Riggs is Here | Page 4

thousand bucks' worth of furs. You better get
over here. Yeah. sure, tell Carey."
Tommy asked, remembering that Jeff Carey had talked with the
watchman the day before: "Does International Agency cover for the
insurance company on this warehouse?"
"Yeah!" Barnelley told him.

Tommy watched them lift the tires one by one off the stack, watched
Pop Dillon's body uncurl and stretch out on the floor. He slipped up
close while one of the detectives inspected the bloody wound in the
side of the old man's neck. The dick said: "Twenty-five caliber I'd
guess. Anyhow the slug's still in there."
Back in the glassed-in office a lab man blew dragon's blood powder
over the dark steel of the door to the vault. With one exception, the
entire door had been wiped clean. That exception was the print of a
hand that the powder brought up on the right side of the door just above
the lock.
While the photographer came in and set up his camera in front of it,
Tommy examined it. The print was of a right hand and was at a
peculiar angle, the fingers pointing toward the left. He figured that
there was only one way that it could have gotten there--by a man
leaning his right hand against the door while he bent over and wiped
off the lower portion of the door with his left. A guy in a hurry to
remove his fingerprints and carelessly planting them there while doing
so.
And then, when the photographer had finished, he spotted something
that brought his eyes wide and a quick exclamation to his lips. He bent
over to examine the print. It was smeared in places, but the thumb and
third finger were outlined sharply. He recognized the thumb print!
It was Carey's! There couldn't be any doubt about it. An egg-shaped
whorl with a tiny scar through the left delta and a ridge count of
eighteen from the right delta.
There was more than just that print, though at first Tommy didn't
recognize its significance. A wooden door, unlocked, at the back of the
warehouse, opened onto an alley. He went out there and, with matches
held low, studied the dust-covered asphalt.
There were oil drippings and tire tracks of a car that had parked by the
door for some time. The tracks had been left by a sharp tread and he
classified them easily: the right rear was B 2/3,9--the left A 6/6,4,6.

Tommy was back inside the warehouse when Carey strode in. The
International Agency dick's face was drawn up tight with anger that
exploded into curses when he looked down at the body of Pop Dillon.
"The lousy rats!" he grated. "The dirty--" He twisted toward Lieutenant
Barnelley. "They got the furs?"
"All of 'en,' the homicide cop said.
"The--" Then Carey spotted Tommy Riggs. He stared at him for a
minute, yelled: "You! What the hell are you doing here?"
"I--"
"Beat it!" Carey snapped. "Damn it, do you always have to be under
my feet? Beat it outta here!"
Tommy left--thoughtfully. He was even more thoughtful when he saw
Carey's car parked at the curb. He examined its rear tires. They
matched exactly the traces in the alley.
Tommy swore softly--
Tommy crouched low as he crept up the driveway, kept his body close
against the four-foot hedge that bordered it. Carey's house was dark and
maybe he wasn't back yet, but Tommy wasn't taking any risks of being
seen. He slipped up quietly to where the drive rounded the corner of the
house to the garage. There he froze!
Somebody was on Carey's front porch. Tommy saw first the red glow
of a cigarette cupped in the man's palm, then the blurry shape of the
man himself. He was standing there on the porch, close against the
white front of the house.
Tommy sank down lower until his body was buried in the shadows of
the hedge, moved on around the corner out of sight of the man. Then he
straightened, vaulted the hedge. He retraced his steps on the other side
until he could see the red tip of the cigarette again.

He waited there, moving only slightly when his muscles cramped. The
guy on the porch snapped his cigarette in a spinning arc to the driveway,
kept his place close to the front door. Then Carey came, the headlights
of his car throwing a white brilliance up the drive. Carey drove the
coupŽ up to the doors of the garage, left it parked outside. Before the
headlights flicked out, Tommy saw that the doors were locked with a
heavy padlock.
The man came down off the porch. He called ahead of him softly:
"Carey!"
The International Agency dick stopped halfway out of his car. "Yeah?
Who is it?"