Benny already had his field gla.s.ses focused on the bag. "She gave it to somebody else, that's all," he said.

The two prowl car cops. .h.i.t the pavement and charged into the apartment house, obscuring the vision of the watching detectives. For a moment the street looked clear of cops.

The Lincoln accelerated. Behind it the black Chrysler sedan pulled out from the curb. Far ahead down Riverside Drive was the distant red eye of another prowl car coming fast. And from all directions came the sound of sirens, shattering the night, as unseen cars and ambulances converged on the scene.

"Pull over fast," Benny said.

The Lincoln lunged to the other side of the street and braked silently just ahead of Sister Heavenly and the driver jumped to the sidewalk with a heavy black sap in his hand.

Sister Heavenly saw the car brake and the man jump out in the same sidewise glance. She was carrying the blue canvas bag along with her own black beaded bag in her left hand. Somewhere along the way she had discarded the parasol and instead was carrying the .38-caliber Owl's Head with the sawed-off barrel wrapped in a black scarf in her right hand.

Without turning her body or slackening her pace, she raised the pistol and pumped four dumdum bullets into the chauffeur's body.

"Jesus Christ!" Benny said, and in a fast smooth motion drew his own P38 Walther automatic and shot twice through the open car door.

One slug caught Sister Heavenly in the left side below the ribs and lodged in the side of her spine; the other went wild. She fell sidewise to the pavement and was powerless to move, but her mind was still active and her vision was clear. She saw Benny Mason slide quickly across the seat, leap to the sidewalk, and aim the pistol at her head.

Well now, ain't this lovely? she thought just before the bullet entered her brain.

Benny Mason s.n.a.t.c.hed the bag from her limp hand and jumped back into the Lincoln beneath the wheel. All around him were the red lights of prowl cars converging in the street. His mind was shattered by the head-splitting screaming of sirens. He couldn't see; the air looked red and his brains seemed to be pouring out of his ears. He began accelerating before closing the car door.

The Lincoln crashed broadside into the Chrysler sedan that had cut across in front of it. T-men poured from the Chrysler and surrounded him. He grabbed the bag and tried to throw it, but a T-man reaching through the open door caught him by the wrist and froze the bag in his hand.

"Son, you're going on a long journey," the T-man said.

"I want to see my lawyer," Benny Mason said.

The apartment house bas.e.m.e.nt was filling up with uniformed prowl car cops who couldn't find anything to do.

Coffin Ed had his coat off and his right hand held between the b.u.t.tons of his shirt in place of a sling. Detectives had cut out the back of his shirt and were using a wad of clean pocket handkerchief to staunch the flow of blood until the ambulance arrived. But he was slowly turning gray from loss of blood.

No one knew what the outcome was outside, and the homicide lieutenant put off interrogating Coffin Ed until his wound had been treated. So they were all just standing about.

But Coffin Ed had a need to talk.

"You guys figured too they'd come back?"

"We didn't figure it," the homicide lieutenant said. "We engineered it. We knew you were on the prowl and that they were on your tail. That might have kept up all night. So we had to get you here. We knew they'd come after you, just like you did."

"You got me here? How was that?"

The homicide lieutenant reddened. "You know by now that Grave Digger is alive?"

Coffin Ed became rigid. "Alive? The radio said--"

"That was how we did it. We gave out the story. We knew that after you had heard it you would get them here some way to kill them. You're not sore, are you?"

"Alive!" Coffin Ed hadn't heard the rest of it. Tears were streaming unashamedly from his blood-red eyes. He shook his head. "Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle." It felt as though his brains were banging against his skull. But he didn't mind. "Then he'll never die," he said.

The lieutenant patted his good shoulder as delicately as though it were made of chocolate icing. "Only way we could figure to cover you. We don't want to lose our good men." He smiled a little. "Of course we didn't expect a theatrical production."

Coffin Ed grinned. "I dig you, Jack," he said. "But sometimes these minstrel shows play on when grand opera folds."

Then suddenly and unexpectedly he fainted.

22.

It was past two o'clock in the morning. The prowl cars and ambulances and hea.r.s.es had gone from the street and only the black inconspicuous sedans of the plainclothesmen rcrrained among the sedate automobiles of the residents. Quiet once again prevailed in this exclusive residential street.

The crew from the Medical Examiner's Office had been and gone and the six corpses had been taken to the morgue. The fat gunman had died before they arrived and had been tagged D.O.A. with the others. He had died without talking. Now there were only the gobs and patches of clotted blood to mark the spots where the six lives had taken exit.

Wop was in jail, safe at last.

But there was still activity in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the apartment house where the interrogations continued and the reports of this fantastic caper were being recorded to shock and horrify what one must hope will be a less violent posterity.

The dining table from the janitor's flat had been set up in the corridor and the two lieutenants and chief of the T-men were sitting in bloodstained chairs about it. A police stenographer sat apart, taking down the words as they were spoken.

Coffin Ed sat facing his interrogators across the table. He had been taken to the Polytechnical Clinic in midtown to have the bullet removed from his shoulder blade and the wound dressed. His guns, sap and hunting knife had been taken from him by the homicide lieutenant, and a detective had accompanied him to the clinic. Technically, he was under arrest for homicide and was being held for the magistrate's court later that morning.

The hospital doctors had tried to put him to bed, but he had insisted on returning to the scene. In lieu of his bloodstained shirt, he now wore a hospital nightshirt tucked into his pants, and his arm was in a black cotton sling. Bandages made a lump on his right shoulder like a deformity.

"It's been a b.l.o.o.d.y harvest," the T-man said.

"Gun-killing is the twentieth-century plague," the homicide lieutenant said.

"Let's get to the story," the narcotics lieutenant said impatiently. "This business is not finished yet."

"All right, Ed, let's hear your side," the homicide lieutenant said.

"I'll start with the janitor's wife, and just repeat what she told me. You have my statement from before. Maybe you can fit it all together."

"All right, shoot."

"According to her, all she knew at first was that Gus had disappeared. He left her and the African in the flat at about eleven-thirty and said he'd be back in an hour. He didn't come back--"

"Where was Pinky during this time?"

"She said she hadn't seen Pinky since late afternoon and hadn't thought about him until we questioned her after the false fire alarm."

"So he wasn't around?"

"He could have been. She just didn't see him. When she found Out he was on the lam and Gus hadn't come back, she began to worry about what to do with the dog. They weren't taking the dog and Gus hadn't made any arrangements for it, and she didn't know about S.P.C.A. And of course if Pinky turned up, there was the rap against him for the false fire alarm, and she intended phoning the police and having him arrested. So along toward morning she sent the African out to drown the dog in the river.

"Digger and I were sitting outside in the old struggle buggy when the African took it away. We thought then he might have drowned it, but it was none of our business and we didn't see anything else suspicious, so we left. If we'd stayed twenty minutes longer we'd have seen Sister Heavenly when she arrived.

"She got here about ten minutes to six and said she was looking for Gus. Ginny, that's the janitor's wife, was suspicious -- said she was, anyway -- but she couldn't get any more out of Sister Heavenly. Then at six o'clock the front doorbell rang. Ginny had no idea who it was, but suddenly Sister Heavenly drew a pistol from her bag and covered her and the African and ordered her to push the buzzer to release the front door latch; and she made them both keep still. Evidently she expected the caller to come straight to the flat. But instead they took away the trunk and left without knocking. When she finally looked out here in the hall and saw the trunk was gone, she ran out of the house without saying a word. And that was the last Ginny saw of her -- so she said."

"What happened to the trunk finally?" the homicide lieutenant asked.

"She claimed she never found out."

"All right, we'll get on to the trunk tomorrow."

"I'm in the dark here," the T-man said. "Who was going where?"

"She and Gus -- he was the janitor -- were going to Ghana. They'd bought a cocoa plantation from the African."

The T-man whistled. "Where'd they get that kind of money?"

"She told us -- Digger and me -- that his first wife died and left him a tobacco farm in North Carolina, and he sold it."

"We have all that from your first statement," the homicide lieutenant said impatiently. "Where did the African fit into this caper?"

"He didn't. He was an innocent bystander. When Gus didn't show up after the trunk was taken, Ginny began getting more and more worried. So the African left the house about a half hour after Sister Heavenly to look for Gus. In the meantime it was getting late and Ginny began to dress. They had to go to the dock to get their luggage on board."

"The trunk should have been delivered the day before," the T-man said.

"Yeah, but she didn't know that. All that was worrying her was Gus's continued absence. She was just hoping the African would find him in time for them to make the boat. She never saw the African again. She had just finished dressing when the two white gunmen who shuttled her about Harlem first turned up. They said Gus had sent them to take her to the dock. She left a note for the African telling him where she was going. Then the gunmen picked up her luggage and took her out to their car. When they got in the fat man drove and the hophead sat in the back and covered her with the derringer. He told her Gus was in trouble and they were taking her to see him."

"Didn't she wonder about the gun?"

"She said she thought they were detectives."

The homicide lieutenant reddened.

"They took her to a walkup apartment on West 10th Street in the Village, near the railroad tracks, and bound and gagged her and tied her to the bed. First they went through her luggage. Then they took off the gag and asked her what she had done with the junk. She didn't know what they were talking about. They gagged her again and began torturing her."

Abruptly the atmosphere changed. Faces took on those bleak expressions of men who come suddenly upon an inhumanity not reckoned for.

"Gentle hearts!" the T-man said.

"The next time they took off her gag she blabbed for her life," Coffin Ed said. "She told them Gus had p.a.w.ned the stuff but when she saw that wasn't the answer she said he took it to Chicago to sell. That must have convinced them she really didn't know about it. One of them went into another room and made a telephone call -- to Benny Mason, I suppose-- and when he came back they gagged her again and left. I figure they came straight up here and searched the flat."

"And killed the African."

"I don't think they killed him then. The way I figure it they must have searched twice. In the meantime they probably went and had a talk with their boss."

"No doubt he sent them back and told them to find it or else," the narcotics lieutenant said. "If it was two kilos of heroin it was worth a lot of money."

"Yeah. I figure the African must have been here when they returned, or else he came in while they were searching. We'll never know."

"You think they tried to make him talk?"

"Who knows? Anyway, that's when we ran into them and set off the big chase. If I'd listened to Digger's advice and just laid dead, maybe we'd have never tumbled to the dope angle."

"Not necessarily," the narcotics lieutenant said. "We knew a shipment of H had left France, but we didn't know how or when. The French lost it somewhere between Ma.r.s.eille and Le Havre."

"But we've been on to it for the past week," the T-man said. "Working with the local squad -- secretly. We've had the waterfront covered from end to end."

"Yeah, but you'll find out later you didn't cover it far enough," Coffin Ed said. "When the hoods returned to the flat in the Village, Benny Mason went with them. The woman became hysterical when they took off the gag. She said Benny sat beside her and comforted her. He sent out for a doctor who came and treated her and put her under sedation--"

"What doctor?"

"She didn't say and I didn't ask her. Benny sent the doctor away and promised her she wouldn't be hurt again if she was cooperative. Anyway, he won her confidence. In the meantime he sent the hoods out of the room and pulled up a chair, straddled it and sat facing her. And he leveled with her--"

"Then he intended to have her killed," the narcotics lieutenant said.

"Yeah, but she was too square to dig it. Anyway, he told her that he was the boss of the narcotics racket, that he had the s.h.i.t smuggled into the country and he had used Gus to pick it up sometimes; and that was how Gus got the money to buy this farm in Ghana. That shocked her; she had believed Gus's hype about his wife leaving him a farm down South. He must have figured it would have that effect because he wanted her to start thinking and remember something she hadn't thought was important before. He went on to tell her that he had had Gus thoroughly investigated and he was certain Gus was a square, just greedy for some money. She agreed to that but she didn't know what he was leading to. He told her that Gus had picked up a shipment of heroin at midnight, worth more than a million dollars, and he was supposed to pa.s.s it on in the trunk that was picked up at six o'clock."

"Picked up from who?" the narcotics lieutenant asked.

"He said the heroin was smuggled into the country on a French liner."

"We know the French liner that docked this week," the narcotics lieutenant said. "We've had it under a tight surveillance."

"Yeah, but you missed the connection. It was dropped overboard to a small motorboat that pa.s.sed under the bow without stopping at about eleven o'clock night before last."

"My men were watching that boat through night gla.s.ses and there was nothing dropped overboard," the T-man said.

"Maybe it was already in the water. I'm just repeating what she said Benny told her. Benny had sent a map to Gus by Jake, the pusher -- the one Digger and me got suspended for slugging."

The city detectives looked embarra.s.sed but the T-men missed the connotation.

"The map showed Gus the exact spot where the shipment would be dropped -- only a short walk from here. The boat came up the river and delivered the shipment without ever stopping. Benny said he knew that Gus collected it because the connection told him that Gus was waiting when the boat arrived; and furthermore, when the boat returned to the yacht basin in Hoboken the T-men were waiting for it and searched it and they found it clean."

"By G.o.d, I got a report on that boat!" the T-man said. "It's owned by a taxicab driver named Skelley. He does night fishing." He turned to one of his men in the background. "Have Skelley and everyone connected with him picked up."

The agent went toward the telephone.

"Benny said when his men picked up the trunk the shipment wasn't in it," Coffin Ed continued. "She thought maybe Gus had run off with it since it was worth so much. He had gone out before midnight and she hadn't seen or heard of him since, and that wasn't like Gus; he didn't have any friends he could put up with and he didn't have anywhere else to go. Benny said no, he had probably been robbed. They had found Gus and he was hurt and wasn't able to talk and he figured someone had hijacked the shipment--"

"But he left the bundle with Gus for six hours before he sent to pick it up. You think he was that stupid?"

"It was as safe with Gus as anywhere -- in fact safer. They had him covered. And since he was actually supposed to sail thatday, they figured the trunk dodge would attract less attention than any other. Besides, Benny wasn't taking any chances; he had a lookout posted outside all night. The lookout saw Gus come into the apartment after he had kept the rendezvous and he didn't see anyone leave after then who was carrying anything in which the shipment could have been concealed. The lookout saw Digger and me come and go after the false fire alarm; he saw the African go out with the dog and return without it; he saw Sister Heavenly when she came and left. No, Benny was certain that the shipment hadn't left this house."

The detectives exchanged glances.

"Then it's still here," the homicide lieutenant said. "That's impossible, the way this place has been searched, unless one of the tenants is in on the deal, and we've checked them going and coming and I'd bet my job they're innocent," the narcotics lieutenant said. "I personally was with the searching crew when they went through every trunk, every box, every piece of furniture in the storage room; they turned the toolroom inside out, took apart the oil burner, dismantled the washing machines, raked out the incinerator, looked into the sewers, even took two stored automobile tires off the rims; and you saw how the janitor's flat has been searched. We'd have found a signet ring if we'd been looking for it."

"That's the way Benny figured it. It was too big a bundle to hide, and the only way Gus could have got rid of it was to give it to somebody in this house to hold for him."