‘Can’t come this way,’ he said, waving a hand at Baird. ‘The other way, please.’
Baird looked at him, without pausing. The Wop stepped back hurriedly, his mouth falling open. He stood stiffly still, watching Baird as he opened the door and peered into the dark alley beyond.
Baird didn’t like the look of the al ey. It had only one exit, and that into the main street. At the other end of the alley was an eight-foot wall; above the wall he could see the outlines of a tall, dark building.
He loosened the .45 in its holster, then stepped into the alley, closing the door quietly behind him. He stood for a moment listening to the roar of the traffic on the main street, then he walked quietly to the wall, reached up, hooked his fingers to the top row of bricks and pulled himself up. He hung for a moment looking down at a dark, deserted courtyard. Then he swung himself over the wall and dropped.
Across the courtyard he spotted the swing-up end of an iron fire escape. He decided it would be safer to go up the escape and over the roofs rather than risk the main street.
He just managed to touch the swing-up on the escape and hook his fingers in it. The escape came down slowly, creaking a little, and bumped gently to the ground.
He went up it, swiftly and silently, pausing at each platform to make certain no one was concealed behind the darkened window, overlooking the platform. He finally reached the roof without seeing anyone or hearing any sounds below. He crossed the roof, bending low to avoid being seen against the night sky, dropped on to a lower roof, climbed down a steel ladder to a garage roof, and from there, he scrambled down to a dark street that ran parallel with the main street.
He paused in a doorway to look right and left. He saw nothing to raise his suspicions, and walking quickly, he crossed the street and dodged down an alley that brought him to within a hundred yards of the walk-up apartment house where he had a couple of rooms.
He paused again at the end of the alley. Keeping in the shadows, he looked over at the apartment house. There were a few personal things in the apartment he wanted: a book of photographs, a suitcase of clothes, another gun. He was prepared to take the risk of returning to his rooms for the photographs alone. To anyone else the photographs were valueless; snaps he had taken when he was a kid of his home, his mother, his brother, his sister and his dog. They were the only links in a past long blotted out.
His mother had been killed by a police bullet in a battle between G-men and his father. His sister was walking the streets in Chicago, and at this moment was probably inveigling some drunk into her apartment. His brother was serving a twelve-year stretch at Fort Leavenworth for robbery with violence.