‘In a brown suit?’ the detective asked. ‘A tall, broad-shouldered guy with a white, hard face?’
‘That’s right. He used the phone over there.’
‘Which way did he go?’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t see him leave.’
There was a sudden sharp silence. Baird knew in a split second the detective would guess he was still in the pay booth. He didn’t hesitate. Reaching up, he took hold of the door handle, turned it gently and flung the door open.
He had a glimpse of a short, stocky man facing him, whose hand was flying to the inside of his coat.
He saw the girl in the white coat, jumping off her stool, her mouth opening, her eyes sick with terror.
The Colt boomed once as the detective got his gun out. The heavy slug smashed a hole in the detective’s face, hurling him violently back against the counter.
Baird shifted the gun to cover the girl as she screamed wildly. The fear of death wiped the pert sophistication, the undisciplined sensuality and the old-young worldliness from her face. She looked suddenly pathetically child-like as she huddled into the corner formed by the wall and the counter with no hope of escape. The rouge on her cheeks and the lipstick on her mouth brought a sharp picture into Baird’s mind of his sister when she was seven, plastering her face with a stolen lipstick, and laughing at his uneasy disapproval.
It was partly because of this sudden, bitter vision of his sister, and partly because he knew this girl mustn’t be allowed to give the police a description of him that he shot her.