X
While Jack put the girl through the door, Red and I cleared a little space in front of us. He was good at that. When he chucked them back they went back. I didn’t dog it on him, but I did let him get all the exercise he wanted.
“All right!” Jack called.
Red and I went through the door, slammed it shut. It wouldn’t hold even if locked. O’Leary sent three slugs through it to give the boys something to think about, and our retreat got under way.
We were in a narrow passageway lighted by a fairly bright light. At the other end was a closed door. Halfway down, to the right, steps led up.
“Straight ahead?” asked Jack, who was in front.
O’Leary said, “Yes.” And I said, “No. Vance will have that blocked by now if the bulls haven’t. Upstairs—the roof.”
We reached the stairs. The door behind us burst open. The light went out. The door at the other end of the passage slammed open. No light came through either door. Vance would want light. Larrouy must have pulled the switch, trying to keep his dump from being torn to toothpicks.
Tumult boiled in the dark passage as we climbed the stairs by the touch system. Whoever had come through the back door was mixing it with those who had followed us—mixing it with blows, curses and an occasional shot. More power to them! We climbed, Jack leading, the girl next, then me, and last of all, O’Leary.
Jack was gallantly reading road-signs to the girl: “Careful of the landing, half a turn to the left now, put your right hand on the wall and—”
“Shut up!” I growled at him. “It’s better to have her falling down than to have everybody in the drum fall on us.”
We reached the second floor. It was black as black. There were three stories to the building.
“I’ve mislaid the blooming stairs,” Jack complained.
We poked around in the dark, hunting for the flight that should lead up toward our roof. We didn’t find it. The riot downstairs was quieting. Vance’s voice was telling his push that they were mixing it with each other, asking where we had gone. Nobody seemed to know. We didn’t know, either.
“Come on,” I grumbled, leading the way down the dark hall toward the back of the building. “We’ve got to go somewhere.”
There was still noise downstairs, but no more fighting. Men were talking about getting lights. I stumbled into a door at the end of the hall, pushed it open. A room with two windows through which came a pale glow from the street lights. It seemed brilliant after the hall. My little flock followed me in and we closed the door.
Red O’Leary was across the room, his noodle to an open window.
“Back street,” he whispered. “No way down unless we drop.”
“Anybody in sight?” I asked.
“Don’t see any.”
I looked around the room—bed, couple of chairs, chest of drawers, and a table.
“The table will go through the window,” I said. “We’ll chuck it as far as we can and hope the racket will lead ’em out there before they decide to look up here.”
Red and the girl were assuring each other that each was still all in one piece. He broke away from her to help me with the table. We balanced it, swung it, let it go. It did nicely, crashing into the wall of the building opposite, dropping down into a backyard to clang and clatter on a pile of tin, or a collection of garbage cans, or something beautifully noisy. You couldn’t have heard it more than a block and a half away.
We got away from the window as men bubbled out of Larrouy’s back door.
The girl, unable to find any wounds on O’Leary, had turned to Jack Counihan. He had a cut cheek. She was monkeying with it and a handkerchief.
“When you finish that,” Jack was telling her, “I’m going out and get one on the other side.”
“I’ll never finish if you keep talking—you jiggle your cheek.”
“That’s a swell idea,” he exclaimed. “San Francisco is the second largest city in California. Sacramento is the state capital. Do you like geography? Shall I tell you about Java? I’ve never been there, but I drink their coffee. If—”
“Silly!” she said, laughing. “If you don’t hold still I’ll stop now.”
“Not so good,” he said. “I’ll be still.”
She wasn’t doing anything except wiping blood off his cheek, blood that had better been let dry there. When she finished this perfectly useless surgery, she took her hand away slowly, surveying the hardly noticeable results with pride. As her hand came on a level with his mouth, Jack jerked his head forward to kiss the tip of one passing finger.
“Silly!” she said again, snatching her hand away.
“Lay off that,” said Red O’Leary, “or I’ll knock you off.”
“Pull in your neck,” said Jack Counihan.
“Reddy!” the girl cried, too late.
The O’Leary right looped out. Jack took the punch on the button, and went to sleep on the floor. The big redhead spun on the balls of his feet to loom over me.
“Got anything to say?” he asked.
I grinned down at Jack, up at Red.
“I’m ashamed of him,” I said. “Letting himself be stopped by a paluka who leads with his right.”
“You want to try it?”
“Reddy! Reddy!” the girl pleaded, but nobody was listening to her.
“If you’ll lead with your right,” I said.
“I will,” he promised, and did.
I grandstanded, slipping my head out of the way, laying a forefinger on his chin.
“That could have been a knuckle,” I said.
“Yes? This one is.”
I managed to get under his left, taking the forearm across the back of my neck. But that about played out the acrobatics. It looked as if I would have to see what I could do to him, if any. The girl grabbed his arm and hung on.
“Reddy, darling, haven’t you had enough fighting for one night? Can’t you be sensible, even if you are Irish?”
I was tempted to paste the big chaw while his playmate had him tied up.
He laughed down at her, ducked his head to kiss her mouth, and grinned at me.
“There’s always some other time,” he said good-naturedly.