He Walked by Night Page #2

The dragnet gathered in some strange fish,

and many ordinary ones.

All the rest of that night,

the detectives probed...

needled, questioned, quizzed.

Everything was checked:

fingerprints, names, addresses, stories.

Every fish in the net was examined...

most of them thrown back into the sea,

not worth keeping.

Except a few parole violators

and slightly shady characters...

whose stories needed a lot of verifying.

I wasn't prowling no cars.

Just taking a walk.

You know, getting in condition.

You were running

when the radio car picked you up.

Yeah? Maybe that's why

the guys call me Punchy.

He's got a point there.

Two felony convictions. No warrant.

He's on parole.

Book him. Violation of parole.

Let's have the next one, Joe.

What were you doing in that vacant lot?

The vacant lot. Lot.

What were you doing in it

at that time of night?

- You say your name is Ralph Henderson.

- So what?

It's a funny thing, Ralph.

There's a guy in town

who's been wearing your fingerprints.

Only, his name is Pete Hammond.

Okay, so I'm dead.

What's one more confession in my life?

Now you're talking, Hammond. Okay, Andy.

- Hello, Harry. What have we got here?

- Some robbery suspects.

Candidates for San Quentin.

Handsome here is the big shot.

He runs the outfit.

Have a gander at his record.

"Car theft,

escape from reform school, robbery...

"assault with a deadly weapon." Not bad.

Look at the heater we found on him.

German Luger, fully loaded.

Redhead here tried to carve up one

of the arresting officers with this pretty toy.

Nice boys.

By dawn, many minor wrongdoings

had been uncovered...

and a few incipient felonies.

The checking of the suspects had been

thorough, painstaking, and tedious.

But all the work was for nothing.

The man who had shot Officer Rowlins

was not among them.

He remained no more than a description,

a shadow of a man.

Mysterious. Elusive. Deadly.

Hidden away somewhere in the vast city.

As for Rowlins himself, he couldn't help.

He was in a coma at Receiving Hospital.

Mrs. Rowlins waited out

the long, tense hours...

while her husband fought to live.

Many another officer's wife had so waited.

Many another will.

The word came shortly after sunup.

A white male American, 26 or 27...

Brown hair. Regular features.

Pencil mustache.

This was no frightened fugitive.

What went on in his mind?

Why had he set his hand

against his fellow men...

taken the life of another, of a stranger...

of a man who was merely doing his duty?

He must have some plan...

some goal that called for sudden death

to anyone who got in his way.

- Good morning, boys.

- Good morning, Lee.

Hi, Professor.

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