“Now, you see that car ahead there that’s stopping. I’ll show you how to take off doors.”

The street side door swung open. The old cab was there before anyone could get out. There was a rending crash and off came the door.

“It’s timing, kid. All timing. Now, you see that guy up the street waving for a fare? Over there on the wrong side for us?”

Mortie zoomed ahead to forty miles an hour, stamped on the brakes, did a hundred-and-eighty-degree turn and skidded sideways to the curb. The hopeful fare started to get in. “Sorry, we’re heading for the barn,” said Mortie.

He found a one-way street. They backed down it at forty miles an hour. “You see, we’re pointed the right direction so it ain’t illegal.

“See that red light? Now we’re going to rush it. If you listen you can hear the switch in the box and you can claim it was yellow.

“Now here is a curb bounce. That’s a nice curb. If you hit it right, you can bounce back into the street and the guy that was about to pass you, thinking you was parking, gets sideswiped! Watch.”

They bounced. There was a rending scream of metal. Headlight glass tinkled to the pavement.

“All right, kid. Now let’s see you do it.”

Heller took the wheel. He started up. He went through the routine. But just as he was about to rush a red light, the sound of a heavy thud shook the cab.

“What was that?” said Mortie. Then he pointed. The side window had a star. “Jesus, that’s a bullet!”

Another thud!

“Get the hell out of here, kid! Somebody is breaking the firearms law!”

Heller was on his way!

He went down 42nd Street, headed west. He was not going very fast.

“Step on it, kid! A cab just came around the corner behind us!”

“You sure?” said Heller.

“Hell, yes! He’s gaining!”

But Heller was loafing.

He was watching in the rearview mirror. Sure enough, there was a cab behind them, gaining!

A bullet hit the rear window!

“Now we can go!” said Heller.

He fled down 42nd Street.

He passed the Sheraton Motor Inn.

I grabbed a New York map to see if he was leaving the country.

The old cab negotiated the approaches to the West Side Elevated Highway. Traffic was light. Below them over the rail, the ground level street was dim. To their left lay the North River and the passenger steamship docks. Yes, on this route he could escape to Connecticut!

Heller checked the rearview mirror. The pursuing cab was still coming.

Below the elevated highway, to their right, the De Witt Clinton Park fled by and was gone.

Heller wasn’t moving fast. The other was close behind!

A sign ahead and a split in the elevated highway: 55th Street!

Suddenly, with a yank of the wheel, Heller sent the cab into a ninety-degree right turn! He stamped on the brakes! The rail was right in front of him! The lower street was fifty feet down!

He was stopped!

The other cab was coming on.

Heller suddenly backed up!

There was room for the other cab to pass in front of his radiator. It started through the hole.

Heller sent his cab ahead!

The bumper hit the other cab’s front wheels.

The other cab was punched over toward the rail!

With a shattering crash, it went through the guard!

It catapulted into space!

Even before it hit the street below, Heller shouted to Mortie, “Take over!”

There was a crash below!

Heller was out. The rail was torn into jagged pickets where the cab had disappeared.

He peered down. There were girders and supports.

He went through the hole in the rail. He swarmed down a girder. He slid down a pillar and hit the lower street.

The other cab had landed on its wheels, shot ahead and struck a stanchion.

Gas was flooding the street!

A traffic light was nearby. Heller looked at the control box.

He raced over to the cab.

The doors were buckled.

He yanked a small jimmy out of his pocket and went to work on the rear door. The metal bent around the jammed lock. He inserted the jimmy higher and pried. He got his fingers in and, with a heave, got the door open.

He glanced at the spreading gasoline and then at the traffic light. Suddenly I knew why. Fumes, rising, would explode when they hit those control box switches! Like a bomb! I know bombs!

Heller had the driver out. Then he reached in and grabbed the man in the back.

Lugging two bodies, he sped over to the curb.

He looked back. He evidently decided he was not far enough. He went another fifty feet.

On the pavement, in the protection of a big concrete abutment, he laid the bodies out.

With a shattering blue crash, the wreck exploded!

The “cabby” was dead. But even though the top of his head was half off, he was obviously a Sicilian.

Heller turned to the other one.

The weird hue of the street light shone down upon the face of Torpedo Fiaccola!

The hit man’s eyelids fluttered. He was still alive!

A squad car chortled in the distance. Nobody could have missed that blast for a mile!

Torpedo opened his eyes. He saw Heller. He recognized him.

Torpedo said, “You ain’t going to kill my mother?”

Heller looked down at him. “I’ll think about it.”

“No!”

Heller reached into Torpedo’s coat and took his wallet. The money was only the five thousand that Heller had given him back. But there was a slip of paper. It said:

Valid with the evidence. Hand package to bearer.

Heller shook the paper at Torpedo. “Hand to who?”

Torpedo said, “You going to kill my mother?”

“I was thinking about it. Give me the name and address for this slip and I might reconsider.”

The hood was blinking hard. Then he said, “Mamie. Apartment 18F. Two thirty-one Binetta Lane. Downtown.”

“And the evidence?” said Heller.

“Look,” moaned Torpedo, “Bury is going to kill me!”

Heller said, “Mothers should be cherished.”

Torpedo shuddered. “Your baseball cap with blood on it and a lock of your hair.”

Heller took off his cap, turned it wrong side out and swabbed it through the mess that had been the driver’s head.

He said, “I hear an ambulance coming. Get yourself patched up in the hospital and then I’d advise you to take up residence at the North Pole.” He bent over him and put the wallet and five thousand back in his pocket. “I keep trying to give you this. Now take it and learn to speak polar-bear. I’m not a mother killer but I sure enjoy exploding torpedoes!”

The squad car had been drifting slowly closer, cautiously. The flames flickering from the wreck made a shifting patchwork on it. The cops got out.

“How come you drug the bodies from the wreck, kid?” said the first cop, threateningly.

“He just missed me,” said Heller. “I wanted to give him some advice.”

“Oh,” said the cop in sudden comprehension. “But I’ll have to give the driver a ticket all the same.” He got out his book and called to his partner. “What would you say the charge was, Pete?”

“Littering,” said the other cop.

“It’s that one that was driving,” said Heller. “He’s dead.”

“Gets the ticket all the same,” said the cop, writing.

The ambulance was whining up, probably called by the cops earlier.

Mortie Massacurovitch had brought the old cab down to the lower level. Heller got in. “Take me to 231 Binetta Lane.”

“That’s Little Italy,” said Mortie. “Wrong time of night. You got a gun?”

“I got another hundred,” said Heller.

They zipped downtown. They went from Eleventh Avenue to Tenth, shifted over on 14th Street, went down Greenwich Avenue, worked their way around Washington Square and were soon in Little Italy. They stopped across the street from the address. It was awfully dark.

Heller took out a knife, cut off a small lock of his own hair and pasted it into the baseball cap with the blood. Then he put the note in it.