Evil Machines Read Online Free Page B

Emmanuel, the second-in-command, and he started firing at the policemen standing in front of the lodging house. The other two desperate bandits joined in and soon the rest of the policemen came from round the back to join in the shoot-out.
    As soon as the police had gone from the back of the lodging house, Juan Gonzales shinned down a drainpipe and ran as fast as his legs would carry him away from the scene.
    Just as they were beginning to run out of ammunition, Antonio Gabriel Bernardino Martinez, who was known as The Kid, turned to Fernando Salvador, the second-in-command, and said, ‘Just a minute! What kind of “help” can Juan Gonzales be getting us? We’re desperate bandits! Nobody comes to the aid of desperate bandits!’
    Fernando Salvador, the second-in-command, stopped firing for a moment, and turned to stare at Antonio Gabriel Bernardino Martinez.
    ‘You’re right!’ he exclaimed, banging his fist on the table and at the same time accidentally firing his handgun, because he was holding it in his fist. ‘We’ve been tricked!’ He was not the brightest of bandits.
    And so it was, the three remaining members of the Dos Hombres Gang ran to the window at the rear of the lodging house to look for Juan Gonzales, but he was long gone.
    ‘That no-good Juan Gonzales has run away and left us!’ said Fernando Salvador.
    ‘He is a bad man!’ cried Pedro Del Camino, the third of the Dos Hombres Gang, who had not spoken up till then.
    ‘Of course he is a bad man,’ said Antonio Gabriel Bernardino Martinez, the Kid. ‘He is a desperate bandit – the boldest and most desperate bandit in the whole of New Mexico! Of course he is a bad man!’
    At that moment this interesting conversation came to an abrupt end, because ten police officers suddenly burst into the room and the chief said, ‘You’re under arrest!’
    And one of the policemen shot Antonio Gabriel Bernardino Martinez, who was known as the Kid, in the arm because he saw he was about to fire at the chief police officer.
    ‘Thank you, Rolf,’ said the chief police officer. ‘These are desperate and dangerous men!’
    ‘You’re right!’ said the other policeman.
    ***
    And that was the end of the Dos Hombres Gang. Fernando Salvador and Pedro Del Camino were thrown into prison in Albuquerque for twenty years, and Antonio Gabriel Bernardino Martinez, the Kid, was given an extra five years because he had been about to fire at the chief police officer.
    Juan Gonzales, however, managed to get to New York, where he landed a job as a cook on a ship bound for England. He changed his name to Montague Du Cann, and became a department store executive. He had all the money from the bank robbery still strapped to his person, and so was able to buy a share in one of the largest and most prestigious department stores in Swindon. That is how he came to be the head of the particular department store in which the malevolent elevator had been installed.
    And so it was that one day, shortly after his Aunt Leanora had been arrested yet again for shoplifting shoes, he got into the evil lift, pressed the button for the Ground Floor, went down six floors and, when the doors opened, Montague Du Cann stepped out not into the Cosmetics and Food Hall but into a small town in New Mexico!
    ***
    Montague Du Cann found himself standing in Española – the very town where he and his gang had robbed the bank all those years ago.
    ‘There he is!’ yelled an elderly man, who was sitting in a rocking chair on the stoop of a timber shack. ‘I recognize that guy! He was the one that robbed the bank twenty years ago!’
    Now you might think it surprising that Montague Du
    Cann should have been recognized so instantaneously from an event that had happened so long ago. But there is a perfectly good explanation. You see, the elderly gentleman sitting in the rocking chair had been the chief cashier of the bank that Montague Du Cann (then known as Juan Gonzales) and his gang had robbed, and