“You come first,” Reno ordered, “with your mitts on the top of your head. The others come out one at a time, same way, after you. And half a minute apart is close enough. Come on.”
We waited a moment, and then Pete the Finn appeared in the dynamited doorway, his hands holding the top of his bald head. In the glare from the burning next-door house we could see that his face was cut, his clothes almost all torn off.
Stepping over wreckage, the bootlegger came slowly down the steps to the sidewalk.
Reno called him a lousy fish-eater and shot him four times in face and body.
Pete went down. A man behind me laughed.
Reno hurled the remaining bomb through the doorway.
We scrambled into our car. Reno took the wheel. The engine was dead. Bullets had got to it.
Reno worked the horn while the rest of us piled out.
The machine that had stopped at the corner came for us. Waiting for it, I looked up and down the street that was bright with the glow of two burning buildings. There were a few faces at windows, but whoever besides us was in the street had taken to cover. Not far away, firebells sounded.
The other machine slowed up for us to climb aboard. It was already full. We packed it in layers, with the overflow hanging on the running boards.
We bumped over dead Hank O’Marra’s legs and headed for home. We covered one block of the distance with safety if not comfort. After that we had neither.