Free Everybody Had A Gun by Richard Prather Page A

remember. But I couldn't concentrate as much as I'd have liked to; there was still plenty I wanted to know. We'd be in here for another fifty seconds or so, and if I was going to die when we went over the top, I wanted to know what the hell I was dying for.
    "Baby," I said, glaring at her, "start talking. Rough in the high points and give me the details when that's out. And fast!"
    She took a deep breath and spoke, oddly, in the calmest voice she'd used so far. "Sader killed Lobo."
    I remembered that. "What's that got to do with you? And with me?"
    "I found out about it and—"
    "How? Never mind—go on."
    "And Sader found out I knew. He was going to kill me; I know he was. He almost said so, said I was dead! I—Shell, I. . ."
    "Damn it, go on. Whatever it is, it's done."
    "I learned of the murder last night. When I came here for my check this morning, Sader guessed—found out—that I knew about it. He threatened me, and I was scared to death. You do understand, Shell?"
    I must have looked ready to yank her arms off, because she blurted the last part out in a breath: "I told him I'd seen you and told you everything I knew. That you knew about the murder, too. That you'd help me. You'd know, if anything happened to me, who did it and why."
    I stared at her. "Me? Why me?"
    "I saw you talking to Marty at a table here one night two or three months ago and asked him who you were and he told me. I knew you were a detective. And then you've been so much in the news, in the papers lately—about that Hollywood blackmail thing. Well, you popped into my head."
    I felt like popping her head. Popping it good.
    I said weakly, "Did it have to be me?"
    She said violently, almost ready to burst into tears, "No, it didn't have to! I was scared, and—well, it's done"
    There wasn't time for more conversation. The elevator had stopped and the door started sliding open. I grabbed the revolver tight in my slippery little hand and shoved Iris behind my back. Why, I don't know. I should have held the bird-brain in front of me.
    Nobody was in front of the elevator door. The boys downstairs might not have found the guy I'd sapped yet, but probably they had. And they either knew of the exit Sader had used, or they didn't. I'd soon know.
    I stuck my head into the alley. That was safe enough. Bullets wouldn't hurt it. Not my head.
    The alley was empty. The black Plymouth still stood in front of the door, but nobody was in it. And there was no sign of Sader. So far, so good, but I wondered how long our luck could last. I stepped toward the car. With a little more luck. . .But we weren't getting that much. The keys weren't in the car and I sure wasn't going to fiddle around crossing ignition wires now.
    Iris edged out the door behind me. "Wait here a second," I told her. Then I sprinted to my left down toward Clark's Cafeteria. A few feet from the end of the alley I stopped and slid forward slowly till I could peek out onto the street. In front of the cafeteria was another black car, a long Cadillac, and inside it was a man I didn't know and another one I did.
    The guy I knew was in back: Collier Breed himself. I didn't see him right at first, but on the sidewalk next to the car I saw his trademark, so to speak. Two partly smoked cigars smoldered on the sidewalk, and I knew Breed was probably puffing nervously on another that would shortly follow the first two out the window. At a buck a crack, that can get expensive, but it was his one extravagance; nobody loved money more than Breed. He was sitting in the back seat, puffing away industriously, and I could barely make out his florid face behind the clouds of smoke. And that explained where the rest of the boys downstairs had come from.
    I saw it all in one quick look, slid back into the alley and ran back to Iris. I grabbed her arm and hustled her away from Clark's and pell-mell down the alley. There weren't any explosions and no roofs caved in, and we made it clear to the alley's