Dick Tracy Read Free

his shoulders. “No hard feelings. Anyway, I appreciate the tipoff, Little Face. And I appreciate you leaving the side door open. I just like to do things my own way.”
    The Kid was by the door, sitting by that door, but he couldn’t reach the knob unless he stood up.
    “Well, fine,” Little Face said to Flattop, gesturing dismissively, about to turn, “but let’s both take our separate powders. You tell Big Boy he can pay me off later—there’s no time, now.”
    “We’ll make time,” Flattop said, and he fired a burst from the tommy gun.
    Little Face hung in the air for a long moment, enormous surprise taking the tiny features; and then fell flat on his little face.
    “Lezgidoutaher,” a voice from the sedan said.
    “Not yet, Mumbles,” Flattop said. “Not yet. Gimme a hand, Itchy—if you can spare one. Get their wallets.”
    There were two men in the black sedan; the driver was the mush-mouthed one, a sulky hood in an amber-colored cashmere topcoat. The other, who now climbed out of the car, scratching his neck impulsively, was a blond, purse-lipped hoodlum with Coke-bottle glasses.
    The Kid’s hand reached up and touched the cold metal knob.
    Like an angel of death in his dark topcoat, Itchy was going from corpse to corpse, removing wallets and other identification, while Flattop surveyed the scene with a demented-cherub expression, and the boy turned the knob.
    He turned the knob and opened the door and let in the sound of thunder.
    It froze the boy for just a fraction of a second.
    Flattop looked sharply over and brought the tommy gun up and fired.
    But the weapon was empty. There was only a tiny, impotent clicking, and the Kid was out the door, in the alley, in the street, running into a damp, darkening night and a damp, dark world that was his, where the likes of Flattop would never find him.
    Flattop pursued the little brat into the alley, but the boy was gone by the time he got out there.
    “Kidsawya,” Mumbles said, slouching behind the wheel of the black sedan.
    “I know he saw me. That’s why I chased him into the alley, you moron!”
    “Dincatchem,” Mumbles said.
    “No kiddin’.”
    “Gidagulukatim?”
    “No, I didn’t get a good look at him!”
    Itchy was already back in the sedan. “Shake a leg, Flattop! For cryin’ out loud! We gotta get goin’!”
    “Ishysishy,” Mumbles said, with a childish grin.
    “So what if Itchy’s itchy,” Flattop said irritably. “We ain’t quite done, yet. Get me that last tommy.”
    Mumbles handed Flattop the final Thompson submachine gun and the flat-headed gunman beamed beatifically, seeming at once maniacal and relaxed, as cordite singed the air, and the tommy gun echoed and rang in the big room.

T he fat lady was singing, but the opera wasn’t nearly over.
    Dick Tracy slumped in his plush, padded seat, unable to resist the urge to doze. A gently reproving look from the slender beauty beside him—one Tess Trueheart—made him straighten temporarily, but a long morning at headquarters, catching up with weeks of paperwork he’d put off, conspired with the boredom of culture with a capital C, to make the plainclothes detective’s eyelids grow heavy.
    Among all these tuxedos and gowns, his severe black suit with red and black tie stood out; but on his salary, Tracy couldn’t really spare the tuxedo rental. The public, and Tess, would have to accept him as he was: a working cop on a budget.
    After all, Tracy was not here to please himself. He was here to make three people happy. First and most important was Tess herself; attending this charity matinee performance of something called Die Schlumpf at the Civic Opera House, amidst assorted faces straight off the society page, was a rare treat for a working girl. How could he deny his sweetheart the thrill of viewing the city s cultural event of the moment?
    These seats, incidentally, had been provided them by another of the persons he wanted to make happy with his presence: Diet Smith.
    Smith