“If he isn’t in, we wait for him.”
“O.K., Hymie. It will be soft for us then.”
FOUR-GUN SPIRAK slowly crept up the steps that led to the back door of the second-floor apartment. He pulled a skeleton key from his pocket and inserted it in the keyhole of the door.
He stopped to listen. He had made more noise than he had anticipated. Yet he was quickly reassured. There was no sound from within. If Thurman was in the apartment, he was probably unaware of Spirak’s approach.
Then the gangster remembered that he was to effect the earlier entry, prior to the arrival of Hymie Schultz from the front.
He opened the door, and edged in, holding his automatic in readiness. The slight opening of the door revealed a huddled form across the kitchenette — a form that looked like a man.
Without waiting to close the door, Spirak raised his automatic, but he was a second too late. A burst of flame came from the opposite corner.
Four-gun Spirak fell, with three bullets in his body.
Hymie Schultz heard the shots from the front of the apartment, just as he had unlocked the front door. He burst into the place and ran into another man who rose to meet him.
Hymie pulled the trigger of his automatic just as his antagonist seized his wrist, and diverted the shots. The two went down in a heap.