Small Felonies - Fifty Mystery Short Stories (26 page)

I caught a glimpse of him in the pale moonlight as he came out of the shrubbery that bordered the path on one side, but before I could react he threw an arm around my neck and put a knee in the small of my back. Pain lanced across my throat and suddenly there was no more air in my lungs. Bright white lights flashed in back of my eyes. I felt myself being bent backwards. In another second he would have had me.

I had just enough time to piston my left elbow backward. He took it under the wishbone, and air exploded against the back of my neck. I gave him another one, felt his arm loosen around my throat; then I had him. I twisted off his knee, wrenching my head down—and I was free. I hit him with a right and a left, very fast, and he went down and stayed there. He wasn't going anywhere for a while.

I stood over him, trying to pull breath into my aching lungs, rubbing my throat where he'd held me. My ears were ringing. The damned bum!

I was still standing over him, gasping for breath, when a big uniformed patrolman came running up out of nowhere. He had his service revolver ready in his right hand, a flashlight with a bright beam slicing the darkness in his left. He put the light on me. "What's going on here?"

The light was blinding; I raised my hand against it. "Where'd you come from?" I asked him.

"Never mind that." He swung the flash down to the mugger lying on the ground, then brought it up to me again. "What happened here?"

"I was coming along the path when he jumped me out of those shrubs?"

"Tried to mug you?"

"Yeah."

"How'd you get him?"

"Some elementary judo."

"Nice work."

"I'm trained for it, same as you," I said, and I let him see the badge and identification in the leather case in my coat pocket. "I'm Andrews, with the Twenty-ninth Detective Squad—over on the other side of the park."

"A dick," the patrolman said. He put his revolver away and lowered the flash. "Well, well. What are you doing here this time of night?"

"I'm on special assignment, working with your precinct on this mugger case," I told him. "There's four of us spread through the area."

"Nobody ever lets us poor foot jockeys in on anything."

"You think we got nothing better to do than tell you guys about every stakeout we go on?"

"Okay, okay."

"How'd you get here so fast, anyway?"

"I was rousting a vag sleeping on one of the benches near the fountain," the patrolman said. "Heard all the noise on the path here. Lucky thing, you know? I mean, he could have put you out before you had the chance to use your judo. If he had I would've been right on top of him."

"Sure," I said. I was still having difficulty breathing. "How's your throat?"

"He damned near crushed my windpipe."

"Just like those two women."

"Yeah."

The patrolman went to one knee beside the mugger and looked him over. Young, well set up, with huge hands that had thick blond hair growing on their backs. Wearing black denims and black leather boots along with the pea jacket.

"Big and plenty strong, looks like," the patrolman said. "You figure this is the guy, Andrews? The one the papers are calling the Park Stalker?"

"Figures that way," I said. "His technique is right. We'll find out for certain when we get him to the Twenty-ninth."

The patrolman nodded. He turned the mugger over and ran a quick frisk and didn't find any weapons. He took a thin cowhide wallet out of the back pocket of the denims and shined his flash on it. "Name's David Lee," he said. "You make him?" I shook my head.

"Lives over on Madison, a few blocks from here," the patrolman said. "Can you beat that? Right in our own backyard."

"Yeah," I said.

He got to his feet and took off his cap and looked up at the thin lunar slice in the dark sky—a muggers' moon. "Man, I sure hope he's the one."

"That makes two of us."

"Whole city is in a panic over this rash of muggings, especially with those two women dead and the one guy critical in the hospital. Been eleven assaults up to now, hasn't there?"

"That's right," I said. "Eleven."

"There's a lot of parks in this city," the patrolman said, "and he's never hit the same one twice in a row. Smart bastard. We'll play hell catching him if it isn't this baby here."

"He's the one," I said. "He's got to be."

"I hope you're right, Andrews."

"Listen, you watch him while I go over to the Twenty-ninth. Captain's going to want to set up for plenty of publicity on this pinch before we bring him in."

"Well, I don't know . . ."

"You'd like to get your name in the papers, wouldn't you?" The patrolman's face brightened. "Mean you'll let me share in a little of the glory?"

"Why not? Might mean a promotion for both of us."

"Hell, Andrews, that's decent of you."

I shrugged. "Just don't let him get away, that's all."

The patrolman had already unhooked handcuffs from his belt. "You don't have to worry none about that," he said.

I left him and went back to the fountain. From there I cut across the grass and came out of the park on Dunhill Street. Then I headed west, downtown—away from the Twenty-ninth Precinct.

That had been too damn close, I thought. If I'd been Mr. Average Citizen, the patrolman would have taken me in to sign a complaint. Then suppose somebody got suspicious? They'd have run a routine fingerprint check, and I'd have been a dead goose, brother. I've got an assault record in two cities down South.

It's a lucky thing I had that police badge and ID, all right.

But it's an even luckier thing that Number Twelve, the guy I'd mugged ten minutes before that stupid blond amateur jumped me, had been a real detective on stakeout duty in the park.

A Tale of the Old West

T
he mob boiled upstreet from Saloon Row toward the jail-house. Some of the men in front carried lanterns and torches made out of rag-wrapped sticks soaked in coal oil; Micah could see the flickering light against the black night sky, the wild quivering shadows. But he couldn't see the men themselves, the hooded and masked leaders, from back here where he was at the rear of the pack. He couldn't see Ike Da11 neither. Ike Da11 was the one who had the hang rope already shaped out into a noose.

Men surged around Micah, yelling, waving arms and clubs and six-guns. He just couldn't keep up on account of his damn game leg. He kept getting jostled, once almost knocked down. Back there at Hardesty's Gambling Hall he'd been right in the thick of it. He'd been the center of attention, by grab. Now they'd forgot all about him and here he was clumping along on his bad leg, not able to see much, getting bumped and pushed with every dragging step. He could feel the excitement, smell the sweat and the heat and the hunger, but he wasn't a part of it no more.

It wasn't right. Hell damn boy, it just wasn't right. Weren't for him, none of this would be happening. Biggest damn thing ever in Cricklewood, Montana, and all on account of him. He was a hero, wasn't he? Back there at Hardesty's, they'd all said so. Back there at Hardesty's, he'd talked and they'd listened to every word—Ike Da11 and Lee Wynkoop and Mack Clausen, all of them, everybody who was somebody in and around Cricklewood. Stood him right up there next to the bar, bought him drinks, looked at him with respect, and listened to every word he said.

"Micah seen it, didn't you, Micah? What that drifter done?"

"Sure I did. Told Marshal Thrall and I'm tellin' you. Weren't for me, he'd of got clean away."

"You're a hero, Micah. By God you are."

"Well, now. Well, I guess I am."

"Tell it again. Tell us how it was."

"Sure. Sure I will. I seen it all."

"What'd you see?"

"I seen that drifter, that Larrabee, hold up the Wells, Fargo stage. I seen him shoot Tom Porter twice, shoot Tom Porter dead as anybody ever was."

"How'd you come to be out by the Helena road?"

"Mr. Coombs sent me out from the livery, to tell Harry Perkins the singletree on his wagon was fixed a day early. I took the shortcut along the river, like I allus do when I'm headin' down the valley. Forded by Fisherman's Bend and went on through that stand of cottonwoods on the other side. That was where I was, in them trees, when I seen it happen."

"Larrabee had the stage stopped right there, did he?"

"Sure. Right there. Had his six-gun out and he was tellin' Tom to throw down the treasure box."

"And Tom throwed it down?"

"Sure he did. He throwed it right down."

"Never made to use his shotgun or his side gun?"

"No sir. Never made no play at all."

"So Larrabee shot him in cold blood."

"Cold blood—sure! Shot Tom twice. Right off the coach box the first time, then when Tom was lyin' there on the ground, rollin' around with that first bullet in him, Larrabee walked up to him cool as you please and put his six-gun agin Tom's head and done it to him proper. Blowed Tom's head half off. Blowed it half off and that's a fact."

"You all heard that. You heard what Micah seen that son of a bitch do to Tom Porter—a decent citizen, a man we all liked and was proud to call friend. I say we don't wait for the circuit judge. What if he lets Larrabee off light? I say we give that murderin' bastard what he deserves here and now, tonight. Now what do you say?"

"Hang him!"

"Stretch his dirty neck!"

"Hang him high!"

Oh, it had been fine back there at Hardesty's. Everybody looking at him the way they done, with respect. Calling him a hero. He'd been somebody then, not just poor crippled-up Micah Hays who done handy work and run errands and shoveled manure down at the Coombs Livery Barn. Oh, it had been fine! But now—now they'd forgot him again, left him behind, left him out of what was going to happen on his account. They were all moving upstreet to the jailhouse with their lanterns and their torches and their hunger, leaving him practically alone where he couldn't do or see a damn thing . . .

Micah stopped trying to run on his game leg and limped along slow, watching the mob, wanting to be a part of it but wanting more to see everything that happened after the mob got to the jailhouse. Then he thought: Why, I can see it all! Sure I can! I know just where I got to go.

He hobbled ahead to the alley alongside Burley's Feed and Grain, went down it to the staircase built up the side wall. The stairs led to a railed gallery overlooking the street, and to the offices of the town lawyer, Mr. Spivey, that had been built on top of the feed-store roof. Micah stumped up the stairs and went past the dark offices and on down to the far end of the gallery.

Hell damn boy! He sure could see from up here, clear as anybody could want. The mob was close to the jailhouse now; in the dancy light from the lanterns and torches, he could make out the hooded shape of Ike Da11 with his hang-rope noose held high, the shapes of Lee Wynkoop and Mack Clausen and the others who were leading the pack. He could see that big old shade cottonwood off to one side of the jail, too, with its one gnarly limb that stretched out over the street. That was where they was going to hang the drifter. Ike Da11 had said so, back there at Hardesty's. "We don't have to take him far, by Christ. We'll string him up right there next to the jail."

The front door of the jailhouse opened and out come Marshal Thrall and his deputy, Ben Dietrich. Micah leaned out over the railing, squinting, feeling the excitement scurry up and down inside his chest like a mouse on a wall. Marshal Thrall had a shotgun in his hands and Ben Dietrich held a rifle. The marshal commenced to yelling, but whatever it was got lost in the noise from the mob. Mob didn't slow down none, neither, when old Thrall started waving that Greener of his. Marshal wasn't going to shoot nobody, Ike Da11 had said. "Why, we're all Thrall's friends and neighbors. Ben Dietrich's, too. They ain't goin' to shoot up their friends and neighbors, are they? Just to stop the lynching of a murderin' son of a bitch like Larrabee?"

No sir, they sure wasn't. That mob didn't slow down none at all. It surged right ahead, right on around Marshal Thrall and Ben Dietrich like floodwaters around a sandbar, and swallowed them both up and carried them right on into the jailhouse.

A hell of a racket come from inside. Pretty soon the pack parted down the middle and Micah could see four or five men carrying that drifter up in the air, hands tied behind him, the same way you'd carry a side of butchered beef. Hell damn boy! Everybody was whooping it up, waving torches and lanterns and swirling light around in the dark like a bunch of kids with pinwheel sparklers. It put Micah in mind of an Independence Day celebration. By grab, that was just what it was like. Fireworks on the Fourth of July.

Well, they carried that murdering Larrabee on over to the shade cottonwood. He was screaming things, that drifter was—screaming the whole way. Micah couldn't hear most of it above the crowd noise, but he caught a few of the words. And one whole sentence: "I tell you, I didn't do it!"

"Why, sure you did," Micah said out loud. "Sure you did. I seen you do it, didn't I?"