LITMIR.BIZ

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he ordered.

      They looked surprised. The bank clerks had started to come out of the big safe, but Gino’s gun stopped them. The four gangsters backed away and covered the little group with their guns.

      “Get inside,” Gino ordered, “else I’ll sic my dawg on you.” He indicated Bright, open-mouthed and expectant behind his gun. Bright with his finger straining eagerly at the trigger. And they understood and shuffled back hurriedly. The blue-lipped man was having to be held up; he was in pretty bad shape. Eddy saw the janitor and one of the bank employees in front of the big safe and said, “you, too,” and they stepped back quickly.

      Bright shambled forward a pace, disappointed. “Don’t we kill just one?” he pleaded. There was no doubt he meant it. It made Eddy Eidel look quickly across at Gino, but he didn’t seem to be bothered by it.

      The squat, shapeless Italian stepped forward when they were all inside the strong room. He put his shoulder to the massive door and started to close it. The men inside in the strong room panicked at that.

      “You can’t do that,” shouted one of the bank employees, probably the manager. “My God, you don’t know what you’re doing. There’s a time-lock on that door. If it’s closed, we can’t get out till eight tomorrow morning.”

      Gino said, casually, “That, brother, is the idea,” and moved the door faster.

      There was frenzied commotion at that. Suddenly every man inside the strong room found his voice. Above the commotion they heard the janitor’s voice suddenly appealing.

      “There’s a mighty sick man here. You gotta do something for him....”

      Bright slavered eagerly, “Let’s kill’m. Jes’ one shot, huh?”

      But Gino rushed the door to. There was a metallic, clicking sound, and immediately the bank was quiet. The door must have been soundproofed.

      Gino looked round. He scooped the small change out from the tills, put it in his pocket and then changed his mind and took most of it out again. It was chicken-feed and weighed too heavily in his coat.

      Then they walked across to the street door and Eddy briskly opened it. They came out into the sunshine in a group, Gino calling over his shoulder, “Sure, sure. And thanks a lot, bud. We won’t make it so late next time.”

      That was for the benefit of the few passers-by. It looked good, natural, and no one gave more than a glance at the stick-up men. The door shut and locked automatically behind them.

      They got into their car and Maxie drove steadily away. There was no hurry. Properly handled, a daylight bank robbery is a comparatively simple affair, and this was probably a better hold-up than most. Probably it would be several hours before the alarm was raised—it might not he until the following morning, in fact—and long before dark they expected to be within the friendly jungle of New York’s East Side.

      So they tooled steadily along the seaside resort’s tree-lined boulevard, obeying every traffic law like good citizens; and they felt at peace with the world because they had a sack full of notes that were probably untraceable because of their small value.

      Gino preened and felt himself a big-shot mobster. This was better than sticking up filling stations, with crazy mechanics running loose with guns.

      Only Bright was disconsolate. He said, vaguely, “We didn’t kill no one. You said to be ready to kill, Gino, but no one did nothin’ wrong. Ain’t we gonna have some excitement?”

      Eddy shot out of the corner of his mouth, “By cripes, Gino, the buzzard means it. Where in hell did you dig him up? He’s dangerous, that guy.”

      Gino was picking his teeth—the car was tooling along as smoothly as all that. They were coming out of the town now, and feeling better with every minute of that lovely afternoon that passed. He sucked a tooth clean and then said back, “Aw, Bright’s all right. He ain’t quite bright, maybe, but what the hell do you want on a job like this? Einstein?”

      Eddy muttered, “You can’t tell, with these bird-brains. You never know what they’ll do—”

      Maxie Christman ceased to he a living question mark over the driving wheel. His body straightened as he stood on the brake pedal, became instead an exclamation mark.

      They found themselves crashing forward as the car’s momentum was suddenly zeroed, heard Maxie’s voice bellow back at them, “A trap!”

      Just round the bend where the road joined the river valley a car was pulled across the highway. Men were climbing out. They wore uniforms.

      “Cops!” snarled Eddy, but there was bewilderment in his tone. How could the cops have got to know of the bank hold-up so quickly? Then he leaned forward. Speculation could be left till later; just now they were in a jam and had to get themselves out of it.

      Eddy could act quickly. Now he grabbed Maxie’s shoulder and rapped, “Ram that car, then turn and go back!”

      That was the programme. No good trying to turn here, within eighty yards of the cops. Those cops carried guns, and anyway, long before they’d got their car pointing back into Freshwater the cop car would have swung round and caught up with them.

      Put the cop car out of action—and hope to God it didn’t put their car out, too! That was the programme.

      Maxie opened up instantly and the heavy gang car leapt into violent acceleration. They saw the cops scatter, and it was obvious that the move was unexpected and they were thrown off their stride.

      Then the mobster’s car crashed head on into the side of the sleek, speedy police car. Glass splintered, metal tore. Above the noise Eddy shouted, “Back, Maxie. Reverse....”

      The car tore itself away from the shattered cop car, and went plunging recklessly in reverse. The police lugged out guns and started to fire. Eddy heard a crack close to his ear and saw a cop grab his stomach and go down.

      “What the—?” he swore and turned and looked into Bright’s tight-grinning face. Heard Bright saying, “Gee, I did for him. Right in the belly. Gee, bet he don’t feel so good with that in him.” His eyes were going all over the place in excitement.

      Eddy snarled, “Goddam you, you don’t kill cops like people. Cops is different. It’ll make ’em mad, and we ain’t in no position to make cops mad.”

      Not at this moment, turning the car in the only direction they could go, back into Freshwater. Freshwater—a town at the end of a line, as New Yorkers called them.

      A trap, if all roads out were watched, and they guessed they would be.

      CHAPTER THREE

      CALL IN THE FEDS!

      As they sirened their way out of town. Lanny saw an ambulance pull on to the road just ahead. It beat them to the river road by a hundred yards.

      There was a traffic jam just round the bend, with cars being examined by harassed cops and then going awkwardly over rough ground to get around the shattered police car. There was someone wrapped in some coats on the ground by the rear wheel of the wrecked car, and as Lanny got out he saw stretcher-bearers and white-coated interns run across to the fallen patrolman.

      Lanny put his men on to clearing the road, to help the two squad men, and went across to speak to the sergeant of the squad car. It was Alec Pedersen, a blond athlete and a pretty square guy in a town of crooked cops.

      Lanny said, “Well, sergeant, how is he?”

      Pedersen didn’t look happy. He said, “There was a doctor in one of those cars. He says he hasn’t a hope in hell. Don’t reckon he’ll survive the ride back to hospital.”

      They watched while the stretcher was skilfully slid under the injured patrolman; then he was lifted and carried gently across to the ambulance. They were having to hurry. There wasn’t much life left.

      They got him in and started to shut the doors. The ambulance didn’t move.

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