Free Gat Heat by Richard S. Prather Page A

soon as I’d clobbered Jimmy with my left hand, I’d grabbed the Colt Special in my right and flipped it out to cover the three men.
    One of them—the tall broad-shouldered guy who’d met me at the door—almost didn’t stop, almost yanked out his heater anyway. But he decided against it at the last moment. Just as my finger was tightening on the .38’s trigger.
    Then he relaxed.
    â€œYou don’t know how close you came to it,” I said.
    He licked his lips but didn’t say anything, pulling his eyes from my gun to look at Jimmy Violet.
    Jimmy was still on the floor, but he wasn’t unconscious.
    Well, maybe I hadn’t knocked him clear out, but I’d done his nose no good, and the event had given me a lot of satisfaction. Even if I did seem to be losing my punch. I’d had enough of his bigmouth to begin with. And I guess you know, ever since Bingo slid into my Cad I’d been itching to hit somebody. Most important, however, I do not cotton to guys who send me invitations at gunpoint.
    I glanced at the door on my right and partly behind me. It was still closed, and nobody else had come into the room. If anybody had, I presume I would by that time have been shot in the skull. But all was—for the moment—under control, so I turned most of my attention to Jimmy Violet.
    His legs were moving, and he was clawing with his fingers at the carpet. In a few more seconds he managed to sit up. Blood from his already swollen nose smeared his mouth and chin. It was pretty messy, but at least it gave his face a little color.
    He was so mad he wasn’t thinking straight. Or else he wasn’t seeing straight, and couldn’t see the gun in my hand. He sat there on his duff and reached under his coat and grabbed a small revolver. He had it out of the shoulder holster when I let one go right past his ear.
    The blast of the shot was loud in the room, and his ears, if not his eyes, must have told him he was embarking on the wrong course. I didn’t even have to tell him to drop the gun; he let go of it while his hand was still moving and the small chrome-plated pretty—a lady’s gun, I would have called it—bounced across the floor toward me.
    It was quiet.
    I glanced at the three men.
    Jimmy pushed a hand over his mouth, then leaned forward and spat on the carpet. Slowly he got to his feet.
    And the phone rang.
    It was on the bar top, behind the three men. I walked over there and answered it.
    A high-pitched voice said, “Gimme Jimmy, quick.”
    â€œO.K. Who’s this?”
    â€œBingo. Get Jimmy … who’s talkin’?”
    â€œHe’ll tell you,” I said. “At least, I imagine he will.”
    â€œIs—is it Scott? It can’t be. Crud, it can’t be.”
    I looked at Jimmy Violet and pointed to the phone, then put it down and moved back to my easy chair.
    â€œYeah,” he growled into the mouthpiece. “Yeah, this is Jimmy.” He listened a moment. “Yeah, it was, all right. Yeah, so he’s nuts. Sure he’s nuts, who’s arguing? Yeah … yeah … huh. Right … I’ll see you here, then. You sure did a fine job, sweetheart. I can really count on you, can’t I? Well, hurry it up.”
    Jimmy put the phone back on the hook, wiped his nose gently with a handkerchief, then glared at me. “Blow,” he said. “We got no more to talk about.”
    â€œI hope you don’t have any idea it might be fun to let one of your boys shoot me on the way out. You just talked to Bingo. So you must know—or can guess—that six thousand cops are aware that I’m now calling on Jimmy Violet. They’d love to get something on you. Especially a murder rap.”
    He glared at me some more. “It’d almost be worth it.”
    â€œBut you know better, don’t you, Jimmy?”
    He stared at me for a few moments longer, then looked at his three men. Slowly he