SEARCHLIGHTS ON THE RIVER
by Gary Barton


Ricky Sloane had vowed to break Lewiston Penitentiary just long enough to kill 
Detective Johnny Renn. And now Sloane was out‹-and Johnny was waiting for him!



"Johnny," she said to me, "what's the matter?" She moved across the room, and I could feel 
her body trembling as she pressed close to me, her hand grasping my shoulder. Her voice was 
very tense and frightened. "What is it, Johnny?" she said again; but I wasn't listening to 
her.

	I was standing at the window, searching through the side of the curtains at the dark 
street. The rain was coming down in thick gray sheets against the glow of the street light 
and filling the gutters. I stood there quite a while watching it, and watching the cars 
that went by the house and the many shadows that blended into the night. Then I turned back 
into the living room. I didn't think I'd been followed.

	Norma still stood close to me, but she wasn't saying anything, now. She just stood there, 
her face pale and wan, her wet lips trembling and her eyes wide. She worried a small silk 
handkerchief in her fingers.

	I tossed my trench coat on the floor in the hall and went over and sat down in the big 
chair near the radio. I wiped the wet from my hair and from my neck where the rain had run 
down around my collar. The radio was blaring.

	Then, through the night, came the weird cry of the sirens, low at first, then rising 
shrillingly -- a mournful wail, smothered by the wet night.

	I went back to the window. Far up the river, I could see the searchlights cutting through 
the heavy mist, playing over the water. The sirens kept moaning: Escape! Prison break.

	Norma asked me, "Johnny, is it--" She stopped. But the question was mirrored in her eyes, 
and she was searching my face for the answer.

	"Yes," I told her. "Ricky. It was on the grapevine tonight. It was tagged right."

	She brushed the tears away, and suddenly there was a burning hate in her eyes. She 
squeezed the hand kerchief in her hand till her fingers were white.

	"So that's why you came here, Johnny," she said. "To grab him as soon as he comes to 
the only place he has to come."

	"Maybe I can help Ricky."

	Her laugh was bitter; it frightened me. "Help him? The way you helped him into prison. 
You framed my brother just as everyone else framed him."

	I lighted a cigarette. My hand shook. "There wasn't anything I could do, Norma."

	"And it wasn't enough to see him behind bars: to ruin his life and murder his soul. No
--you had to keep after him, building up the case. turning up more evidence even after they 
had convicted him. Johnny on the spot. Relentless Johnny Renn--!"

	"I'm a detective," I said.

	"You're a ghoul!"

	"Sure," I said. "I spend my spare time in the morgue, taking candid-camera shots of 
corpses. I'm a ghoul!"

	The orchestra on the radio had cut out, and an announcer was saying breathlessly:

	"We interrupt this program to bring you a bulletin. Richard Sloane. convicted slayer of 
Vincent W. Gordon, wealthy political figure, escaped from Lewiston Penitentiary tonight while 
awaiting transfer to the death house--"

	It was tagged right, I thought. I looked over at Norma. She was pacing nervously at the 
other side of the room.

	The announcer was saying:

	"--single guard near the prison kitchen was injured; and his condition, thought not to 
be serious, has not been determined. Sloane escaped in a fast speedboat which he had picked 
up near the prison, proving that the break had been engineered by outside help--"

	There was a sound at the side window, the sound of pebbles tossed against the glass. I 
whirled.

	"Don't move, Johnny!" Norma was standing near the bookcase, a black automatic menacingly 
heavy in her small hand. Her lips were very tight, her mouth very red in her white face. 
"I'll kill you, Johnny. So help me, I'll drill you!" She was moving toward the shaded window.

	The pebbles still rattled against the pane. I heard footsteps on the front porch.

	"Get away from that window, Norma!" I shouted.

	I dived sideways, slapping down the light switch as I fell. The room went black, broken 
by the flashes of orange-red from Norma's gun. The air was acrid and heavy, and the explosions 
rolled back and forth like thunder, pounding against my ears. The slugs bit into the wall 
above my head and showered plaster.

	I heard the front door opening softly. There were footsteps in the hall.

	"Norma!" I screamed again. "Get away from that window!"

	The pane smashed inward, the glass shattering over the floor, crashing over the gunfire. 
A gun blasted from outside; flaming tongues biting into the darkness. I rolled on the floor, 
my own gun free from my shoulder holster, now, jumping and vomiting death in my fist. Two 
fast shots at the window, then two more.

	Norma was screaming.

	I held back the trigger of my automatic till the hammer clicked emptily. The gun was hot 
in my hand.

	But my last shot had drawn a terrified cry from outside the window. The gunfire had 
stopped, and there was the sound of someone fighting his way back through the bushes and 
shrubbery.

	Norma's frightened sobs came from over near the bookcase, and the radio was blaring. 
For a long time I stayed where I crouched on the floor, not moving. Then I reached up and 
snapped on the light switch.

	Ricky Sloane was standing in the archway from the hall. His face was sallow and almost 
gray; his eyes were like hot coals in a skull. The brown tweed suit he wore was soaking wet.

	"Don't move, Ricky," I said. I leveled my automatic.

	"Don't kid me, copper." His voice was raw and bitter. "I counted the slugs you sent 
through that window."

	He moved quickly across the room and took the gun from Norma. "My best pal, weren't you, 
Johnny? My sister's sweetheart." He laughed nastily; it wasn't funny. "My best pal in on the 
frame that sent me up on the Rock.

	"Remember what I told you when they took me away, Johnny? I said that, somehow, I was 
going to beat that place just long enough to get you. Well, here I am, copper. And this is 
where you hear slow music."

	His gun came up slowly, and even from where I was I could see his finger turn very red, 
then white.

	I don't know how I kept my voice from shaking. Everything else about me was shaking.

	I said, "It looks as though someone else remembered what you told me, Ricky." I nodded 
toward the broken window, at the charred, round holes in the window shade and the chipped 
plaster on the wall. "Who wants to rub me out besides you, Ricky?"

	Some of the coldness went out of his eyes for the moment, and the gun wavered. Then his 
lips drew tight against his teeth. The gun came up again.

	There wasn't any use talking now. Ricky Sloane was on the kill, and nothing was going to 
stop him. His eyes were like the eyes of a crazy man. I was waiting for the slug when the 
news announcer cut in on the radio.

	"Another bulletin on the Richard Sloane escape. Barney Walters, State's witness in the 
case against Sloane, was found murdered in his apartment, tonight. The gray prison clothes 
which Sloane wore when he escaped Lewiston Penitentiary earlier were also found in a closet 
in Walters' apartment. Police have been ordered to shoot the convict on sight--"

	I looked at Ricky, at the brown tweed suit, dripping wet, hanging loose on him. He must 
have read the thoughts that were in my mind; but whatever he'd intended to do was halted by 
the cry of a police-car siren far up the street.

	Ricky whirled, his black eyes glittering feverishly, hunted.

	"I'll give them something to shoot for," he snarled. He was backing toward the hall, 
the automatic still steady in his fist. Without taking his eyes off me, he scooped my trench 
coat from the floor. "I'll be back, copper," he said. Then he was through the door.


It seemed breathless hours that I stood there, cautious of the insane menace of Ricky's gun. 
But suddenly I was moving. I heard Norma cry, "No, Johnny!" and I shoved her back into a 
chair as she tried to block my way to the hall. I raced into the rain.

	My detective cruiser was pulling away from the curb fast, Ricky Sloane crouched over 
the wheel, as I hit the front walk. I remembered that the keys had been in the pocket of 
my trench coat.

	The police car braked to a stop with the sound of screaming rubber on the wet pavement 
and its siren dying down.

	"Johnny Renn!" one of the patrolmen gasped as I pulled open the door. "Johnny--we got a 
call that you were dead."

	"Then take the corpse for a ride," I snapped. I crowded into the coupe. "Follow that 
cruiser up ahead, Murphy."

	Murphy swung into the street after the sedan, now only twin ruby disks fading into the 
tarnished darkness.

	"Somebody lift your heap, Johnny?" he asked me.

	"Yeah," I told him. "Ricky Sloane."

	"Oh-oh!"

	I felt the cop alongside me squeeze his hand back to his belt holster.

	"Save it," I snapped. "He's my baby!"

	"He won't be able to get out of the city," Murphy said. "The roads are blocked. The water 
front's covered all the way to Maynardville."

	"He's not fool enough to try," I told him.

	"You think maybe Ricky Sloane was framed, Johnny?" Murphy asked me after a while.

	"If he wasn't," I said, "it was the sweetest job of railroading ever pulled in this 
State."

	"He was as guilty as hell!" the cop beside me snarled. "He was in with Mike Lombardi's 
outfit, wasn't he? He was gambling, wasn't he? Like the court said--Gordon found out he was 
takin' bribes from Lombardi and got him kicked off the force. Then Sloane got hot-headed and 
knocked Gordon off--"

	That's the way the Ricky Sloane case went to court. They claimed that Ricky had shot 
Vincent Gordon in his home. and Ricky had admitted that he had been there that night. But 
he'd said that he'd received a phone call from Gordon. It had sounded pretty weak.
	
	But they'd found the murder gun in Ricky's car that same night. It wasn't his service 
pistol; it had been a smaller gun of his own. And that, in itself, had shouted frame to me, 
No guy, especially the cop that Ricky Sloane had been, is going to leave a murder gun around 
as evidence.

	That's why I had hounded the case even after Ricky had been convicted.

	But the harder I'd worked on the investigation, the tighter the case had become against 
him. Every lead I ran down had made him seem more guilty than ever.

	And the bribes--that's one thing I'll never believe. But they'd been Exhibit A in court: 
deposits made to the account of Richard Sloane at different banks; Mike Lombardi admitting: 
"Yes, I paid Sloane one thousand dollars--for services." Barney Walters testifying: "I took 
one thousand dollars to Ricky Sloane one night last August.... No, I don't remember what 
night it was. But I know I took it. He was in Mike Lombardi's bar."

	I remembered it all so vividly: I'd been over it so many times. And now I wasn't so sure 
that it had been a frame. But if it had, I was waiting for someone to slip. They always do.

	Murphy was saying, "Gordon. Hell, Gordon was a heel. And say--didn't Gordon use to go 
around with Norma Sloane?"

	"What d'you mean?"

	"Nothing. Only there was some talk during the trial that Norma Sloane tried to get 
Gordon to have Ricky put back on the force, and I thinking maybe--"

	"I'll do the thinking," I snapped. "You drive." The cruiser was doubling back to the 
city. Ricky Sloane must have realized that he was being tailed. "And don't lose that car," 
I said.


The detective cruiser wheeled into the business section and pulled to the curb. As Murphy 
braked the car to a stop behind it, I saw Ricky Sloane vanish through the canopied entrance-
way of Mike Lombardi's club.

	I piled out of the coupe.

	"Give me ten minutes," I told Murphy. "Then crash the place."

	I made my way through the crowded bar and back through the gambling room to Lombardi's 
office. A little punk with his coat sleeve dangling emptily stepped in front of me.

	"Mike's busy," he said.

	"Maybe you'd like the other wing busted," l told him.

	I pushed into the office.

	The door closed quickly behind me, and I saw Mike Lombardi, his huge bulk filling the 
chair behind his desk. But the gun in his hand looked even bigger. He was breathing hard.

	"Greetings, copper." he said nastily. The gun never wavered.

	I looked around the room. There were two hoods near the door behind me. Ricky Sloane 
wasn't around.

	"Where's Sloane?" I said.

	"How should I know?" Lombardi's eyes were narrowed, and his lips were tight around the 
cigar in his mouth. "Maybe he's been lucky enough to dodge the cops. Maybe he's lying some 
place with a bullet in his belly." He nodded toward the small radio. "We're waiting for the 
returns from outlying precincts."

	And suddenly I realized that I hadn't tailed Ricky Sloane here. I'd tailed Mike Lombardi
--or one of his hoods, These boys were experts at clouting cars. As I thought of it, I had 
been certain that Ricky Sloane pulled away in my cruiser only because he'd been the only 
logical one to lift it. I saw now that when Ricky had raced out of the house, one of these 
punks had already been waiting, then, when I had chased out, pulled away to decoy me.

	The keys to the cruiser? A piece of wire or a silver coin, pressed against the points of 
the ignition switch, will start any motor.

	So I had been led right to the spider's parlor. And I knew from the look on Lombardi's 
face that I was one fly that was going to get his wings clipped!

	"Frisk him, Danny," Mike told one of the hoods.

	Danny came across the room and lifted the automatic from my shoulder holster. I didn't 
care much; it was still empty. But as I pulled away from him, he crossed a right to my face. 
I fell back across the floor, blood running into my mouth.

	I heard the sound at the door as I pushed myself to my feet. I looked up. Ricky Sloane 
was standing in the room, the punk with the broken arm behind him. I saw his gun come up and 
dived.

	A shot crashed over my head as I hit Ricky's legs and scrambled over the floor with him.

	"Lombardi!" I yelled, but the words were drowned out by another crash, seemingly right 
in front of my face! I could see the red flash of the gun and then I couldn't see anything, 
and the skin felt as if it had been seared from my face.

	I tried to fight my way through the room but still I couldn't see anything except those 
orange-red flashes and at first I thought the lights had gone out. There were gunshots like 
rolling thunder, and the biting stench of cordite was in my nostrils. I heard someone 
screaming; then I realized that I was yelling, too, because I'd caught a slug in the leg, 
high, and it was hurting like hell and the blood was hot and sticky.

	There were more shots. I felt a hot gun being pressed into my hand, and I fought to keep 
from pulling the trigger and shooting blindly. Then the fog before my eyes cleared. I could 
see Murphy standing in the doorway, his legs spread wide and his gun smoking. The sweat 
shined on his face in the yellow light, and there was a red smear on the shoulder of his 
uniform.

	The other patrolman was beside Murphy, and Ricky Sloane was leaning against the wall at 
the other side of the room. Mike Lombardi lay sprawled across his desk, and a red pool was 
growing dark on the green blotter beneath him. The others stood against the far wall, their 
hands high, and the little hood with the broken wing was whimpering and holding his 
shattered kneecap.

	Then everything was quiet.


Later, I said to Ricky, "Don't worry, kid; that little punk with the broken arm talked his 
head off. He was the guy I winged through the window at Norma's house. On a hunch, I told 
him that his gun would check with the bullet that killed Barney Walters, and he got the 
idea he could sing himself out of the hot seat by blaming it all on Mike Lombardi."

	Ricky looked puzzled. "Then Norma wasn't in on my escape tonight, Johnny?"

	"No, I thought you believed she was. I was pretty sure that whoever had engineered your 
escape had led you to believe that your sister was behind it. You were caught off base 
because you still weren't sure that she herself hadn't killed Gordon, were you?,'

	"I didn't think she was, but--Well, no. I wasn't sure. Norma was at Gordon's house on 
the night of the murder. She was already there when I got there, in fact, and was caught in 
the frame that had been set for me. And Mike Lombardi held that over me, so I had to take 
my chances on the rap or else drag Norma into it."

	"The little guy said something about that," I said. "He told us that Vincent Gordon had 
been covering Lombardi's rackets and that he and Mike had framed you and had you kicked 
off the force when you found out about it. Then Lombardi took advantage of the case that had 
already been built and knocked off Gordon, framing you. I guess Gordon had been chipping too 
much off Mike's take."

	I lighted a cigarette and handed one to Ricky.
	
	"How come you were waiting for me at Norma's tonight, Johnny?" he asked me.

	"I've been trying to break this case ever since you were sent to Lewiston," I said. "I 
had a lead on Mike Lombardi, but not enough to prove he'd framed you. But there were enough 
little things to scare him. When I heard this afternoon that you were going to escape, I 
tagged it as another frame. Someone wanted me out of the way--and also Barney Walters' 
because I'd been able to break him down and make him confess that he'd perjured his testimony 
in court. So I had a pretty good idea what was going to happen: free you, frame you for the 
murders of Walters and myself, then knock you off as an escaped convict. The case would be 
closed after that."

	"Those prison clothes were planted in that apartment," Ricky said. "This suit had been 
left for me, and I changed in the boat."

	"I figured that." I took a long drag on my cigarette. I said, "I'm anxious to see your 
sister--without a gun in her hand. Let's go, Ricky."

	As we drove back to Norma's, I noticed that there was a hazy blossom of light over 
Lewiston then the lights went out and the river was dark. And I was thinking:

	They all slip sometime. 
	
	
THE END.


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