“Out. If he killed Whisper for killing the girl, that marks him off. Besides, she had bruises on her wrist and cheek, and he wasn’t strong enough to rough her. My notion is that he left the hospital, spent the night God knows where, showed up at the girl’s house after I left that morning, let himself in with his key, found her, decided Whisper had done the trick, took the sticker out of her, and went hunting Whisper.”
“So?” Mickey said. “Now where do you get the idea that you might be the boy who put it over?”
“Stop it,” I said grouchily as we turned into Porter Street. “Let’s find our warehouse.”
XXVII. Warehouses
We rode down the street, jerking our eyes around, hunting for buildings that looked like deserted warehouses. It was light enough by now to see well.
Presently I spotted a big square rusty-red building set in the center of a weedy lot. Disuse stuck out all over lot and building. It had the look of a likely candidate.
“Pull up at the next corner,” I said. “That looks like the dump. You stick with the heap while I scout it.”
I walked two unnecessary blocks so I could come into the lot behind the building. I crossed the lot carefully, not sneaking, but not making any noises I could avoid.
I tried the back door cautiously. It was locked, of course. I moved over to a window, tried to look in, couldn’t because of gloom and dirt, tried the window, and couldn’t budge it.
I went to the next window with the same luck. I rounded the corner of the building and began working my way along the north side. The first window had me beaten. The second went up slowly with my push, and didn’t make much noise doing it.
Across the inside of the window frame, from top to bottom, boards were nailed. They looked solid and strong from where I stood.
I cursed them, and remembered hopefully that the window hadn’t made much noise when I raised it. I climbed up on the sill, put a hand against the boards, and tried them gently.
They gave.
I put more weight behind my hand. The boards went away from the left side of the frame, showing me a row of shiny nail points.
I pushed them back farther, looked past them, saw nothing but darkness, heard nothing.
With my gun in my right fist, I stepped over the sill, down into the building. Another step to the left put me out of the window’s gray light.
I switched my gun to my left hand and used my right to push the boards back over the window.
A full minute of breathless listening got me nothing. Holding my gun-arm tight to my side, I began exploring the joint. Nothing but the floor came under my feet as I inch-by-inched them forward. My groping left hand felt nothing until it touched a rough wall. I seemed to have crossed a room that was empty.
I moved along the wall, hunting for a door. Half a dozen of my undersized steps brought me to one. I leaned an ear against it, and heard no sound.
I found the knob, turned it softly, eased the door back.
Something swished.
I did four things all together: let go the knob, jumped, pulled trigger, and had my left arm walloped with something hard and heavy as a tombstone.
The flare of my gun showed me nothing. It never does, though it’s easy to think you’ve seen things. Not knowing what else to do, I fired again, and once more.
An old man’s voice pleaded:
“Don’t do that, partner. You don’t have to do that.”
I said: “Make a light.”
A match spluttered on the floor, kindled, and put flickering yellow light on a battered face. It was an old face of the useless, characterless sort that goes well with park benches. He was sitting on the floor, his stringy legs sprawled far apart. He didn’t seem hurt anywhere. A table-leg lay beside him.
“Get up and make a light,” I ordered, “and keep matches burning until you’ve done it.”