Blood on the Mink Read online

Slouching down low in the back of the cab, I said, “Take me to the Bingham, driver.”

  The cab started off, down Market and around City Hall. I had an uncomfortable itchy feeling on the back of my neck, the sort of feeling you’re very likely to get when you know that a bunch of .45-toting goons are camping around your hotel waiting for a chance to nail you.

  The Bingham is about a fifteen-minute ride from the Penn Plaza. We were about five blocks away when I looked quickly out the rear window and saw the sedan following us. I didn’t need to see the driver’s face to know that this was the kill-car.

  I cleared my throat and said, “When you reach the Bingham, driver, take me around to the side entrance. You know which I mean?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  We went along for another couple of blocks. I didn’t stick my head up high enough to see if the sedan was still behind us. The driver turned off Broad Street and started going around the Bingham to the back entrance, down one of those narrow little Philadelphia side streets, when all of a sudden the sedan leaped into view, darting ahead of us like a plunging shark.

  The cab driver yelled. The sedan sideswiped us beautifully, and the cab plowed into somebody’s Chrysler parked on the right side of the street and came to a halt. Up ahead of us, the sedan had stopped too, and three men in dark overcoats were piling out. The assassin squad.

  I couldn’t stay in the cab. Penned up in there, I’d be as difficult a target as fish in a barrel. The cabbie was still yelling frantically ten seconds after the crash, but I was already pushing down on the door handle and stepping out of the hack on the right-hand side, my gun in my hand. “Get down,” I shouted to the cabbie. He leaped for the floorboards and I slammed the door. A moment later, there was the sound of crunching glass as a bullet spanged through the left-hand rear window of the cab, thunking into the upholstery.

  I crouched down behind the cab, hoping that the bullets would keep away from the gas tank. I heard the cabbie mumbling prayers.

  I wanted to mumble a few myself.

  TWELVE

  It’s just like they say in those advertisements for the newspaper. You can’t draw a crowd in Philadelphia no matter what you do. Especially on a Sunday night in the downtown district. We had the street to ourselves—me and the cabbie and the three hoods. I guess everybody within earshot must have figured that the banging noises were just auto exhaust.

  Keeping an eye on three guys at once isn’t easy, especially when they want to murder you. They kept trying to creep around behind the cab that I was using as a shield. Minton and two others, and all three of them armed. Another shot smashed through the body of the taxicab. I heard the cabbie cursing and moaning.

  So far I hadn’t fired a shot. I knew I had to make them all count. But I got my money’s worth out of the first one I fired. One of Minton’s hoods was trying to come at me from the side, where I was vulnerable for a couple of feet between the parked cars.

  I got my head down just in time to miss a slug that whizzed past and plonged against a lamp post behind me. Then I shot him. I was shooting to disable, not to kill, but he made a clumsy attempt at ducking, and it cost him. I leaned up over the tailfin of the taxi and squeezed off a shot that should have gone through his right shoulder, but he was starting to slide away as I fired, and the shot went through the middle of his chest instead. He looked surprised and started to fold up, blood spilling out of his mouth.

  I didn’t stop to apologize for my lousy marksmanship. Before the corpse had hit the pavement, I was going for the other two.

  They were playing it cagy. Minton was squatting behind a Volkswagen across the street, aiming over the snub nose of the little car and trying to take me apart with a lucky shot. The goon was about twenty feet further down the block, edging around the sedan and trying to slip onto my side of the street and pick me off from my left. As the two of them got further and further from each other, it got harder for me to watch them both. Which was what they wanted.

  They were about thirty feet apart now, and at right angles to each other. Minton fired twice, missing both times but not by much. Then they wised up and began alternating their fire, Minton taking a shot and then the gorilla.

  I held up on returning. I only had one gun, and the only place you can reload during this kind of gun battle is in the movies, where they’re firing blanks anyway.

  But the gorilla was getting bolder and bolder; I drove him back to cover with a quick shot past his left ear, then pivoted and creased the top of the Volkswagen, though unfortunately not the top of Minton. I wondered just how long I was going to hold out before a platoon of cops arrived and closed us all out.

  Then the goon got too bold. He made a wide sweep to my left, figuring to slip between the taxi and the car it had ploughed into, and pick me off easily while I was busy with Minton. Only Minton neglected to keep me busy at just that precise moment. He stopped firing. I turned to my left, and there was the gorilla, plain as day and looking pretty damned surprised. I squeezed off a shot, taking him in the upper pectoral muscle, and he yelped and hit the street.

  Now there was just Minton.

  And Minton used brains for the first time since I had known him. He stopped aiming for me and went for the gas tank of the cab. He got it on the second try, and I heard a swoosh and knew we were in for some flames.

  Opening the cab door, I looked in at the driver huddling under his steering wheel and yelled, “They got the tank! We’re on fire!”

  “I’m staying here, mister.”

  “Don’t be an idiot. They aren’t shooting at you! You want to roast?”

  He was too scared to budge. I couldn’t stop to argue with him, so I grabbed him and hauled him out of the cab, thankful that Minton’s bright idea hadn’t occurred while the odds were still three to one. The rear of the cab was blazing now. I pushed the dazed cabbie out onto the sidewalk and looked up at Minton. He was waiting for me to get away from the flaming taxi. I had to risk it. I darted out into the open, streaking for cover, and fired one of my two remaining shots in his direction. It missed. I heard Minton laugh, and just as I slid down behind another car he edged out into the clear himself, and I wasted my last shot on him.

  My gun was empty. And Minton knew it.

  The taxi was an inferno now, and the other car was about to go up, and in a couple of minutes the block would be full of police and fire engines and whatnot. But it didn’t look like I’d be concerned with that. Minton had me now. He came across the street, gun drawn and ready. I crouched down behind the car that now shielded me.

  He said, “Here’s where you get it, Lowney—or whatever your name is. You really put me down, didn’t you? Only I’m going to get you, now. I’m going to make you walk right into that cab and roast to death. You hear me, man? Come on out from behind that car. Don’t make me shoot you, man. Don’t spoil my fun.”

  I started to figure the odds on a banzai charge that might catch Minton off-balance. They weren’t very good. But then I discovered that I had an ally I wasn’t even counting on: the cabbie.

  Seeing his cab go up in flames must have unhinged him. I was getting ready to make my leap toward Minton when the hackie let out a wild bloodcurdling scream and charged forward.

  Minton turned in astonishment, firing as he did, and the shot practically took the cab driver’s midsection apart. But by that time I was on my way toward Minton. I hit him hard, grabbing for the gun at the same moment, and wrenched it from his hand. At this final humiliation Minton practically shrieked in rage; he came at me, hands turning to claws, and I lifted one from the sidewalk, connecting solidly with his jaw.

  I hadn’t intended what happened next. He went staggering back, tried to grab hold of empty air, and fell into the blaze of the taxicab. There was one muffled wail, and he disappeared in flames.

  No matter how tough you are, no matter how much of a worm the man was, you don’t like to see anyone die that way. Even if he had just tried his damnedest to send you out the same way. I didn’t stand aro
und delivering a eulogy, though. Someone in one of the adjoining buildings had long ago given a fire alarm, and I heard sirens. Police sirens, maybe, as well as the fire engines. I had to get moving.

  The entrance to the Bingham was three-quarters of a block ahead of me. There was nothing between me and it except some closed stores and the entrance to the hotel parking lot. I flew down the block and stopped short in front of the entrance. It was one of those underground garages, with a staircase going down into it and rising up into the hotel itself. Midway up the landing, there was a washroom. I stepped in, found a booth, and locked it.

  I was drenched with sweat, and breathing hard. I looked at my watch, for some reason, and made the startling discovery that the entire battle had lasted just about two and a half minutes. I wouldn’t have thought it had been less than fifteen. But your time-sense has a way of playing tricks when people are shooting at you.

  I waited in the booth for five minutes while my heartbeat got back to normal and my breathing became regular again. Then I washed up, combed my hair, adjusted my tie, holstered my gun in its snug hidden holster, and stepped out of the washroom. I walked up the spiral catwalk and into the Bingham hotel lobby.

  But the lobby was just about deserted. Everybody—bellhops, desk clerk, guests—all were clustered on the steps of the side entrance, peering out. I walked over and joined them, shouldering my way toward the street until I got a view of what was going on down the block.

  It was pretty damned hectic.

  The narrow street was jammed with official vehicles. A fire engine was there, and a bunch of police cars, and an ambulance. Policemen and firemen were milling around everywhere. The fire was out, but smoke was coming up strongly.

  I turned to my neighbor in the crowd and said, “What happened?”

  “You mean you missed all the shooting?”

  “Shooting?” I said, awed.

  The man nodded. “There was some kind of gun battle down there. Two gangs trying to rub each other out, or something. And some parked autos were set on fire by the bullets.”

  “Imagine that,” I said. “Not even a Sunday is sacred to those people. I hope they all were killed.”

  “Looks that way,” my new friend observed contentedly. “They were really blasting away at each other. It was all over in a hurry, but they say there were bodies lying everywhere on the street.”

  I muttered some expression of alarm and worked my way back through the crowd and into the lobby. The excitement was over, now, and the crowd was breaking up. What I wanted more than anything else right now was a drink, but this was Philadelphia on a Sunday, remember?

  I got into the elevator.

  The elevator boy was still jubilant about the gunfight. “Boy, we haven’t had this much fun since the Paratroopers had their reunion here in ’55,” he said. “And two guys got drunk and jumped down the stairwell. Without chutes. What’s your floor, mister?”

  “Eight,” I said.

  The elevator rose. He went on, “I missed all the shooting. Happened so fast nobody really saw it, they tell me. But those cars really blazed, like I mean blazed! And blood all over the street. Here’s your floor, mister.”

  I walked down the quiet corridor to Chavez’ corner suite. Up here, in the peaceful reaches of the Bingham, the world of bullets and blazing cars seemed very very far away. I hesitated for a moment, listening outside Chavez’ door. I heard nothing. I knocked.

  “Who’s there?” Chavez called.

  “Joe Manners.”

  “Hold on a sec, Manners,” Chavez said. After a moment, he opened the door, looking at me uneasily. He was wearing a silk dressing gown, Japanese-looking, expensive-looking. “Come on in,” he muttered.

  “Thanks.” I stepped inside and he locked the door. The first thing that met my eye was a tray with some lovely things on it: a fifth of tequila, a couple glasses, some lemon.

  Chavez seemed surprised to see me. He dithered around, saying nothing in particular, and after a minute of this I said, “How about offering your partner a drink?”

  For a second he seemed to have forgotten that we were supposed to be partners. Then his face brightened a little and he laughed. “Oh, yeah. Sorry, Manners. Help yourself, why don’t you?”

  I poured out a shot of tequila and cut myself a slice of lemon. I said, “You didn’t have any of this stuff last night, man. And the package stores aren’t open on Sundays in this town. Where’s your magic wand?”

  “He’s running the Number Three elevator,” Chavez said. “I wasn’t going to wait for Monday for a drink. I gave him a ten and he got me the fifth.” Chavez chuckled. “You know something funny? I paid him with one of the samples Klaus gave me!”

  “Why the hell not?” I asked, grinning. “They’re as pretty as real money, and a lot cheaper.” I lifted the glass to my lips. Straight tequila is not one of my most favorite tipples, but under the circumstances I wasn’t going to argue much. I put the shot away in one good gulp, exhaled, bit into the lemon.

  “You look like you enjoyed that,” Chavez said.

  “I did.”

  “Have another.”

  “Not right away.” I put down the glass. “I needed that. I needed it bad.”

  “You look kind of shaky,” he said.

  “I feel kind of shaky. Didn’t you hear any of the fireworks?”

  “What you mean?”

  “I guess you’re on the wrong side of the hotel. There was a little shooting going on downstairs.”

  “Who?”

  “Minton and two goons. They followed my cab over here, sideswiped us, started blazing away. They killed my cabbie, and set the cab on fire. I shot the two goons and knocked Minton into the fire. I guess he must have burned to death.”

  Chavez stared at me, not knowing whether or not to believe me.

  He said, “You talk about it like you had a flat tire on the way over here.”

  “What do you want me to do? Have hysterics?”

  “You sure Minton’s dead?”

  “I wouldn’t swear,” I said. “But he isn’t in good shape if he’s alive. I know I killed one of the goons. I just winged the other one.”

  Chavez moistened his lips. “That Minton wanted to get you, eh, Joe?”

  I shook my head. “Not Minton. Klaus was the one who wanted to get me. But I got a plan for fixing things for Mr. Klaus.”

  THIRTEEN

  Chavez looked troubled. I couldn’t blame him. He and Klaus had probably agreed on my removal early this afternoon, and instead of hearing about my death Chavez now found himself getting drawn into a plan to dispose of Klaus. He was in a tricky spot.

  He said, “What kind of plan?”

  I sat back, crossed my legs, and casually poured another tequila. It’s dusty-tasting stuff and the texture is thick and oily, but if you drink it down fast enough the taste and the texture don’t really matter. And the effect is just fine. I put the shot away.

  Then I said, “Can you give me one good reason why you ought to pay a rake-off to Klaus for using his product, when you could be turning the stuff out yourself?”

  “He’s got good plates.”

  “Agreed,” I said. “But you aren’t thinking, Chavez. Klaus’ outfit is a bunch of second-raters. They’ve been trying to kill me for a couple of days, now, and they haven’t even come close. We can take them.”

  His brows furrowed until they met right over the bridge of his nose. “What you mean, take them?”

  I hunched forward. “I’ve got friends in New York who want to finish off Klaus.”

  “Say more, man.”

  I gave him the big smile. “These boys from New York, they’re minded to grab Klaus’ plates and his engraver and set up business for themselves in New York. I have a feeling it’ll be a lot easier to do business with them than with Klaus.” I eyed Chavez carefully. “Suppose we help my New York friends take Klaus out,” I said.

  “In return for that favor, they give us a set of plates. Then we go out west and prin
t the queer ourselves, and no rake-offs to anybody. You interested, or would you rather keep on doing business with Klaus?”

  A slow smile appeared on his face. His eyes glittered greedily. “I’m interested.”

  “I figured you’d be.”

  “How are you going to work it?” he asked.

  I said, “Simple. We arrange a little ambush. Klaus owns a roadhouse on U.S. 1, south of Philly. A little side operation of his. Tomorrow night you get Klaus to take you out there.”

  “Suppose he doesn’t want to?” Chavez asked.

  “You make him want to. Tell him you want him to show you a good time. He’ll take you. You hang around late, till closing time. That’s three in the morning. Meantime I get in touch with my New York fellows. Three or four of them come down to Philly and show up at the roadhouse at closing time. The place is almost deserted. You and Klaus step out on the front porch, and suddenly you step back inside. My guys open fire and cut Klaus down. Good?”

  “Okay. What then?”

  “Then we high-tail it back to town and grab Klaus’ engraver and the plates, and we scram.”

  “Where do you get the engraver?”

  “I know where,” I said. “They’ve got him stashed in the suburbs. I’ve seen the place. It’s guarded by Klaus’ goons, but they won’t be much of a problem. We break in, get what we want, and by breakfast time we’re in New York with the plates and everything. We collect our reward for luring Klaus to the roadhouse—a set of plates—and we head for the Coast. And set up production. A fifty-fifty split, partner.”

  “Sixty-forty my way,” Chavez said immediately. “Without me you’d never get anywhere.”

  I shrugged. “Okay, sixty-forty. You like the deal, though?”

  “I like it just fine,” he said “Klaus won’t.”

  “That’s tough on Klaus. We’ll send flowers to his funeral.”

  Chavez laughed. It was a small-boy giggle, an Aren’t-we-devils? kind of laugh. I gave him a close, searching look, wishing I could see behind that smooth face and find out what he was really thinking. This was the critical turning-point of the whole operation, right here and now. If I had misjudged Chavez, everything would collapse. Would he go through with the doublecross of Klaus? Or would he doublecross Joe Manners instead? The direction he decided to lean in was crucial.