down inside the door made a mirror of the glass. In it I saw two men moving up the other side of the street.
No sound came from inside. I knocked louder, then slid my hand down to rattle the knob.
Advice came from indoors:
"Get away from there while you're able."
It was a muffled voice, but probably not Thaler's because it wasn't a whisper.
"I want to talk to Thaler," I said.
"Go talk to the fat----that sent you!"
"I'm not talking for Noonan. Is Thaler where he can hear me?"
A pause. Then the muffled voice "Yes."
"Listen, Thaler: I'm the Continental op who tipped Dinah Brand off that the chief was framing you. I want five minutes' talk with you. I've got nothing to do with Noonan except to queer his game if I can. I'm alone. I'll drop my gun in the street if you say so. Let me in."
I waited. It depended on whether the girl had got to him with the story of my call. I waited what seemed a long time. Then the muffled voice came:
"When we open, come in quick! And no stunts!"
"All set!" I said.
The latch clicked.
I plunged in with the door.
Across the street a dozen guns emptied themselves. Glass shot from door and windows tinkled everywhere.
Somebody tripped me. As I fell I twisted around to face the door. My gun was in my hand before I hit the floor.
Fear gave me three brains and half a dozen eyes. These bird couldn't help thinking I was taking part in a trick of Noonan's.
Across the street the burly Nick had stepped out of a doorway to pump lead at us with both hands.
I steadied my gun-hand wrist on the floor. The detective's burly body showed over the front sight. I squeezed.
Nick stopped shooting. He put both hands tight to his belly and piled down on his face.
Hands on my ankles dragged me back. The floor scraped pieces off my chin. The door slammed shut. Some comedian said:
"Uh-huh, people don't like you."
"I wasn't in on that," I said earnestly through the racket.
A husky whisper came through the darkness:
"Dropping Big Nick squares you. Hank, you and Slats keep an eye on things down here. The rest of us might as well go upstairs."
We went back through another room, into a passageway, up a flight of carpeted stairs, and into a large room that held a green-topped table banked for crap-shooting. This room was lighted, and had no windows.
There were five of us. Thaler sat down and lighted a cigarette—a small, dark young man with a face that was pretty in a chorus-man way until you took another look at the thin, hard mouth. An angular blond kid of hardly more than twenty, in tweeds, sprawled on his back on a couch and blew cigarette smoke at the ceiling. Another boy, just as blond and just as young, but not so angular, was busy straightening his tie, smoothing down his yellow hair. A thin-faced man of thirty, with little or no chin under a wide, loose mouth, wandered up and down the room humming Rosy Cheeks and looking bored.
The gunfire had stopped.
"How long is Noonan going to keep this up?" Thaler asked. His voice was a hoarse whisper, but there was no great amount of emotion in it—just a little annoyance.
"He's after you this trip," I gave my opinion. "He means to see it through." Thaler smiled a thin, contemptuous smile.
"Maybe he thinks so now, but the longer he thinks it over the smaller his chance of hanging a one-legged rap like that on me will look."
