"onebullet" - читать интересную книгу автора (Daniels Norman A)

Gallagher hod two killings on his head because-Л

ONE BULlET MAKES MURDER

by NORMAN A. DANIELS

Gallagher, of the headquarters squad, slowly drew back the hammer of his Police Positive until the
mechanism clicked. In the silence of the dismal tenement hallway it sounded like the crack of a whip
and Gallagher looked around, startled by the sound. He kept on climbing the stairway very quietly,
very slowly. On the top floor, in the questionable security of a dirty tenement, was Pop Higgins,
the most wanted racketeer in the country. For two years his face had adorned every police bulletin
board. The reward for his capture bad grown from ten thousand to twenty-five thousand dollars, His
nickname, Pop, didn't pertain to his being a parent. It was merely a contraction for Poppy because
Higgins had been the biggest dealer in the opium extracted from poppy plants that the police had
known in some time.

Gallagher kept on going, every nerve and muscle attuned for instant action. Higgins would shoot.
He had everything to lose by capture and nothing in resisting arrest by murdering an officer. You
can only fry a man once and Higgins knew it!

Gallagher reached the door of the tenement and tried to figure out his next move. To break it down
would be highly dangerous for the panels were thin and not bulletproof. He knelt and tried to peer
through the keyhole, but that was blocked, also. It began to look as though he should have carried
out his first hunch to get a raiding squad armed with riot guns and gas. But Higgins was known to
have shifted around so much that Gallagher bated to take chances on losing his prey by the slightest
delay.

He cocked his head suddenly and listened. Someone was coming up the stairs. Gallagher hastily
backed into the darkest portion of the corridor and waited. The man who appeared was about fifty,
gray-haired and dignified=looking. He carried a letter in one hand aud consulted it before he
stepped up to the door of Higgins' hide-out. He rapped on the panels in a peculiar signal. A
muffled voice asked something.

"It's Pickering?" the visitor said hoarsely. "Want me to read the letter you wrote?"

Chains rattled and a key turned. Gallagher saw a swarthy, thin face peer through the crack of the
door. It was finally swung wide. Pickering entered, but as the door started to close, two hundred
pounds of solid humanity struck the door, hurled Higgins back into the middle of the room and sent
Pickering reeling over into a corner. Gallagher had his gum raised slightly for quick shooting. But
Higgins was licked. He raised both bands.

"So we finally caught up with you," Gallagher said. "Don't move, Higgins, except to turn around
while I frisk you. Pickering, you may be this mug's mouthpiece, but make a phony move and I'll
drill you, too."

Higgins smiled wryly. "It's 0. K., copper. I'm glad you showed up. I wrote Pickering a letter,
see? I told him to come here and take me to the nearest cop. I'm sick of hiding out, being hunted
like a mad dog day and night. I want to give myself up, and you might as well be the guy who
nails me. And it ain't the cops I'm afraid of either. It's those mugs who used to run around for
me like errand boys. They don't want me pinched because I'll make a deal with the D.A. They want