Dan and the Death-Cell Bluff

The bartender had not mentioned the extra steel-grilled door which disclosed itself to Dan when the elevator door slid back, an oversight Dan attributed to his own hurried questioning rather than to the man’s lack of cooperation. He recognized it for what it was even before Big Jim recognized his visitor, however, and had his gun aimed through the steel latticework, the barrel steadied on one of the crossbars, before Jim could even begin to reach for a desk drawer.

“If you so much as wriggle a finger, I’ll blow off the top of your head,” Dan said with husky relish. “How do you work this contraption?”

The cherubic face of the giant behind the desk was an expressionless mask. “It’s an electric lock,” he said tonelessly. “The buzzer’s under my desk.”

“Then you can move one foot,” Dan conceded. “But move it slow.”

Through the open desk well he could see both of Big Jim’s legs, and he watched critically as the giant’s right foot cautiously slid forward under the desk. Then a buzz sounded, and a jolt of electricity passed from the steel door through Dan’s gun, hurling him back against the rear wall of the car. The automatic fell to the floor outside the elevator.

Groggily Dan picked himself up as the steel door swung open and Big Jim beckoned him in with his own gun.

“You have to wait until after the buzz before you touch it,” the giant said with a grin. “Otherwise you get one hundred and ten volts. I had it designed particularly to cover situations like this.”

Dan watched the steel door clang shut again, then turned to face Big Jim.

“The gun isn’t going to do you much good,” he said mildly. “Your frame blew up in your face, and the building is surrounded by state cops.

“I hope,” he added mentally.

Big Jim’s grin did not falter. Backing to the window, he cast a quick glance over his shoulder. Then his eyes returned to Dan’s.

“How did you manage it, Dan?”

Apparently the building was now surrounded.

Big Jim’s grin had faded to a moody expression. “Did you do a thorough job, Dan? Have you really got me licked?”

“You won’t be able to wriggle out, Jim.”

The giant nodded, accepting Dan’s estimate as the truth. “How bad is it? For me personally, I mean.”

“Well,” Dan said consideringly, “all your pet witnesses are going up for perjury. Morgan Hart is going to the chair for the murder of Larry Bull. You know how rats begin to squeal when they’re cornered. They’ll all shift as much as they can on to you. Only you know how much that is.”

The giant thought a moment. “Ten years maybe. Twenty at the outside. I haven’t personally killed anybody.”

“Going to start now?” Dan asked.

Big Jim glanced down at the gun. “Possibly. You meant to get me, didn’t you?”

Dan shook his head. “Not that way. I meant to make sure you weren’t armed, then finish the slugging match we started in my hotel room.”

Big Jim examined him curiously. “You’re a persistent guy, Dan. You’ve tried to take me at least ten times since the first time I heat hell out of you twenty-five years ago. And all it ever got you was more bumps.”

Stepping behind his desk, Big Jim dropped the gun in a drawer, locked it and put the key in his pocket.

“All right, sucker,” he said, grinning at Dan. “Come get your bumps.”

During the short part of a minute between Dan’s last remark to the bartender and the actual arrival of the state police, the bartender took off like a jet-propelled plane, leaving. Stub still unconscious. Consequently when the troopers arrived, trailed by Adrian Fact and Adele Hudson, they found no one to explain the combination of the knobless door next to the bar. A husky trooper was just preparing to solve the combination with an axe, when the door opened from inside and Dan Fancy staggered out.

Dan’s coat was gone and the whole left side of his shirt hung from his belt in shreds, exposing half his hairy chest and one naked arm. One of his trouser legs was ripped from cuff to hip, and flopped open to disclose blood welling from a perfect set of teeth marks in the fleshy part of his calf. His left eye was tightly closed and the other was slowly swelling shut. Blood from both nostrils dribbled across his mouth and seeped from the end of his chin.

Supporting himself with one hand against the door jamb, he focused his remaining eye blearily on Adrian Fact and opened the other hand to exhibit a large yellow molar, obviously not his own.

“I finally grew up to the big bum,” he said in groggy triumph.

Then he pitched forward on his face...

Martin Robinson stood stiff and straight as his son approached the group waiting for him at the prison gate, but something yearning in the old man’s expression told Dan he would bow right down to the ground for a smile from his son.

Eugene Robinson glanced without interest at Adrian Fact, swept his gaze curiously over Dan Fancy’s bruised features, then flashed his dazzling smile as he took both Adele Hudson’s hands and gave them a light squeeze. Apparently he considered it too public a place to exhibit more affection.