Manhunt. Volume 9, Number 2, April 1961

As he turned toward the door, the con man knew the layers of steel calm were melting away. There always comes a time, he remembered, when you go all the way — or else. Make one move to warn Pop and you’ve had it. Con yourself out of this one, wise guy, he told himself bitterly when he reached the door.

“Just pull the bolt and step back, Johnny.” Cole’s hard voice was edged with suspicion as it cut through the silent barroom. “I might get nervous.”

Johnny gave an inward laugh of self-contempt and put his hand on the bolt. Don’t worry, crumb, I never learned to be a hero.

At the rumble of the lock, the door opened instantly from the outside and Mahoney’s bruskness filled the bar.

“What’s goin’ on, Harry?”

The door swung closed, revealing the con man.

“Well — and Johnny Manse, is it?” Pop grinned. “It’s been a long time since the old neighborhood has seen the fancy likes of you.” Pop’s clumsy attempt to cover his pleasure twisted something in Johnny’s stomach as the gray eyes searched his for a minute. He still hadn’t spotted Cole.

“I was afraid some of your thug pals might be holdin’ a convention here, Harry,” Mahoney laughed as he went toward the bar.

An ache of understanding burned briefly under Johnny’s fear. You Irish fraud, you also thought Harry might be in trouble.

“Now why would you two be lockin’ the door as this—” Mahoney broke off, his face sobering to stoniness. And Johnny turned to see Cole step out of the shadows, the thirty-eight gleaming evily in the dim light.

It was plain Pop hadn’t been tipped, but the sharp old bull saw the trap fast enough now. He stopped dead still in the middle of the room, looking long and hard at the depraved killer who had taken his stance less than ten feet from him. Mahoney’s gun bulged in its holster, but the old cop was too smart for that, Johnny knew.

“That’s right, freeze, you piglatin tongued bastard!” Cole’s words were a lunge of animal fury, and the years of underworld training began to buckle in Johnny.

“We didn’t lock you out, flat-foot,” Cole lowered his voice to a whisper. “We been waitin’ for you.” The sadistic restraint congealed in the air above them as he turned to the con man. “Lock the door, Johnny.”

In the brief second that Johnny hesitated, Pop’s eyes met his over a bridge of twenty years. Then Johnny moved to the door.

Locked or unlocked won’t make a hell of a lot of difference now, Pop. He shoved the bolt and the sound it made echoed his thoughts. Full hood now! Turning, he stood with his back to the door and faced the other three.

Cole was taking his time, trying to sweat Mahoney. Harry stood rooted behind the bar, his round eyes moving back and forth between cop and killer.

“Ten stinkin’ years, copper!” Cole hissed. “Do you think I’d make it quick for you after that?” A gloating look came into his eyes, and suddenly he shot a hole in the floor by the cop’s feet.

Johnny jerked at the sound, and heard Harry knock over a bottle. But Mahoney never flinched. Johnny felt sick. You wouldn’t even make a good cop, he tortured himself. This was going to be a bad one. He caught Harry’s pleading look. What the devil does he expect me to do! he thought angrily. I’m no match for this maniac. He’d get us both sure!

“A slug for every year, cop — placed where you’ll know about it. Like I felt every rotten day of that rap!” Cole was grinning now and licking his mouth like a snake.

Still gripping the lucky-piece in his pocket, Johnny looked at Pop. The cop’s face was set and ready, a touch of sad irony around the Irish mouth. It was plain to Johnny what he was thinking. Mahoney had said it once when he’d lost a buddy: “A cop dies this way sometimes.”

The killer paused tauntingly in a nerve-tearing silence. And Johnny’s mind whirled dizzily away from him — back to the slums. Back to the fight he’d made to shake the stench and filth from his shoes, only to find now that another kind of slime had formed inside him. He looked at the cop’s face again and knew this was not the dream he’d built on Lacy Street. Somewhere he’d missed it.

“Where do you want the first one, flatfoot? In the gut maybe?” Johnny heard Cole’s insane glee.

A cop dies this way sometimes — the click of the hammer went through him like an electric current — No!