LITMIR.BIZ

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He was Maxie Temple, Big Shot.

      But as far as I was concerned, in dismissing me he was making one of the biggest mistakes of his life.

      I felt my fingers bite into the palm of my left hand. Maxie walked slowly with a small crowd of passengers, his face hard. He was puzzled. My being there was something he hadn’t expected. It was something he was trying to figure out.

      I suppose you know what you’re doing, Johnny, I thought quickly. Because if you don’t, this could be the end of the line for you.

      Five minutes later Maxie came out of the Customs, walking hurriedly in a crush of people. Obviously, he’d been clever and arrived with a clean bill of health.

      I saw him watching me furtively, like a rat in a corner. Perhaps he’d had second thoughts about me during those five minutes. It did something to me inside to see that first, faint touch of cringing fear. He would probably never understand how much I hated his guts.

      Quite suddenly, without warning, his gaze flicked over my shoulder to something behind me and I knew then that trouble was going to break. It came sooner than I had expected. I half-turned my head, but by that time it was too late. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the black circular hole that appeared like a shadow between Maxie’s eyes, the vacant look on his fleshy face as he sagged slowly, awkwardly, at the knees and hit the ground.

      Whoever had shot him had used a silencer. A blind man could figure that, but by the time I had recovered from my surprise there was a crowd running forward, jostling each other, and it would have been like looking for the needle in the proverbial haystack to pick out his murderer.

      Somewhere a woman began to scream in a high-pitched, hysterical voice.

      I had known what I was risking when I had come to the airport. My record was known to the cops of perhaps a dozen states, also my sworn determination to fix Maxie Temple. Somehow, desperately, I had hoped to get to him in time to figure out a way of clearing myself. Now, he was dead, less than five yards from where I was standing like some dumb fool, and at any moment there would be a dozen cops milling around the joint and Johnny Merak would be picked up on suspicion.

      I thought about that .38 in my pocket and decided I had better get out of the vicinity while I still had the chance. Awkward questions might be asked, and another thought occurred to me as I started to push my way through the crowd.

      There were a lot of people who might want Maxie Temple out of the way permanently. There were also plenty who wanted Johnny Merak silenced for good, too. And maybe some clever guy had hit on the bright idea of doing both with the one shot.

      The more I thought about it, the more likely it seemed. Ten to one that shot which killed Maxie Temple had come from a .38 similar to that in my pocket. And on top of that, another ten to one shot that somebody was, at that very moment, phoning for the cops, telling them that I had been spotted in the vicinity and I began to see what kind of a trap I’d let myself in for.

      To Johnny Merak, the big thing now was to get as far away from the airport in as little time as possible. I ran down the steps outside three at a time. No sign of the square-shouldered hoodlum who had tried to be funny earlier. Maybe he was still around somewhere, reporting back on my movements, just in case I managed to slip through the police net.

      Two blocks and I was nearly there. A siren was wailing dismally like a lost soul somewhere in the street ahead, coming nearer. A moment later three cars came cutting through the late-night traffic. Cars and trucks pulled out of the way, gliding into the kerb as they heard the wail of the sirens.

      They went on past and I was beginning to feel better, more easy in my mind. For the time being I’d slipped the net and was still on the loose. Maxie was dead and there was nothing I could do to bring him back again.

      I cursed the unknown assailant who had beaten me to him. That bullet which had cut into Maxie’s brain and ended his life had ended my hopes of getting back those all-important papers that would have cleared me.

      I turned the corner of the third block. My car was still there parked against the kerb, ready for a quick get-away. Eyes alert, I began to accelerate my stride. Once I was well away, there would be plenty of time to think things out, to plan the next move, pick up old threads, and see if any of them tied together to give me a new lead. If they didn’t, I was right back where I had started, four years before.

      I was still twenty or thirty yards from the car when I spotted them. Two or three dark shapes huddled in one of the doorways. That made me stop. They hadn’t seen me yet, but they were waiting for me. They knew it was my car and I’d need it to get back into town.

      I backed against the wall, stood there and waited. Maybe I could fight these three hoodlums waiting for me, but even if I did, the Organisation was so big that a dozen others could pop up out of the walls and hustle me off, and nobody would be any the wiser.

      I thought of going back, hailing a cab. Uncertainly, I stepped away from the shadows. A long, sleek car pulled up suddenly against the side of the kerb, opposite to me. The door opened.

      I swung round, my hand in my pocket. Then I stopped.

      She was sitting there, behind the wheel, alone.

      “Quickly! Get inside!” she said. Her voice was soft and husky, as I’d known it would be.

      And that little devil was there again, leaping at the back of her coal-black eyes.

      CHAPTER TWO

      THE LADY SAYS YES

      I slipped in beside her, and we pulled away into the mainstream of traffic. I turned my head and looked at her. She still seemed a trifle uncertain, not sure whether she had done the right thing or not.

      “You know, you could be letting yourself in for a lot of trouble doing this for me,” I said quietly. We were past the three lurking shadows and they had made no move, so I guess they hadn’t spotted the switch.

      “I always seem to do foolish things on the spur of the moment,” she answered. There was an odd edge of strength to her voice and a quiet, dependable determination. A woman who could be trusted whenever the going got a little tough, I decided. But all that was only for the right guy. Not just anybody like Johnny Merak.

      “How did you guess I was in trouble?”

      “Oh, that.” She laughed a little. “I was watching you back there at the airport. You didn’t look like a man who’d come down to meet an old friend. You were after that man who was killed, weren’t you?”

      She looked at me out of the corner of her eye, eyeing me up and down in a way that made me feel hot inside.

      “You seem to know quite a lot,” I said cautiously. “Just where do you fit in on this deal?”

      It struck me then that, apart from the obvious strength of character, this woman had a certain direct interest in my affairs. And that could mean trouble for both of us.

      She didn’t answer that one, not that I’d really expected her to, so I said: “What about those three guys you were with at the airport? They’re tailing us right now, I suppose.”

      I must have sounded pretty bitter, because she took her eyes off the road for an instant to look round at me.

      Then she shook her head. “I don’t want to pry into your affairs, but you looked like a guy who could do with a break. I know you didn’t shoot that man back there. But if you don’t want to trust me, get out and walk the rest of the way, wherever it is you’re going.”

      She slowed the car and edged in towards the kerb. There was no anger in her voice, nothing at all.

      “Steady,” I said, holding her arm. “Don’t get sore. This is nothing personal. But I’m in a spot where I can’t trust anybody. Not even a dame who happens to be in the right place at the right time. There’s always something about that set-up that smells.”

      “Shall we say I was interested then. You’re Johnny Merak, aren’t you? It’s all right. I got your name

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