Free The Terrorizers by Donald Hamilton Page A

of defense so to speak, were permitted firearms on the premises. I took his wallet, since I didn’t know where my own had got to, and money might be required if I did manage to get clear of this place. That made me feel a bit guilty, like a thief.
    I let myself out of the room, but paused to look back. Something told me that if you can do it you’d damned well better be able to look at it. Poor Tommy. I suppose there are always guys who aren’t really bad guys who get themselves stuck on the wrong sides of situations. Maybe it was my imagination but the dead boyish face seemed to have a reproachful expression. Well, hell, I’d warned them, and he’d been right there when I did it. I’d given them a chance to let me leave peacefully, hadn’t I? If they persisted in locking people up and running electricity through them after being properly cautioned, they could damned well take the consequences.
    Hyacinth Cottage contained my prison suite and a sitting room for the nurse or orderly. Off the sitting room were a small bathroom—just a toilet and basin—and a closet. In the closet I found my clothes and some sanitarium equipment, including several interesting canvas garments well-equipped with straps, and two pairs of crutches, aluminum and wood. Apparently they’d had a crazy cripple to deal with, or expected one. The aluminum tubing was too light for my purposes. I dismantled one of the wooden crutches by removing two wing-nuts and driving out the bolts. I checked the straight lower section after discarding the rubber tip. It seemed to be sound hardwood and it was almost two feet long. It would have to do.
    I got dressed. It felt odd to have on real clothes once more, after living so long—with just one brief day’s interlude—in pajamas. My overcoat and airplane bag weren’t there. I left my sports jacket reluctantly, after checking that it held nothing I’d miss if I couldn’t come back. There was nothing in my pants, either. Fortunately, the going-away costume Kitty had provided me in Prince Rupert included a reasonably warm turtle-necked sweater, so going outdoors stripped for action involved no serious risk of pneumonia.
    Nevertheless, I shivered as the cold, damp air hit me outside the cottage door. I guess my stint in the cold waters of Hecate Strait had left me with a chronic yearning for warmth and dryness. It was night outside, but they had enough lights on the premises for midnight football. The vague mist seemed to radiate the illumination into all corners that might have sheltered me. To hell with it. I’d be more conspicuous sneaking from one patch of cover to the next than just walking along like a gent on legitimate business. I strolled away casually, therefore, swinging my length of crutch jauntily, like a cane.
    It was too late for any patients to be outside. They were either eating in the main dining room or being served in their cottages, depending on medical and psychological condition. For the moment, there were no employees in sight. With Trask eliminated, there was only one employee below the administrative level who concerned me, anyway. The rest had, and apparently wanted to have, nothing to do with the operation of the two Snake Pits, as Goldenrod and Hyacinth seemed to be known: the violent wards. Tommy had told me this resentfully, I remembered. He’d thought it unfair that his fellow-workers considered themselves superior to him just because they dealt with simple lushes and dope fiends instead of…
    I saw Dugan coming, carrying a tray. Instinctively, I started to take cover; then I changed my mind. Actually, it was a stroke of luck catching him in the open like this. Otherwise I would have had to worry about him until I found him and immobilized him. Dugan being Dugan—I considered myself a Dugan expert by this time—there were better ways of handling him than jumping out from behind a bush and saying
boo.
I continued to walk towards him.
    It was typical of Dugan, I reflected,