The Golden Spiders (Crime Line)

I got to my feet and went downstairs, though not that fast. All you can do on a wooden stair is keep to the side, put your weight on each step a little at a time, and hope to God it was a good carpenter. I made it. The basement floor was concrete. I navigated it, now as silently as silence, across to the first car at the right, and behind it, and then slipped along to the next car, and the next. There, crouched in shadow, I could look straight into the room and hear their words. They were seated at a bare wooden table in the middle of the room, the little guy on the far side, facing me, and Fred at the left, in profile. Fred’s hands were on the table. So were the little guy’s, but he had a gun in one of his. I wondered how he got it staged that way, since Fred was not paralyzed, but that could wait. I got my gun from the holster, and it felt good in my hand. With the car to rest on, I could have picked any square inch on him.

He was talking. “Naw, I’m not like that. A guy that plugs a man just because he likes to feel the trigger work, he’s goin’ to get into trouble someday. Hell, I’d just as soon not shoot anybody. But, like I told you, Lips Egan don’t like to talk to a man with a gun on him, and that’s his privilege. He ought to be here any minute. Why I’m makin’ all this speech-keep your hands still-I’m goin’ to lift yours now, and you’re big enough to break me up, so don’t get any idea that I never would pull a trigger. Here in this basement we could have a shooting gallery. Maybe we will.”

From the way he held the gun, firm and steady but not tight, he was a damn liar. He did like to feel the trigger work. He kept it firm and steady while he pushed his chair back, got erect, and stepped around back of Fred. From behind a man it’s a little awkward to take a gun from under his left armpit with your left hand, but he did it very neatly and quickly. I saw Fred’s jaw clamp, but except for that he took it like a gentleman. The man backed up a step, took a look at Fred’s gun, nodded approvingly, dropped it into his side pocket, went back to his chair, and sat.

“Was you ever in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania?” he asked.

“No,” Fred said.