“Cut it out, captain,” he said.
Captain Henessey hid a grin. It was Cates’ first test, and the lad had met it as the captain expected.
“Just as you say,” he answered. “But for a while I’ll assign a man to cover you when you come out after each night’s broadcast. Now run along. I’m busy.”
As Dave Cates walked up the stairs to the top floor barracks where he slept, he considered things. Not a doubt that he was in for trouble if he continued to announce. Even with an officer covering his exits, they’d get him sooner or later. This was not a pleasant prospect—particularly since he had looked into a pair of hazel eyes and had received the soft touch of red lips. Not at all a pleasant prospect to contemplate.
No, he intended both to live and to stay on his job, and the only way to combine the two things was to get the gangsters before they got him. Dave Cates stopped short, rubbing at his bulldog jaw.
He’d considered this idea before, of course—for what young man connected in any way with a police department hasn’t dreamed of putting a stop to the most flagrant lawlessness in his vicinity?—but hitherto he had never considered it seriously. Now, under the menace to his life, the thought was no longer audacious.
Turning the matter over in his mind Cates went to his locker and took from it his shoulder holster and the big police gun. He adjusted the holster under his left arm, cast a casual glance at the sleeping forms of men who were to go on duty with the midnight shift, and went into the shower room.
A long mirror was there. Dave Cates stood before it. From a lounging position he yanked out the gun and leveled it. A dozen times he did this, and then practiced drawing from all sorts of positions, reclining, walking, bending almost double.
“Getting faster at it, anyway,” he told himself.