She’ll Hate Me Tomorrow

Chapter XV

Ross found Bix Lawson waiting for him when he exited from the building. The racketeer and his bodyguard were standing on the sidewalk directly in front of the main door. Presumably the driver of the black sedan had started the engine and had reached across to open the front door when he saw his employer start down the steps, for the motor was purring and the door hung open. The man in back seemingly didn’t regard Vince Krzal as important enough to merit such courtesy, however, for the back door was still shut.

Ross halted at the bottom of the steps to regard Lawson inquiringly.

“I want to talk to you,” the racket chief growled.

“All right. Go ahead.”

“You know what’s going to happen if you don’t turn over that girl?”

“Uh-huh. I imagine I’ll have to end up killing you to get you off my back.”

Lawson emitted a disgusted snort. “Don’t throw cute answers at me, Clancy. Your bullheadedness is going to wreck us both. If Whitey Cord don’t move in and knock us both over, a couple of more stunts like last night will bring on a citizens’ reform movement. Then everybody will be out in the cold. You ever been caught in the middle of a reform movement?”

“I’ve read about them,” Ross said.

“Yeah? Well, I came here from Blair City twenty years ago after being run out of town by the do-gooders. And I never want ‘em after me again. There ain’t a way in the world you can fight a citizens’ league, Clancy. Gun down just one reformer, and the whole populace rises on its hind legs and wants to lynch you. It ain’t like fighting another mob. You can’t scare ‘em off, buy ‘em off, or kill ‘em off. You can pull in your horns, shut down the rackets for a while and hope the heat will die, but nine times out of ten they’ll dig back and fry you for things you did years ago, once they start yammering for reform.”

“It’s pretty hard to fight the general public,” Ross agreed. “You can’t very well wipe out the whole populace.”

“There ain’t no way to fight a reform movement, except run for the hills. They’re always headed by the city’s top businessmen and industrialists. Burn one and you make headlines from coast to coast. They’ve got both money and influence. They hire special investigators to dig up stuff you’ve even forgotten you did. They demand special grand juries and get them appointed.

“There’s always somebody in the group who’s a personal friend of the governor, and another who went to college with the U. S. attorney general. So in addition to the mess they stir up locally, all at once you find the town flooded with special investigators from the state and federal governments. You want a bunch of do-gooders to sweep this town clean?”

“It could probably stand it,” Ross said. “But I have to admit I like it pretty well the way it is.”

“Then stop being so damned pig-headed and turn loose that girl.”

“I have a better idea,” Ross said. “Just leave me alone. If you don’t pass at me, I won’t pass back at you, and there won’t be any more headlined incidents.”

Lawson said hotly, “I can’t leave you alone, you bullhead. Don’t you understand that if I don’t deliver that girl, the Syndicate’s going to move in and take her?”

The gambler gave his head a slow shake. “Nobody’s going to take her. You, the Syndicate or the United States Army. I’ll give you a tip, Bix. Next time you pass at me, you won’t have just three establishments wrecked. I’ll reduce every place you hold an interest in to rubble.”

The big man’s heavy face turned mahogany red. In a choking voice he said, “Take him, Vince.”

Vince Krzal looked a little startled, not being used to receiving orders to gun people down right in front of police headquarters. Ross took advantage of his hesitation by crowding in on the man and sliding his left hand beneath Krzal’s coat with the speed of a striking snake. Stepping back, he covered the bodyguard with his own gun, holding it close to his body at hip level to shield it from the gaze of a couple of pedestrians who happened to be passing at that moment.

Neither pedestrian even so much as glanced their way.

The two men in the car were reaching for guns when Ross shifted position so that Vince Krzal’s bulk ceased to block the line of fire, swung the captured gun that way and gently shook his head. Both men froze, carefully withdrew empty hands from beneath their coats and laid them on their laps.

A quick glance in all directions satisfied the gambler that no one had noticed the drama taking place smack in front of police headquarters. At the moment the only pedestrians on their side of the street were the two who had just passed and were now walking away with their backs turned. But a number of people were walking along on the opposite side of the street, cars were going by in a steady stream, and a uniformed cop directed traffic at the intersection only fifty feet away.

Hugging the pistol against his hip, Ross said softly, “Get out of the car, boys.”

Slowly the two men crawled out and stood with their hands carefully away from their sides. The driver, short, thick-featured and barrel-shaped, gazed at Ross reproachfully. The man from the rear seat, as tall and bony as Vince Krzal, kept his eyes watchfully on Ross’ gun. Vince Krzal stood staring at Ross with a stupid expression on his face, not quite believing the speed the gambler had exhibited in snaking his gun away from him. Bix Lawson had turned dead white.

“I think I’ll end this war right now, Bix,” Ross said. To the men who had been in the car, he said, “Turn your backs.”

As the two men warily turned their backs to him, Bix Lawson said huskily, “You know I don’t carry a gun, Clancy.”

Ross was aware of that. Lawson depended on hirelings to do any necessary shooting.

“We’ll fix that,” the gambler said cheerfully. “I don’t like to shoot unarmed men. You, shorty, unload your heat and toss it on the rear floor of the car.”

The gun had barely thudded to the car floor when a young patrolman in uniform came down the steps of police headquarters, nodded politely and said, “Hello, Mr. Lawson. Afternoon, Mr. Ross.” He couldn’t see the pistol pressed against Ross’ left hip, because Ross’ left side faced the car.

Lawson made some kind of indistinguishable noise and Ross said cheerfully, “Afternoon, officer.”

The policeman walked off up the street.

“You, bony,” Ross said to the man who had been in the back seat. “Lift out your gun and hand it to Bix, butt first.”

The man carefully drew out his gun, reversed it and offered it to his employer.

Staring at it in horror, Lawson said in a high voice, “No. I don’t want it.”

“Oh, come on, Bix,” the gambler urged. “Let’s settle this war once and for all.”

The racketeer gave his large head a determined shake. “You get no self-defense move from me, Clancy. If you’re going to kill me, go ahead and take a murder rap.”

In a disgusted tone Ross said, “Toss it in the back seat, bony.”

The second gun joined the first on the rear floor of the car. The gambler tossed the gun he was holding on top of the others and said to the two disarmed gunmen, “You can turn around now.”

Turning, they gazed at his empty hands without understanding. Vince Krzal, having the advantage of knowing what Ross had done with the gun, reacted first. His big shoulders hunched and he took a step forward.

Bix Lawson took a step backward, judging by the anticipatory light suddenly sparkling in the gambler’s eyes that Ross was only waiting for an excuse to draw his gun and burn down all four of them. “Hold it—” he started to say, but was too late because Krzal had already thrown a bony-knuckled fist at Ross’ jaw.

Ross flicked his head sidewise to let the fist whistle by, grasped the man’s shoulder with both hands and pulled to increase his forward momentum beyond what the bodyguard had intended it to be, shifted himself out of the way and thrust out a foot. As Krzal tripped and started to fall forward, Ross brought a lightning-quick judo chop down alongside his neck. When the man hit the sidewalk, face first, he stayed there.

It all happened so fast, the gambler had spun to face the other two gunmen before they started toward him. The barrel-shaped driver reacted first, rushing in with his right arm drawn back to swing a roundhouse blow.

Ross’ right knee came up to his chest, both hands grasped the sole of his foot, then he thrust the foot forward with the force of a power-driven battering ram. It caught his assailant squarely in the stomach, crushing the wind from him and driving him back into his companion so hard, both men tumbled to the sidewalk.

As the driver rolled to one side, gasping and holding his stomach, Ross took a quick step forward and his foot came up in the fluid arc of a fullback placing a drop-kick. It landed solidly beneath the chin of the remaining gunman as the man attempted to scramble to his feet, lifting him nearly erect before he tumbled over backward and lay still.

A woman pedestrian passing from one direction and a man from the other, stared down at the three prone men and hurried on, presumably deciding that anything happening so close to police headquarters must be all quite legal.

The man Ross had kicked in the stomach continued to make wheezing noises as he lay doubled up on the sidewalk. The other two were out cold. Bix Lawson, left alone, backed another step, his gaze darting about wildly in search of police protection.

Ross glanced about, too, noting that with the exception of the two pedestrians who had just passed and who seemed to have assumed that Ross was a detective subduing unruly prisoners, everyone in the vicinity was still impervious to what was going on. Smiling bleakly, he thrust his hand beneath his arm.

“Cops never seem to be around when people need them, do they, Bix?”

Lawson gasped, “I told you I ain’t armed, Clancy. Honest, I ain’t.”

When Ross purposefully strode toward him, Lawson backed another step and rammed into a light pole. He came to a jarring halt, his arms groping out at his sides in a ludicrous attempt to feel the object he had backed into.

Ross’ gun came out and the barrel smashed alongside the racketeer’s jaw, bouncing his head against the light pole. Lawson slid down the pole to a sitting position, stared up blearily and tumbled over on his side.

Ross’ gun twinkled out of sight beneath his arm. Doing an about-face, he walked the few paces to his parked Lincoln and climbed under the wheel. As he shifted into “drive” and pulled out from the curb, a pair of uniformed officers came from the police building.

They had come to a halt and were gazing down open-mouthed at the four recumbent figures on the sidewalk when he drove away.