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smell of cordite. I edged forward to peer into the room.

Slap in the middle of the floor lay a man. His legs were curled up under him, and his hands

were clenched into his chest. Blood came through his fingers, ran down his wrists and on to

the floor. He was a man around sixty, and I guessed he was Freedlander. As I looked at him,

he gave a choking sigh and his hands flopped on the floor.

I didn’t move. I knew the killer must be in there. He couldn’t have got away.

Kerman sneaked into the living-room behind me and flattened himself against the other

side of the door. His heavy .45 looked like a cannon in his fist.

“Come on out!” I snarled suddenly. My voice sounded like a buzz-saw cutting into a wood

knot. “And with your hands in the air!”

A gun went off and the slug ploughed through the doorway, close to my head.

Kerman slid his arm around the door and fired twice. The crash of his gun rattled the

windows.

“You can’t get away!” I said, trying to sound like a tough cop. “We’ve got you

surrounded.”

But this time the killer wasn’t playing. There was silence and no movement. We waited,

but nothing happened. I had visions of the cops arriving, and I wasn’t anxious to be involved

with the Frisco cops: they were much too efficient.

I motioned to Kerman to stay where he was and sneaked over to the window. As I pushed it

up, Kerman fired into the room again, and, under cover of the noise, I got the window open. I

leaned out. A few feet away was the window of the inner room. It meant getting on to the sill,

stepping across to die other sill with about a hundred-foot drop below. As I swung my leg out

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of the window I looked back. Kerman’s eyes were popping and he shook his head at me. I

jerked my thumb to the next window, levered myself on to the sill.

Someone let off a gun from below and the slug splashed cement into my face. I was so

startled I nearly let go of my hold, looked down into the street at the up-turned faces of a

sizeable crowd. Right in the centre was a beefy-looking cop, taking aim at me.

I gave a strangled yell, flung myself forward and sideways, lurched against the window of

the next room and crashed through the glass to land on all fours on the floor. A gun went off

practically in my face, and then Kerman’s cannon boomed, bringing down a chunk of ceiling

plaster.

I flattened out, wriggled desperately to get behind the bed as more shots shook the room.

I had a sudden vision of a dark, snarling face peering at me over the top of the bed, and a

vicious blue nose automatic pointing at my head, then the hand holding the gun disappeared

with a crash of gunfire and reappeared again as a spongy, red mess.

It was my pal the Wop with the dirty shirt. He gave a howl, staggered to the window as

Kerman rushed at him. He hit Kerman with the back of his hand, dodged past him and ran out

of the door, through the other room and into the passage. More gunfire broke out; a woman

screamed: a body thudded to the floor.

“Watch out!” I gasped. “There’s a gun-happy cop out there. He’ll shoot as soon as look at

you.”

We stood still and waited.

But the cop wasn’t taking any chances.

“All out!” he bawled from behind the door. Even from that distance I could hear him

breathing. “I’ll blast you to hell if you bring out a rod.”

“We’re coming,” I said. “Don’t excite yourself, and don’t shoot.”

We moved out of the room and into the passage with our hands in the air.

Lying in the passage was the Wop. He had a bullet-hole through the centre of his forehead.

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The cop was one of those massive men, big in the feet and solid bone in the head. He

snarled at us, threatening us with his gun.

“Take it easy, brother,” I said, not liking the look of him. “You have two stiffs on your

hands already. You don’t want two more.”

“I wouldn’t care.” he said, showing his teeth. “Two or four makes no difference to me.

Back up against that wall until the wagon arrives.”

We backed up against the wall. It didn’t take long before we heard the wail of a siren. Two

white-coated figures came panting up the stairs, together with a representative group from the

Homicide Bureau. I was glad to see Detective District Commander Dunnigan was with them.

He and I had done business with each other before.

“Hello,” he said, and stared at us. “This your funeral?”

“Very nearly was,” I said. “There’s another stiff inside. Could you tell this officer we’re not

dangerous? I keep thinking he’s going to shoot us.”

Dunnigan waved the copper aside.

“I’ll be out to talk to you in a moment.”

He went in to look at Freedlander.

“He’s a pal of ours,” I told the copper who was glaring at us. “You should be more careful

who you shoot at.”

The copper spat.

“I was a mug not to have rubbed you two punks out,” he said in disgust. “If they had found

me with four stiffs maybe they would have made me a sergeant.”

“What a charming little mind you have,” Kerman said and backed away.

III

We started hack to Orchid City at five o’clock after a couple of awkward hours in Detective

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