Better try there."
I didn't like that.
I kicked the door hard. I kept on kicking it.
Another voice made itself heard, a purring voice, like a small dynamo behind a wall.
I liked this voice.
It said: "A wise guy, huh?
Open up, Art."
A bolt squealed and half of the door bent inward.
My flash burned briefly on a gaunt face.
Then something that glittered swept down and knocked the flash out on my hand.
A gun had peaked at me.
I dropped low where the flash burned on the wet ground and picked it up.
The surly voice said: "Kill that spot, bo. Folks get hurt that way."
I snapped the flash off and straightened.
Light went on inside the garage, outlined a tall man in coveralls.
He backed away from the open door and kept a gun leveled at me.
"Step inside and shut the door, stranger.
We'll see what we can do."
I stepped inside, and shut the door behind my back. I looked at the gaunt man, but not at the other man who was shadowy over by a workbench, silent.
The breath of the garage was sweet and sinister with the smell of hot pyroxylin paint.
"Ain't you got no sense?" the gaunt man chided me. "A bank job was pulled at Realito this noon."
"Pardon," I said, remembering the people staring at the bank in the rain. "I didn't pull it.
I'm a stranger here."
"Well, there was," he said morosely. "Some say it was a couple of punk kids and they got 'em cornered back here in the hills."
"It's a nice night for hiding," I said. "I suppose they threw tacks out.
I got some of them.
I thought you just needed the business."
"You didn't ever get socked in the kisser, did you?" the gaunt man asked me briefly.
"Not by anybody your weight."
The purring voice from over in the shadows said:
"Cut out the heavy menace, Art.
This guy's in a jam.
You run a garage, don't you?"
"Thanks," I said, and didn't look at him even then.
"Okey, okey," the man in the coveralls grumbled. He tucked his gun through a flap in his clothes and bit a knuckle, staring at me moodily over it.
The smell of the pyroxylin paint was as sickening as ether.
Over in the corner, under a drop light, there was a big new looking sedan with a paint gun lying on its fender.
I looked at the man by the workbench now.
He was short and thick-bodied with strong shoulders. He had a cool face and cool dark eyes.
He wore a belted brown suede raincoat that was heavily spotted with rain. His brown hat was tilted rakishly.
He leaned his back against the workbench and looked me over without haste, without interest, as if he was looking at a slab of cold meat.
Perhaps he thought of people that way.
He moved his dark eyes up and down slowly and then glanced at his fingernails one by one, holding them up against the light and studying them with care, as Hollywood has taught it should be done.
He spoke around a cigarette. "Got two flats, huh? That's tough.
They swept them tacks, I thought."
"I skidded a little on the curve."
"Stranger in town you said?"
"Traveling through.
On the way to L.A.
How far is it?"