The real cool killers

"She's supposed to be visiting me."

"Well, do your folks know you're here?"

She dropped her gaze. "No."

"Eve and I are engaged," Sheik said with a smirk.

The sergeant wheeled toward him with his right cocked high. Sheik ducked automatically, his guard coming up. The sergeant hooked a left to his stomach underneath his guard, and when Sheik's guard dropped, he crossed his right to the side of Sheik's head, knocking him into a spinning stagger. Then he kicked him in the side of the stomach as he spun and, when he doubled over, the sergeant chopped him across the back of the neck with the meaty edge of his right hand. Sheik shuddered as though poleaxed and crashed to the floor. The sergeant took dead aim and kicked him in the valley of the buttocks with all his force.

The professor returned just in time to see the sergeant spit on him.

"Hey, what's happened to him?" he asked, climbing hastily through the window.

The sergeant took off his hat and wiped his perspiring forehead with a soiled white handkerchief. "His mouth did it," he said.

Sheik was groaning feebly, although unconscious.

The professor chuckled. "He's still trying to talk." Then he said, "They couldn't find Jones. Lieutenant Anderson says he's working on another angle."

"It's okay, she's got an ID card," the sergeant said. Then asked, "Is the chief still there?"

"Yeah, he's still hanging around."

"Well, that's his job."

The professor looked about at the silent group. "What's the verdict?"

"Let's get on to the next house," the sergeant said. "If I'm here when this punk comes to I'll probably be the next one to get suspended."

"Can we leave the building now?" Sissie asked.

"You two girls can come with us," the sergeant offered.

Sheik groaned and rolled over.

"We can't leave him like that," she said.

The sergeant shrugged. The cops passed into the next room. The sergeant started to follow, then hesitated.

"All right, I'll fix it," he said.

He took the girls out on the fire escape and got the attention of the cops guarding the entrance below.

"Let these two girls pass!" he shouted.

The cops looked at the girls standing in the spotlight glare.

"Okay."

The sergeant followed them back into the room.

"If I were you I'd get the hell away from this punk fast," he advised, prodding Sheik with his toe. "He's headed straight for trouble, big trouble."

Neither replied.

He followed the professor out of the flat.

Granny sat unmoving in the rocking chair where they'd left her, tightly gripping the arms. She stared at them with an expression of fierce disapproval on her puckered old face and in her dim milky eyes.

"It's our job, Grandma," the sergeant said apologetically.

She didn't reply.

They passed on sheepishly.

Back in the front room, Sheik groaned and sat up.

Everyone moved at once. The girls moved away from him. Sonny began taking off the heavy overcoat. Inky and Choo-Choo bent over Sheik and, each taking an arm, began helping him to his feet.

"How you feel, Sheik?" Choo-Choo asked.

Sheik looked dazed. "Can't no copper hurt me," he muttered thickly, wobbling on his legs.

"Does it hurt?"

"Naw, it don't hurt," he said with a grimace of pain. Then he looked about stupidly. "They gone?"

"Yeah," Choo-Choo said jubilantly and cut a jig step. "We done beat 'em, Sheik. We done fooled 'em two ways sides and flat."

Sheik's confidence came back in a rush. "I told you we was going to do it."

Sonny grinned and raised his clasped hands in the prizefight salute. "They had me sweating in the crotch," he confessed.

A look of crazed triumph distorted Sheik's flat, freckled face. "I'm the Sheik, Jack," he said. His yellow eyes were getting wild again.

Sissie looked at him and said apprehensively, "Me and Sugartit got to go. We were just waiting to see if you were all right."

"You can't go now — we got to celebrate," Sheik said.

"We ain't got nothing to celebrate with," Choo-Choo said.

"The hell we ain't," Sheik said. "Cops ain't so smart. You go up on the roof and get the pole."

"Who, me, Sheik?"

"Sonny then."

"Me!" Sonny said. "I done got enough of that roof."

"Go on," Sheik said. "You're a Moslem now and I command you in the name of Allah."

"Praise Allah," Choo-Choo said.

"I don't want to be no Moslem," Sonny said.

"All right, you're still our captive then," Sheik decreed. "You go get the pole, Inky. I got five sticks stashed in the end."

"Hell, I'll go," Choo-Choo said.

"No, let Inky go, he's been up there before and they won't think it's funny."

When Inky left for the pole, Sheik said to Choo-Choo, "Our captive's getting biggety since we saved him from the cops.,'

"I ain't gettin' biggety," Sonny declared. "I just want to get the hell outen here and get these cuffs off'n me without havin' to become no Moslem."

"You know too much for us to let you go now," Sheik said, exchanging a look with Choo-Choo.

Inky returned with the pole and, pulling the plug out of the end joint, he shook five cigarettes onto the table top.

"A feast!" Choo-Choo exclaimed. He grabbed one, opened the end with his thumb, and lit up.

Sheik lit another.