Novel 1955 - Heller With A Gun (v5.0) Read Online Free Page B

he said, “Better get out. This is real trouble. Gun trouble.”

Chapter 3
    N OBODY MOVED. THE man in the doorway looked down the table at Mabry, then advanced a step into the room. When he stopped his right side was toward them.
    His features were lean and vulpine. Mabry could see that the fellow was primed for a killing, and he was the man he had seen watching the game in the outer room.
    â€œYou brought in Pete Griffin?”
    Mabry’s right side was toward the door as he sat on the bench. His coffee cup, freshly filled, was before him. He waited while a slow count of five might have been made, and then he replied, “I brought him in.”
    â€œWhere’s Pete now?”
    The speaker came on another step, his eyes holding on Mabry.
    â€œI said, where’s Pete?”
    â€œHeard you.” Mabry looked around at him. “You want him, go find him.”
    A second man came into the room and moved wide of the first. This man was not hunting trouble. “Bent?”
    Benton ignored him. He had come into the room set for a killing, for a quick flare of anger, then shooting. Yet the attitude of Mabry gave him nothing upon which to hang it.
    Mabry took the cup and cradled it in his hands. Benton tensed; Mabry might throw the hot coffee. He drew back half a step.
    Healy looked from Mabry to Benton, seemingly aware for the first time that the situation was taut with danger. Sweat began to bead his brow, and his lips tightened. There was only one door and Benton stood with his back to it. Janice Ryan sat very still, her attention centered on Mabry.
    â€œBent?”
    Distracted, Benton turned a little. “Shut up!”
    Aware of his mistake, he jerked back, but Mabry seemed oblivious even of his presence. Mabry tasted his coffee. Then, putting down the cup, he fished in his shirt pocket for makings and began to build a smoke.
    â€œBent,” the smaller man persisted, “not now. This ain’t the place.”
    Benton was himself unsure. Mabry’s failure to react to his challenge upset him. He dared not draw and shoot a man in the presence of witnesses when the man made no overt move, and when, as far as he could see, the man was not even wearing a gun.
    Yet he could see no way to let go and get out. He hesitated, then repeated, “I want to know where Griffin is!”
    Mabry struck a match and lit his cigarette.
    Benton’s face flushed. He considered himself a dangerous man and was so considered by others. Yet Mabry did not seem even to take him seriously.
    â€œBy God!” He took an angry step forward. “If you’ve killed Pete—”
    Mabry looked around at him. “Why don’t you get out of here?”
    His tone was bored, slightly tinged with impatience.
    Benton’s resentment burst into fury and his right hand dropped to his gun.
    Yet as his hand dropped, Mabry’s right slapped back and grabbed Benton’s wrist, spinning him forward and off balance. Instantly Mabry swung both feet over the bench and smashed into the man before he could regain his balance.
    Knocked against the wall, his breath smashed from him, Benton tried to turn and draw, but as he turned, Mabry hit him with a wicked right to the chin that completed the turn for him. And as it ended, Mabry swung an underhanded left to the stomach.
    Benton caught the punch in the solar plexus and it jerked his mouth open as he gasped for wind. Mabry hit him with a right, then a left that knocked him against the wall again, and a right that bounced his skull hard off the wall. The gunman slumped to the floor.
    King Mabry turned on the smaller man. “You’ll be Joe Noss. You wanted out of this, so you’re out. But take him with you.”
    And as the white-faced Noss stooped to get hold of Benton, Mabry added, “And both of you stay out of my way.”
    He sat down and picked up his cigarette. He drew deep, and as his eyes met Janice’s he said, “If that’s too