“Take it easy, Whitey. It’s okay.” He went on without turning his head, “Doc, I’ll bet you a case of Old Forester that Karl doesn’t live to draw that gun he’s trying to sneak out of his pocket.”
“Eh?” Spangler grunted blankly.
Hoppy’s attention flashed back to the danger on hand, swivelling his gun to the thug’s belly. One of Karl’s hairy paws had already dipped halfway into a coat pocket.
“Reach!” Mr Uniatz rasped.
“Hands empty, please,” Simon smiled pleasantly over his shoulder.
The squat gunman slowly dragged his hand out of his pocket and raised both arms over his head.
Simon stepped over to him and extracted a Colt automatic from his pocket. Then he proceeded to run his hands with expert deftness down Karl’s sides, under his arms, inside his thighs, and along his back. He patted his sleeves, paused, and plucked another gun from inside one of the gunman’s cuffs. It looked like a toy, no larger than a magnified watch charm, but it held a.22-caliber shell in its chamber.
“Forgive me for underestimating you, comrade,” he said. “You’re a walking arsenal, aren’t you?”
He pulled what seemed to be a fountain-pen from Karl’s breast pocket and examined it briefly. He chuckled, pushing Karl so that he stumbled backwards. Simultaneously, Simon exploded a capsule of tear gas from one end of the “fountain-pen” squarely into the gangster’s nose. Karl clutched his face with both hands and reeled halfway across the room, tripping over a chair and crashing to the floor.
“That stuff spreads!” Spangler gasped. “We’ll all get it—”