The Saint noted the car parked before the building, a little distance behind his — a dark sedan that hadn’t been there when he’d arrived there that night. He caught a glimpse of hands in the moonlight — hands that carried an odd sparkle — resting on the visible portion of the steering wheel.
Hoppy crouched beside him, his big black automatic clutched in a hairy fist resting on the window-sill, and stared lynx-eyed at the canopied building entrance eighteen floors below. Presently he rasped in an awful tide of anxiety, “Boss, maybe he goes out de back—”
He broke off as a man darted out from under the canopy — a figure reduced to miniature, scurrying towards the parked sedan. Mr Uniatz raised his gun and was aiming carefully when Simon’s hand clamped on his wrist in a grip of iron.
“No!” he ordered. “We’ll only have Fernack back — and next time he won’t be so easy to get rid of.”
“Chees, boss!” Hoppy complained mournfully, staring at the sedan roaring down the street. “I had a bead on him.”
“In the dark? Shooting downward at that distance?” Simon snapped. He turned away, crossing the living-room. “Don’t be a goddam fool. Besides” — he stepped out of the darkness of the living-room into the hallway — “there’s been enough noise for one night.”
Hoppy shuffled after him, muttering indignantly, “Nobody can gimme de business an’ get away wit’ it.”
The Saint looked at him resignedly.
“Don’t blame him! Grabbing that door-knob after I’d wired it was your own damn fault.”
“I wouldn’a done it if it wasn’t for him,” Hoppy insisted sullenly. “Besides, how do I know he can run like dat? All de zombies I ever see in pitchers move slower dan Bilinski. Dis musta bin a new kind, boss. Maybe somebody gives him a hypo.”