Read Lone Wolf #2: Bay Prowler for Free Online

him up indefinitely;
    they could kill him at their leisure. Right now, so quickly, they had him bottled up like a fly in a jar.
    Wulff walked from the window, looked at the sleeping girl whose sleep, he now knew, was going to be ripped apart. He took out his revolver, pondered some. Sniping at this pair would be ridiculous; sealed in that Cadillac they were invulnerable, they were not going to come out of that Cadillac two at a time. All that sniping would do would be to pinpoint his position to a couple of competent professionals, which he was sure they were. Their employer might even be happy to sacrifice one to draw fire, just to make sure that the other put Wulff away permanently. How that looked to the professionals in the front seat, of course, he did not know.
    If he was ever going to get anywhere in San Francisco, he was going to have to take them frontally.
    That meant going into the street, going into the line of fire, taking whatever they were willing to offer. Riskier that way but cleaner.
All right,
Wulff muttered,
let it be.
He had not come to San Francisco on a pleasure trip. And everything within him called out now for violence. It was better that way; it was like professional football players beating up members of their own team on the sidelines before kickoff just to get the feeling of contact.
    He needed the feeling of contact.
    “All right,” he said to the sleeping girl, “Tamara, you’ve got to get up.” He was gentler than he had thought he would be. The girl moved slowly on the sheets. She fluttered an eyelid, seemed about to move purposefully, then collapsed into sleep again.
    A hand waved idly in front of her face; she seemed to be trying to put him, along with consciousness, away.
    Well, why not leave her that way? Wasn’t that the way that they came off the amphetamine jags? Twelve to twenty-four hours worth of sleep and they were ready to start again, most of the hard edges of the drug cleaned out of their systems. The trick was to be able to come down into sleep in the first place; most of them, when they were as far into the drug as Tamara seemed to be, just went on and on, showing a more highly developed schizoid syndrome until nature finally pulled the plug in the form of a complete collapse, and then there they were, a lot of them poking around mental wards or striding through the streets of the cities with a strange, absent brightness in their mad eyes. But this girl had been able to crash, without the help of any additional drugs (unless she had slipped something into her mouth—Wulff just didn’t know); she had been able to sleep, and when she came out of it she probably would be a good deal better. A healthy young girl this one for all the seeming dissipation: she would be able to take right off again. Yes indeed, Wulff thought, she had a considerable future to look forward to.
    So why not just let her sleep? He was tempted. Whatever happened would happen outside of these rooms, and if he was clever enough, the two hit men outside would not even know from where he had emerged. The girl was probably safe here, as long as she kept under cover. Why not simply go on his way, do what we had to do? If he came back she would see him in good time and if he didn’t she probably wouldn’t even miss him. That was the way they were.
    He couldn’t do it. He admitted this to himself wryly. He was willing to face the fact: he was involved with this girl at least to the degree that he wanted to say goodbye to her, let her know that he was going. He couldn’t just walk out on her with the small but real chance that he would never see her again, and with her unwarned.
    Not half a day into San Francisco and he was more involved than he had been with anyone in months. Not since the day he had seen the girl named Marie Calvante in that furnished room had he been involved with anyone. He had dealings with the rookie cop, Williams, who had been on patrol with him that night and had offered to help