I didn't answer her. She wouldn't have wanted me to.

"You're big, Mike. You can be called ugly if you take your face apart piece by piece and look at it separately. You have a brutish quality about you that makes men hate you, but maybe a woman wants a brute. Perhaps she wants a man she knows can hate and kill yet still retain a sense of kindness. How long have I known you: a few days? Long enough to look at you and say I love you, and if things had been different I would want you to love me back. But because it can't be that way I'm almost impersonal about it. I just want you to know it."

She sat there quietly, her eyes half-closed, and I saw the perfection in this woman. A mind and body cleansed of any impurities that were, needing only a freedom of her soul. I had never seen her like this, relaxed, happy in her knowledge of unhappiness. Her face had a radiant glow of unusual beauty; her hair tumbled to her shoulders, alive with the dampness of the rain.

I laid my cup on the end table, unable to turn my head away. "It's almost like being married," she said, "sitting here enjoying each other even though there's a whole room between us."

It was no trouble to walk across the room. She stretched out her hands for me to pull her to her feet and I folded her into my arms, my mouth searching for hers, finding it without trouble, enjoying the honey of her lips that she gave freely, her tongue a warm little dagger that stabbed deeper and deeper.

I didn't want her to leave me so soon when she sidled out of my hands. She kissed me lightly on the cheek, took a cigarette from the table and made me take it, then held up a light. The flame of the match was no more intense than that in her eyes. It told me to wait, but not for long. She blew out the match, kissed me again on the cheek and walked into the bedroom, proud, lovely.

The cigarette had burned down to a stub when she called me. Just one word.

"Mike!..."

I dropped it, still burning, in the tray. I followed her voice.

Lola was standing in the center of the room, the one light on the dresser throwing her in the shadow. Her back was towards me and she faced the open window, looking into the night beyond. She might have been a statue carved by the hands of a master sculptor, so still and beautiful was her pose. A gentle breeze wafted in and the sheer gown of silk she wore folded back against her body, accentuating every line, every curve.

I stood there in the doorway hardly daring to breathe for fear she would move and spoil the vision. Her voice was barely audible. "A thousand years ago I made this to be the gown I would wear on my wedding night, Mike. A thousand years ago I cried my heart out and put it away under everything else and I had forgotten about it until I met you."

She swung around in a little graceful movement, taking a step nearer me. "I never had a night I wanted to remember. I want to have this one for my memories." Her eyes were leaping, dancing coals of passion.

"Come here, Mike!" It was a demand that wasn't necessary.

I grabbed her shoulders and my fingers bit into her flesh.

"I want you to love me Mike, just for tonight," she said. "I want a love that's as strong as mine and just as fierce because there may be no tomorrow for either one of us, and if there is it will never be the same. Say it, Mike. Tell me."

"I love you, Lola. I could have told you that before, but you wouldn't let me. You're easy to love, even for me. Once I said I'd never love again, but I have."

"Just for tonight."

"You're wrong. Not just for tonight. I'll love you as long as I please. If there's any stopping to be done I'll do it. You're brand new, Lola... you're made for a brand-new guy, somebody more than me. I'm trouble for everything I touch."

Her hand closed over my mouth. My whole body was aching for her until my head felt dizzy. When she took her hand away she put it over one of mine that squeezed her shoulders and moved it to the neckline of the gown.

"I made this gown to be worn only once. There's only one way to get it off."

A devil was making love to me.

My fingers closed over the silk and ripped it away with a hissing, tearing sound and she was standing in front of me, naked and inviting.

Her voice had angels in it, though. "I love you, Mike," she said again.

She was my kind of woman, one that you didn't have to speak to, for words weren't that necessary. She was honest and strong in her honesty, capable of loving a man with all her heart had to give, and she was giving it to me.

Her mouth was cool, but her body was hot with an inner fire that could only be smothered out.

It was a night she thought she'd never have.

It was a night I'd never forget.

I was alone when I woke up. The tinkling of a miniature alarm-clock on the dresser was a persistent reminder that a new day was here. Pinned to the pillow next to mine was a note from Lola and signed with a lipstick kiss. It read, "It ended too soon, Mike. Now I have to finish the job you gave me. Breakfast is all ready--just warm everything up."

Breakfast, hell!' It was after twelve. I ate while I was getting dressed, anxious to get into things. The coffee was too hot to touch and while it cooled. I snapped the radio on. For the first time in his life the news commentator seemed genuinely excited. He gave out with a spiel at a fast clip, only pausing to take a breath at the end of each paragraph. The police had staged two more raids after I left Pat, and the dragnet was pulling in every shady character suspected of having dealings with the gigantic vice ring that controlled the city.

The iron fist had made a wide sweep. It closed in on places and persons I never thought of. A grin crossed my face and I ran my hand over the stubble of beard on my chin. I was seeing Pat again, acknowledging the knowledge of the existence of such a ring, yet readily agreeing that there was little that could be done about it. He was eating his own words and liking it.

One thing about a drive like that, it can't be stopped. The papers take up the crusade and the hue and cry is on. The public goes on a fox-hunt in righteous indignation, ready to smash something they had unconcernedly supported with indifference only the day before. To them it was fun to see a public name grovelling in the mud, a thrill to know they were part of the pack.

But the big scenes weren't written yet. They'd come later in a court-room after postponements, stalls, anything to gain time to let the affair cool down. Then maybe a fine would be handed out, maybe a light jail sentence here and there, maybe a dismissal for lack of evidence.

Evidence--the kind that could stick. The police would do their share, but if the evidence didn't stick there would be people walking out of that court with the memory of what had happened and a vow never to let it happen again. They'd be people with power, of course, filthy, rotten squibs who liked the feeling of power and money, determined to let nothing interfere with their course of life. They'd undermine the workings of the law. A little at a time, like the waves lapping at the sand around a piling, uncovering it until it was ready to topple of its own accord. Then they could get in their own kind... people who would look the other way and interpret the law to their own advantage.

I got into my coat and went downstairs for a paper, hurrying back to the apartment to read it. The story was there complete with pictures, but it was the columnists that went further than fact. They hinted that more than one prominent personage had been hurriedly called away from town on the eve of the investigation and, if the revelations continued, the number in the Blue Book was going to diminish by many pages. One of the more sensational writers inferred that the police were getting able assistance outside their own circle, a subtle implication that they couldn't handle the situation unless they were prodded into action.

The police themselves had little or nothing to say. There was no statement from higher headquarters as yet, but a few of the lesser politicos had issued fiery blasts that the law was taking too much on its shoulders and was more concerned with smear tactics than law enforcement. I had to laugh at that. I was willing to bet those boys were trying to cover up by making more noise than the police.

I picked up the phone and dialed Pat. He was dog tired and glad to hear from me. "Read the papers yet?" he asked.

"Yeah, and listened to the radio. The exodus has begun."

"You can say that again. We're picking them up left and right trying to beat it. Some of them talked enough to lead us into other things, but all we have are the mechanics, the working group of the outfit--and the customers."

"They're the ones who support the racket."

"They're going to pay more than they expected to. It's getting rougher. A lot of dirty noses are looking for someone to wipe them on."

"And you're the boy?"

"I'm the boy, Mike."

"Who's going bail for all the big names?"

"It's coming in from all over. I've been called more dirty names than any one guy in the city..."

"Except me."

"Yeah, except you. But nobody wants your job like they want mine. I've been cajoled, threatened, enticed and what not. It makes me feel ashamed to know that I live within a hundred miles of some people."

He yawned into the phone and muttered, "I have news, friend. Murray Candid has been seen in the city, hopping from one place to another. He's accompanied by an alderman in a downtown district."

"He isn't trying to make a break for it, then?"

"Evidently not. He's keeping out of sight until something happens. I think he wants to see how far we're going to go. He'll be pretty surprised."

"You have a murder warrant out on him?"

"Couldn't make it, Mike. He had an alibi for that. He's ducking out on this investigation. Here's something else that might interest you, but keep it under your hat. There's been an influx of tough guys who are walking around the city just being seen by the right persons. One look and you couldn't make them talk for love or money."

"How do you like that!"

"I don't. They have records, most of them, but they're clean now and we can't touch them. We started holding them for questioning. It didn't work. Every one of them is loaded with dough and sense enough to have a lawyer pull them out fast. None of them was armed or talked back to a cop, so there wasn't a thing we could stick them with."

My hands got sticky with sweat. "That's big money talking again, Pat. The combine is still in business, using its retrenching dough to scare off the talkers. Those babies can do it, too. They aren't just kidding. What the hell is happening... are we going back to the Wild West again? Damn it, if they keep that up, you'll have a jugful of claims on your hands and I don't blame them! It's not nice to know that sooner or later you'll get bumped because a guy has already been paid to do the job and he's a conscientious worker."

"Our hands are tied. That's the way it is and we're stuck with it. They know where to go, besides. It seems like they've contacted right parties before we got to them."

Damn! I smacked my fist against the back of the chair. All right, let them play tough. Let them import a gang with smart, knowing faces and minds that weren't afraid of taking a chance. They were just mugs who couldn't think for themselves, but they could feel, and they had emotions, and they could scare just as easily as any one else, and when they saw the blood run in the streets they wouldn't be quite so cocky or eager to reach for a rod. They'd run like hell and keep on running until their feet gave out.

"You still there, Mike?"

"I'm still here. I was thinking."

"Well, I'm going home and get some sleep. You'll be there tonight?"

"I wouldn't miss it for anything."

"Right! Keep out of sight. The D.A. is getting ideas about me and if he finds out that you have a hand in this I'll be on the carpet."

"Don't worry, I'll stay dead until I need resurrection. I told Lola to get in touch with you if it's necessary. Do me a favor and don't ask questions, just do what she asks. It's important."

"She's working on it, too?"

"Lola's handling the most important end of this case right now. If she finds what I think she might find, you cinch your case without kickbacks. See you tonight. I'll be there, but you won't see me."

I said so-long and hung up. The end was near, or at least it was in sight. The showdown was too close to risk spoiling it by getting myself involved. All I wanted was Feeney. I wanted to get his neck in my hands and squeeze. But where the hell would Feeney be now? The city was too big, too peppered with foxholes and caves to start a one-man search. Feeney had to be forced out into the open, made to run so we could get a crack at him.

The catch was, the little guys did the running. The big boys stayed out of sight after they buried their gold, ready to dig it up again when the enemy was gone. Feeney wasn't big. He was the kind that would watch and wait, too, ready to jump out and claim part of the loot. It could be that he wanted more than his share and was ready to take all if he had the chance. Murray Candid, another one content to stay at home, still trusting the devices they had set up to protect themselves. Cobbie Bennett waiting to die. How many more would there be?

I grabbed the phone again and asked for long-distance, waited while the operator took my number and put it into Mr. Berin's address. I asked for my client and the butler told me he had left for the city only a short while before, intending to register at the Sunic House. Yes, he had reservations. He asked who was calling, please, and wanted to take a message, but there wasn't anything I could tell him, so I grumbled goodbye and put the phone back.

Velda must have been out for lunch. I let the phone ring for a good five minutes and nobody picked it up. Hell, I couldn't just sit there while things were happening outside. I wanted to do some hunting of my own, too. I pushed out of the, chair and slung my coat on. Something jingled in the pocket and I pulled out a duplicate set of door keys Lola had left for me and each one had lipstick kisses on the shanks, with a little heart dangling from the chain that held them together. I opened the heart and saw Lola smiling up at me.

I smiled back and told her picture all the things she wouldn't let me tell her last night.

There was still a threat of rain in the air. Overhead the clouds were grey and ruffled, a thick, damp blanket that cut the tops off the bigger buildings and promised to squat down on the smaller ones. From the river a chill wind drove in a wave of mist that covered everything with tiny wet globules. Umbrellas were furled, ready to be opened any instant; passengers waiting for buses or standing along the curb whistling at taxis carried raincoats or else eyed the weather apprehensively.

Twice a radio car screamed its way south, the siren opening a swath down the center of the avenue. I passed a paperstand and saw a later edition and an extra, both with banner headlines. A front-page picture showed the alderman and a socially prominent manufacturer in a police court. The manufacturer looked indignant. A sub-caption made mention of some highly important confidential information the police had and wouldn't disclose at the moment. That would be Murray's code book. I wondered how Pat was getting on with it.

At the bar on the corner I found a spot in the rear and ordered a beer. There was only one topic of discussion going on in the place and it was being pushed around from pillar to post. A ratty little guy with a nose that monopolized his face said he didn't like it. The police were out of order. A girl told him to shut up. Every fifteen minutes a special bulletin would come out with the latest developments, making capital of the big names involved, but unable to give information of any special nature.

For a little over two hours I sat there, having one beer after another, hearing a cross-sectional viewpoint of the city. Vice was losing ground fast to the publicity of the clean-up.

When I had enough I crawled into the phone booth and dialed the Sunic House. The desk clerk said Mr. Berin had arrived a few minutes before. I thanked him and hung up. Later I'd go up and refund his dough. I went out where the mist had laid a slick on the streets and found another bar that was a little more cheerful and searched my mind for that other piece to the puzzle.

My stomach made growling noises and I checked my watch. Six-thirty. I threw a buck on the counter for the bartender and walked out and stood in the doorway.

It had started to rain again.

When I finished eating and climbed behind the wheel of the car it was almost eight. The evening shadows had dissolved into night, glossy and wet, the splatter of the rain on the steel roof an impatient drumming that lulled thoughts away. I switched on the radio to a news program, changed my mind and found some music instead.

Some forty-five minutes later I decided I had had enough aimless driving and pulled to the curb between two sheer walls of apartment buildings that had long ago given up any attempt at pretentiousness. I looked out and saw that there were no lights showing in Cobbie Bennett's room and I settled down to wait.

I might have been alone in that wilderness of brick and concrete. No one bothered to look at me huddled there, my coat collar turned up to merge with the brim of my hat, A few cars were scattered at odd intervals along the street, some old heaps, a couple more respectable by a matter of a few years. A man came out of a building across the way holding a newspaper over his head and hurried to the corner where he turned out of sight.

Off in the distance a fire engine screamed, demanding room, behind it another with a harsh, brassy gong backing up the order. I was listening to the fading clamor when the door of Cobbie's house opened and the little pimp stepped out. He was five minutes early. He had a cigarette in his mouth and was trying to light it with a hand that shook so hard the flame went out and, disgusted, he threw the unlit butt to the pavement and came down the steps.

He didn't walk fast, even in the rain, nor a straight course. His choppy stride carried him through a weaving pattern, avoiding the street lights, blacking him out in the shadows. When he came to a store front I saw his head turn to look into the angle of the window to see if he was being followed.

I let him turn the corner before I started the car. If the police were there, they weren't in sight. Nothing was moving this night. I knew the route Cobbie would take, and rather than follow him, decided to go ahead and wait, taking a wide sweep around the one-way street and coming up in the direction he was walking.

There were stores here, some still open. A pair of gin mills operated at a short stagger apart, smelling the block up with the rank odor of flat beer. Upstairs in an apartment a fight was going on. Somebody threw a coffeepot that smashed through the window and clattered down the basement well. Cobbie was part of the night until it hit, then, he made a short dash to the safety of a stairway and crouched there determining the origin of the racket before continuing his walk. He stopped once to light a cigarette and made it this time.

He was almost opposite me when a car pulled up the street and stopped in front of the gin mill. Cobbie went rigid with fear, one hand half-way to his mouth. When the driver hopped out and went into the dive he finished dragging on the cigarette.

I had to leave the car where it was, using Cobbie's tactics of hugging the shadows to pass him on the opposite side of the street without being seen. Following did no good. I had to anticipate his moves and try to stay ahead of him. The rain came in handy; it let me walk under awnings, stop in doorways for a breather before starting off again...

A cop went by, whistling under his slicker, his night stick slapping his leg in rhythm to his step. It was ten minutes after ten then. I didn't see Pat or his men. Just Cobbie and me. We were in his own bailiwick now, the street moving with people impervious to the rain and the tension. Beside a vacant store I stopped and watched Cobbie hesitate on the corner, making his decision and shuffling off into a cross street.

I didn't know where I expected it to come from, certainly not from the black mouth of an apartment. Cobbie's weave had been discarded for an ambling gait of resignation. Tension can be borne only so long, then the body and mind reverts to normal. His back suddenly stiffened and I heard a yelp that was plain fear. His head was swivelled around to the building and his hands came up protectively.

If the guy had shot from the doorway he would have had him, but he wanted to do it close up and came down the steps with a rod in his fist. He hadn't reached the third step when Cobbie screamed at the top of his lungs, trying to shrink back against the inevitable. The gun levelled with Cobbie's chest but never went off because a dark blur shot out of the same doorway and crashed into the guy's back with such force that they landed at Cobbie's feet together.

My own rod was in my hand as I ran. I heard the muted curses mingled with Cobbie's screaming as a heavy fist slammed into flesh. I was still fifty yards away when the two separated, one scrambling to his feet immediately. Cobbie had fallen into a crouch and the guy fired, flame lacing towards his head.

The other guy didn't bother to rise. He propped his gun arm on the sidewalk, took deliberate aim and pulled the trigger. The bullet must have gone right through his head because his hat flew off faster than he was running and was still in the air when the man was nothing but a lump of lifeless flesh.

A gun went off farther up the street. Somebody shouted and shot again. I was on top of the guy with the rod and it didn't worry me at all seeing it pointed at my middle. It was a police positive and the guy had big, flat feet.

Just the same, I raised my hands, my .45 up and said, "Mike Hammer, private cop. Ticket's in my pocket, want to see it?"

The cop stood up and shook his head. "I know you, feller."

A prowl car made the corner on two wheels and passed it, the side door already open with a uniformed patrolman leaning out, his gun cocked. The cop and I followed it together, crossing the street diagonally where the commotion was.

Windows were being thrown open, heads shouted down asking what went on and were told to get back in and stay there. A voice yelled, "He's on the roof!" There was another shot, muffled by the walls this time. A woman screamed and ran, slamming a door in her passage.

Almost magically the searchlights opened up, stretching long arms up the building fronts to the parapets, silhouetting half a dozen men racing across the roof in pursuit of someone.

The reflection of the lights created an artificial dawn in the tight group, dancing from the riot guns and blued steel of service revolvers. The street was lousy with cops, and Pat was holding one of the lights.

We saw each other at the same time and Pat handed the light over to a plainclothes man. I said, "Where the hell did you come from? There wasn't a soul on the street a minute ago."

Pat grimaced at me. "We didn't come, Mike... we were there. The hard boys weren't too smart. We had men tailing them all day and they never knew it. Hell, we couldn't lay a trap without having everybody and his brother get wise, so the men stuck close and stayed on their backs. Cobbie was spotted before he got off his block. The punks kept in touch with each other over the phone. When they saw Cobbie turn down here one cut behind the buildings and got in front of him. There was another one up the block to cut him off if he bolted."

"Good deal! How many were there?"

"We have nine so far. Seven of them just folded up their tents and came along quietly. We let them pass the word first so there would be no warning. What came of that guy down the block?"

"He's dead."

From the roof there was a volley of shots that smashed into stone and ricochetted across the sky. Some didn't ricochet. A shrill scream testified to that. One of the cops stepped into the light and called down. "He's dead. Better get a stretcher ready, we have a wounded officer up here."

Pat snapped. "Damn! Get those lights in the hallway so they can see what they're doing!" A portable stretcher came out of a car and was carried upstairs. Pat was directing operations in a clear voice, emphasized by vigorous arm movements.

There wasn't anything I could do right then. I edged back through the crowd and went up the street. There was another gang around the body on the sidewalk, with two kids trying to break away from their parents for a closer look.

Cobbie Bennett was nowhere in sight.