Death is too Easy (ePub)

... But He Forgot His Squeamishness When His Partner Was Trapped!



Excerpt



"Calling car Seventeen! Seventeen! Seventeen! Go to Ninth and Harvard! Ninth and Harvard! Burglary! See the woman! See the woman! That is all!"



The voice came droning over the radio. John Loess, driving the car, snorted with disgust.



"That's us," he said. "Probably a cat got into the window box and made a noise, and the woman's out on the sidewalk in her nighty waiting for the coppers to hold her hand for her until she gets over being scared."



"It's a yell for help, Jack," said Martin Truce, his co-prowler. "It's our job to answer 'em. And maybe there is a robber, and you can kill somebody!"



Thus Martin Truce effectually shut the mouth of complaining John Loess, who had just made headlines in all California newspapers by killing his third criminal in a gunfight. They were beginning to say that he was a modern Wyatt Earp, a streamlined Wild Bill Hickok, and he was rather liking it-or so Martin Truce thought.



John Loess snorted and gave the car the gun. It jumped under them both. Loess was a perfect driver, could handle any car, even in the Los Angeles traffic, probably the world's toughest. That traffic, according to Los Angeles coppers, would whiten the hair of the best New York drivers with its speed.



John Loess knew every shortcut, every rule of the road. What he didn't know he could guess at. He never grazed anybody's fenders, never hit a pedestrian, but he scared plenty, and he came entirely too close to many cars for the comfort of their drivers.