That was as far as he got.
When the rear door had opened, Malone had had a full second to prepare himself, which was plenty of time. The message from his precognitive powers had come along just in time.
The second gunman thrust his gun into the cab. He seemed almost to be handing it to Malone politely, and this effect was spoiled only by Malone's twist of the gunman's wrist, which must have felt as if he'd put his hand into a loop tied to the axle of a high-speed centrifuge. The gunman let go of the gun and Malone, spurning it, let it drop.
He didn't need it. His other hand had gone into his coat and come out again with the .44 Magnum.
The thug at the front of the car had barely realized what was happening by the time it was all over. Automatic reflexes turned him away from the driver and toward the source of danger, his gun pointing toward Malone. But the reflexes gave out as he found himself staring down a rifled steel tube which, though hardly more than seven-sixteenths of an inch in diameter, must have looked as though a high-speed locomotive might come roaring out of it at any second.
Malone hardly needed to bark: "Drop it!" The revolver hit the seat next to the cabbie.
"Driver," Malone said in a conversational voice, "can you handle a gun?"
"Why, it is better than even that I still can," the cabbie said. "I am in the business myself many years ago, before I see the error of my ways and buy a taxi with the profits I make. It is a high-pay business," he went on, "but very insecure."
The cabbie scooped up the weapon by his side, flipped out the cylinder expertly to check the cartridges, flipped it back in and centered the muzzle on the gunman who'd dropped the revolver.
"It is more than thirty years since I use one of these," he said gently, "but I do not forget how to pull the trigger, and at this range I can hardly miss."