Free The Poisoners by Donald Hamilton Page B

enough to strike at either McConnell or the girl, despite what I’d said for effect back in the office. Still, if he were attacked, and saved, McConnell might talk, if he had anything to talk about. And even if nobody made a hostile move towards him, he might lead me to something or somebody significant, although I didn’t really have much hope of it.
    But it was a possible opening, and I didn’t have so many I could ignore one, and the others were being covered. I watched the cab pull away. McConnell stood for a moment at the curb, at last putting on the jacket he’d carried around with him all night. He turned and walked straight at me.
    There had been, of course, a certain probability that he’d proceed in my direction rather than moving away from me, or ducking into a nearby building, or darting across the street. There were only so many ways he could go. However, I saw from his manner that this had nothing to do with statistical probabilities. He knew where I was parked and he was coming to me, maybe to tell me something important, maybe just to give me hell for shadowing him, probably the latter.
    Abruptly he stopped, looking beyond me. There were headlights in my mirrors, coming up fast. McConnell turned to run. I reached over, hit the door handle on the curb side, dove to the sidewalk, rolled, and came up with a gun in my hand, but it was too late.
    There were two of them, in one of those fat-tired, souped-up, fast-back little sport coupes, complete with fake racing stripes, that are America’s current answer to the true European sports car. You may like them or you may not—I don’t, particularly—but you’ve got to admit that not much can beat them for sheer acceleration. Some of them even have pretty good brakes nowadays, a real innovation for Detroit.
    The coupe shot past as I was picking myself off the sidewalk, and slowed sharply beyond me. I saw a short shotgun barrel thrust out the right-hand window. It flamed twice in the night and McConnell fell; then the rub-out men were getting out of there with shrieking tires and snarling exhausts, and I still hadn’t had a clear shot at them.
    Punching holes in automobiles isn’t exactly what the standard short-barreled .38 Special does best. There’s something to be said for the big guns after all, and I’d pulled out the .44 I was still lugging around since nobody else seemed to want it. The coupe was receding fast. I cocked the massive revolver as I thrust it out two-handed, and I let it fire when the front sight blade steadied on the left half of the slanting rear window.
    Even with two hands gripping it hard, the cannon kicked so hard you wouldn’t believe it. The coupe swerved violently across the street and plowed into the parked cars there. After a moment, the right-hand door opened and the shotgunner staggered out, still clutching his weapon, a semi-automatic job that would hold at least three shells, probably more. What I mean is, even if he hadn’t managed, to reload, he probably had ammunition left.
    I saw no reason why he should get any breaks from me, and shotguns scare hell out of me anyway, so I didn’t wait for him to swing the weapon towards me. I just knocked him over while he was still looking for a target. The heavy .44 slug chopped him down like a tree. I waited, but he didn’t move, and neither did the driver of the car, as far as I could make out through the damaged rear glass.
    My hands were tingling from the kick of the Magnum, and my ears were ringing from the noise, but part of my mind, aloof from the uproar and excitement, reminded me gently that people had been firing that gun, off and on, for a couple of days now, and there couldn’t be much left in it—just one live round, if my count was correct. I drew out the fully loaded .38 as reserve artillery and moved up to McConnell, feeling stupid and frustrated standing there, with a pistol in each hand, and the man I was supposed to protect bleeding on the sidewalk at my