Manhunt. Volume 9, Number 1, February 1961

I knew he’d go for the gun again if he got a chance. I circled him around so that his left side was against the side of the room where the bar was and backed away from him for a second. He thought he could make it and tried. It was just what I wanted. I stepped in and threw a roundhouse right against his jaw with everything I had. His body sagged, then fell backward and this time it sounded like a tree when he hit the floor. He was out, but good.

I sucked air into my lungs, they felt as if they were on fire. I felt dizzy and wasn’t sure that I wouldn’t pass out. I moved groggily over to the bar and pushed the little gun back until it dropped behind it. I didn’t want Schell jumping for that thing any more if he came to.

The recorder with its precious cartridge was lying on the rug in front of the bar, I bent down and picked it up and hugged it to me.

“That must be very valuable to you.” It was a woman’s voice.

I turned and saw her at the other end of the room. The bedroom door was open and she was standing just this side of it, with my gun in her hand, and it was pointed right at me. Oh, no, I thought wildly, I can’t lose this guy now, after everything that’s happened today.

She was big, and beautiful; a big, gorgeous blonde. Her voice sounded like the Gabor sisters with a sort of mittel Europe accent, but there was enough of her to make three Gabors. She had on a silk dressing gown which did nothing but show off what she had. Somehow she looked familiar, then I remembered. This must be the blonde who shanghied the helicopter pilot last weekend, the babe with the improbable name of Sandra LaCoeur. In a way I didn’t blame that pilot.

She was looking at me with a smile playing around her lips, and I suddenly remembered I was in my underwear. Then I noticed with dismay quite a bit of it had come off in my go with Leon Schell.

“How do you do, Miss LaCoeur.” I said dismally. “Sorry I had to mess your apartment up. You mind if I get dressed?”

“Please do,” she said. “But don’t try any of your tricks. You might not be as lucky with me. I grew up in Alsace during the war, and I killed three German soldiers before I was nine years old.”

I knew from her eyes she was telling the truth. Besides, there were no more ash trays around and anyway I don’t think I could throw a spitball across the room the way I felt. I walked over to my clothes and shoved the recorder cartridge into my jacket pocket, pulled on my trousers and tugged on my shirt. That cartridge had me crazy, if I lost that now it would ruin me for life, if I lived.

“Just who are you, and what are you doing here?” she asked me.

That started a lot of wheels going around in my head. She was no dumb blonde, whatever else she was.

“Your boy friend and I had a little fight,” I said. I was trying to get the pitch, to fit her into the picture.

“He’s not my boy friend,” she said. “Leon is just a friend, more a business associate I guess you would say.”

That didn’t figure, but the wheels started turning faster. Leon Schell never worked with a woman, that I was sure of. But he would hire one for a specific job, such as grounding that pilot for a weekend, and it was easy to see he wouldn’t mind mixing a little pleasure with business, and with this Amazon that kind of mixing would be a real pleasure. I wanted to get that gun away from her in a hurry, so I gave her a fast pitch. With a dame like this there was one thing in the world that interested her more than anything else, dough.

“Look, honey,” I said, “I’m working with the police. I don’t know if you know it or not but your friend Schell here is one of the most wanted jewel thieves in the country. He’s wanted so bad by just my company that they have a twenty-five thousand dollar reward out for him. You have a pretty fancy layout here, with that kind of dough you could pay some of the expenses for quite a while.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

Leon Schell moved his legs and let out a groan. This had to be fast. I put the pressure on.

“I want you to give me that gun right now, and I want you to testify about how Schell hired you for that job in Poughkeepsie last week. In a little while this place will have a couple dozen cops swarming over it, and somehow I can’t imagine you having a gun fight with the police over any man, especially a guy who is just a business associate. If you work with me I know I can talk my company into giving you all or a good chunk of that reward money. But it has to be right now, before this guy wakes up. If you stick with him there’ll be a mess when the cops get here, but no matter what happens, he’s finished, and you won’t get a smell of that dough.”

She was a Frenchwoman with French logic, she could see a chance at some heavy money, and heaven be praised, she was a woman who could make up her mind quickly.

“Okay, handsome, I work for you,” she said.