“Get your hands up,” Bender rasped.
Patton swore and raised them and Bender reached out and searched him carefully. He took a nickel-plated pistol out of his coat pocket. The door surged with people from the inside who had been attracted by the shot and Bender yelled:
“Get the hell back in there!”
The men in the lobby groaned and the taxi driver came over beside Bender and said: “Where do we go from here?”
“Keep these guys right here,” Bender said, passing over Patton's gun. “I'm going inside.”
He pushed his way in. There were perhaps a dozen persons within the dance space, some of them women. Everybody was excited and several already had made their exits through the rear.
“Everybody beat it!” Bender said. “The joint is pinched!”
“By—!” somebody yelled. “There's a coupla guys out there dying! Why don't you call the ambulance?”
Bender looked coldly in the direction of the voice. “You call it,” he said. “I'm busy.”
He walked across the dance-floor to the steps leading upstairs. This was his element and his powerful figure dominated the foreground. He went up the steps and in the corridor he reached for his gun and walked on. He opened a door and stepped inside a brilliantly lighted room that was equipped with a dozen tables and gambling devices.