“I don’t like it, either,” Sandy agreed. “He probably would have used that gun, but fortunately we didn’t get a chance to find out.”
“If anybody asked him, of course,” Ken said, “he’d undoubtedly say he was just protecting private property from trespassers—and there’s no doubt that’s what we were.”
“Sure,” Sandy said. He was rubbing absent-mindedly at the knee he had landed on when he dove off the barge. “But the way he had that gun ready—” He shook his head. “There must be a bigger danger of trespassers around stone-loaded barges than I thought.”
“Maybe that’s not plain stone—maybe it’s gold ore,” Ken suggested flippantly, but his eyes glued to the back window were still grim. Barrack’s car had followed them skillfully around two more corners.
“Oh, indubitably.” Sandy’s tone matched Ken’s. “Or platinum ore. And now explain why it was Barrack who had the gun, instead of—what did he call him?—Cal. And what Barrack was doing there in the first place.”
Their cab, driving up lower Broadway now—a deserted canyon at that hour of the evening—stopped for a red light. The car behind stopped too.
“I think I’ll get out and give that guy back there a poke in the snoot,” the driver of the cab said. His hand was already on the door handle. “His lights are driving me nuts.”
Ken spoke quickly. “Wait until we get out. We’re in a hurry.”
“Well—O.K.” The driver sighed as he settled back behind his wheel. “Maybe by then I’ll have my temper under control. I know I shouldn’t always be wanting to give a guy a punch in the snoot. It’s just my impulsive nature.”
Ken and Sandy laughed in spite of themselves.