The hissed command came from the little hallway just behind the prostrate body of Cliff Marsland. There, from the darkness, Sneaks Rubin was speaking. The pasty-faced gangster had arrived at a crucial moment. Leaving nothing to chance, he had followed his two gunmen to make sure that they did the job.
And by working from the background, he had ended the plans of Cliff Marsland!
Sneaks fired no shot. This was not his job. He had hesitated long before he had followed his hirelings to the door of Bodine’s apartment. He had come only because they had not returned to the alley. He had been close enough to Bodine’s door to hear the gang chief’s last words.
Clipper Tobin picked up his automatic, which lay in the center of the room. Sneaks turned. The police were coming, and Sneaks had reasons for wanting to be outside that building.
He had delivered his blow and his order in less than two seconds. Now he was scurrying down the corridor, the door closed behind him, anxious to be in the fire tower before Arnold Bodine died.
The dull report of Clipper’s automatic reached the ears of Sneaks Rubin just as the shrewd little crook was crawling into the entrance of the fire tower. He grinned gleefully as he thought of Bodine lying dead.
Clipper could not have missed his mark.
But Sneaks Rubin thought wrong.
Clipper had aimed while picking his gun from the floor. Bodine, who chanced to be unarmed, in the security of his hideout, had dropped when the shot was fired. Before Clipper could shoot again a footstool hurtled across the room. It missed Clipper’s head by a close margin.
It struck his gun hand instead. The automatic fell from the gangster’s numbed fingers. As he scrambled for it, Arnold Bodine leaped toward the same objective.