A curtain whipped loose in the rain.
Out of the opening came pale fire-streaks. The bitter voice of a small-caliber pistol. Seven times.
The Whosis Kid’s wet hat floated off his head—a slow balloon-like rising.
There was nothing slow about the Kid’s moving.
Plunging, in a twisting swirl of coat-skirts, he flung into a shop vestibule.
The Cadillac reached the next corner, made a dizzy sliding turn, and was gone up Franklin Street. I pointed the coupe at it.
Passing the vestibule into which the Kid had plunged, I got a one-eyed view of him, on his knees, still trying to get a dark gun untangled from his overcoat. Excited faces were in the doorway behind him. There was no excitement in the street. People are too accustomed to automobile noises nowadays to pay much attention to the racket of anything less than a six-inch gun.
By the time I reached Franklin Street, the Cadillac had gained another block on me. It was spinning to the left, up Eddy Street.
I paralleled it on Turk Street, and saw it again when I reached the two open blocks of Jefferson Square. Its speed was decreasing. Five or six blocks further, and it crossed ahead of me—on Steiner Street—close enough for me to read the license plate. Its pace was moderate now. Confident that they had made a clean getaway, its occupants didn’t want to get in trouble through speeding. I slid into their wake, three blocks behind.
Not having been in sight during the early blocks of the flight, I wasn’t afraid that they would suspect my interest in them now.