“Anybody down there?” he asked.
“Naw, sir,” the Negro said. “They come up a while ago and went outside.”
“Sure?”
“Yes, sir, I'm sure.”
“Okey. Beat it.”
The Negro went out and left him alone in the kitchen. Bender looked around. In the corner was a basin of waste paper and trash. Bender grinned and went over and stood beside it. He put his gun in his pocket and lighted a cigarette.
He flipped the match in the trash box and came back to the lobby.
The taxi driver, charged with a sudden responsibility, was proving himself trustworthy. He had Pack Patton covered but there were a lot of people on the ground at the foot of the steps looking on with great curiosity. The man Bender had shot was stretched out on the floor on his face and there was another man slumped in the corner with blood pouring from his head.
“Get downstairs,” Bender told Patton. He said to the taxi driver: “Take him to the car and if he tries any monkey business let him have it.”
“Sure,” the driver said.