The Heat's on

21

Shadows were framed in dark open windows and the faint distant sound of a siren floated in the silent night when she stepped outside, but no one was in sight.

She turned toward downtown, in the direction of Riverside Church, and began walking fast. She carried the bag as far as possible away from contact with her own flesh, as though it contained a germ bomb that might leak.

Four blocks north, where the drive bends around the sloping green park surrounding Grant’s Tomb, a long black Mark II Lincoln, with only its parking lights burning, pulled from the curb. No light emanated from the instrument panel. Only the vague silhouettes of two black-hatted men on the front seat were visible in the dim light coming from the street. The dark aquiline features of the man beside the driver were further obscured by heavy sunglasses. The driver’s face was but a round white blur beneath his black chauffeur’s cap.

The Lincoln accelerated with incredible speed, but slowed down almost instantly as a prowl car screamed around the far corner by Riverside Church on two wheels, its red light blinking like the eye of hell.

Ginny had seen the Lincoln move and now she welcomed the prowl car as a savior and hastened in its direction. But it was still some distance away. She had started to break into a run when a voice called from the dark entrance of the apartment house next door.

“Honey,” the cracked voice called sweetly.

Her scalp crawled as her head jerked around. Her eyes probed the darkness. She halted on the balls of her feet.

“It’s me, Sister Heavenly,” the cracked saccharine voice identified itself.

She stood suspended in flight. “What the hell do you want?” she demanded viciously.

The prowl car roared past, lighting them briefly with the red spotlight, and dragged to a screaming stop beyond the next-door entrance. It had ignored them.

“Come here, honey, I got something for you,” Sister Heavenly said in what she thought was a sweet cajoling voice.

Ginny realized instantly that Sister Heavenly was after the canvas bag. And I’ll give her the mother-raping bag, she decided evilly.

She turned quickly and stepped forward into the dark entrance.

“Here,” Sister Heavenly said sweetly, and plunged the long sharp blade of her knife deep into Ginny’s heart.

Ginny slumped without a sound, without so much as a gasp, and Sister Heavenly clutched the bag from her nerveless fingers and hastened down the sidewalk in the same direction.

It went so fast it looked like magic. One moment a young woman in a green suit was carrying a blue canvas bag down the sidewalk; the next moment an old woman in a long black dress and a black straw hat was carrying the same bag in the same direction.

The detectives watching from a black Chrysler sedan parked at the curb up the street didn’t know what to make of it.

But Benny Mason’s chauffeur said, “Look, there’s been a switch.”

Benny already had his field glasses focused on the bag. “She gave it to somebody else, that’s all,” he said.

The two prowl car cops hit the pavement and charged into the apartment house, obscuring the vision of the watching detectives. For a moment the street looked clear of cops.

The Lincoln accelerated. Behind it the black Chrysler sedan pulled out from the curb. Far ahead down Riverside Drive was the distant red eye of another prowl car coming fast. And from all directions came the sound of sirens, shattering the night, as unseen cars and ambulances converged on the scene.

“Pull over fast,” Benny said.

The Lincoln lunged to the other side of the street and braked silently just ahead of Sister Heavenly and the driver jumped to the sidewalk with a heavy black sap in his hand.

Sister Heavenly saw the car brake and the man jump out in the same sidewise glance. She was carrying the blue canvas bag along with her own black beaded bag in her left hand. Somewhere along the way she had discarded the parasol and instead was carrying the.38-caliber Owl’s Head with the sawed-off barrel wrapped in a black scarf in her right hand.

Without turning her body or slackening her pace, she raised the pistol and pumped four dumdum bullets into the chauffeur’s body.

“Jesus Christ!” Benny said, and in a fast smooth motion drew his own P38 Walther automatic and shot twice through the open car door.

One slug caught Sister Heavenly in the left side below the ribs and lodged in the side of her spine; the other went wild. She fell sidewise to the pavement and was powerless to move, but her mind was still active and her vision was clear. She saw Benny Mason slide quickly across the seat, leap to the sidewalk, and aim the pistol at her head.

Well now, ain’t this lovely? she thought just before the bullet entered her brain.

Benny Mason snatched the bag from her limp hand and jumped back into the Lincoln beneath the wheel. All around him were the red lights of prowl cars converging in the street. His mind was shattered by the head-splitting screaming of sirens. He couldn’t see; the air looked red and his brains seemed to be pouring out of his ears. He began accelerating before closing the car door.

The Lincoln crashed broadside into the Chrysler sedan that had cut across in front of it. T-men poured from the Chrysler and surrounded him. He grabbed the bag and tried to throw it, but a T-man reaching through the open door caught him by the wrist and froze the bag in his hand.

“Son, you’re going on a long journey,” the T-man said.

“I want to see my lawyer,” Benny Mason said.

The apartment house basement was filling up with uniformed prowl car cops who couldn’t find anything to do.

Coffin Ed had his coat off and his right hand held between the buttons of his shirt in place of a sling. Detectives had cut out the back of his shirt and were using a wad of clean pocket handkerchief to staunch the flow of blood until the ambulance arrived. But he was slowly turning gray from loss of blood.

No one knew what the outcome was outside, and the homicide lieutenant put off interrogating Coffin Ed until his wound had been treated. So they were all just standing about.

But Coffin Ed had a need to talk.

“You guys figured too they’d come back?”

“We didn’t figure it,” the homicide lieutenant said. “We engineered it. We knew you were on the prowl and that they were on your tail. That might have kept up all night. So we had to get you here. We knew they’d come after you, just like you did.”

“You got me here? How was that?”

The homicide lieutenant reddened. “You know by now that Grave Digger is alive?”

Coffin Ed became rigid. “Alive? The radio said-”

“That was how we did it. We gave out the story. We knew that after you had heard it you would get them here some way to kill them. You’re not sore, are you?”

“Alive!” Coffin Ed hadn’t heard the rest of it. Tears were streaming unashamedly from his blood-red eyes. He shook his head. “Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle.” It felt as though his brains were banging against his skull. But he didn’t mind. “Then he’ll never die,” he said.

The lieutenant patted his good shoulder as delicately as though it were made of chocolate icing. “Only way we could figure to cover you. We don’t want to lose our good men.” He smiled a little. “Of course we didn’t expect a theatrical production.”

Coffin Ed grinned. “I dig you, Jack,” he said. “But sometimes these minstrel shows play on when grand opera folds.”

Then suddenly and unexpectedly he fainted.