“Thanks, Mrs. Rider. That canned stuff sure is heavy.”
The woman said something and the kid went back to the supermarket. Mrs. Rider stood there for a minute, frowning and listening to the sirens, then she closed the trunk lid that the punk had forgotten and went around to the driver's side of the car. I stepped out of the doorway and walked over to the Ford.
“There's been no accident, Mrs. Rider,” I said.
Startled, she snapped her head around and stared at me. “I beg your pardon?”
“I said there's been no accident. Those police cars you hear, they're looking for me, Mrs. Rider.” I didn't have a gun to freeze her into silence, and I didn't want her to start screaming... not until I was close enough to choke it off, at least. So I spoke gently, quietly, hoping that she would understand her position and be sensible about it.
I opened the door on the driver's side and said, “I don't want to hurt you, Mrs. Rider. That's the last thing in the world I want....” But it was no use. I could see the scream coming up in her throat.
I had to act fast. I jumped inside and hit her. I knocked the scream out of her before it ever became a sound. Her head snapped back and she fell against the door on the other side of the car. I grabbed her and stuffed her down to the floorboards.
She was out cold.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
IN THE GLOVE compartment I found an eight inch crescent wrench and a state road map. The wrench I slipped into my right hand pocket, the map I spread out on my lap and studied for four or five minutes trying to decide on the best escape route out of Lake City.
There were several ways to get out of the city, but the best and quickest way was a superhighway leading south of the city. Just outside the city limits there was an elaborate traffic circle that would take you off in about any direction you wanted, and I decided this would be my best bet. My big problem was getting to that traffic circle before the cops set up a roadblock.
I stuffed the road map back into the glove compartment and then pulled Mrs. Rider up onto the seat and slapped her a couple of times to bring her out of it. She wasn't really hurt, although she might have trouble chewing on the left side of her jaw for a few days. She was suffering from shock more than anything. The slapping took care of that.
“... Stop that!”
“That's more like it,” I grinned. I had slipped over on the passenger's side of the car and put her under the wheel, and now I had my hand in my coat pocket, holding the crescent wrench like a gun.
“Mrs. Rider,” I said quietly, “I don't want to be forced to use this gun. Now you're not going to make me use the gun, are you?”
That scared her plenty, and I knew I had her in the palm of my hand. “Please... please put it away!”
“It's just a precaution, Mrs. Rider; a man in my position can't afford to take chances.”
“What... are you going to do!”
“I've got to get out of Lake City, and I've got to do it fast. You're going to help me, Mrs. Rider. You are going to drive just where I tell you to drive, and as long as you do that you won't be hurt.”
“I'm... I'm so nervous... I don't think I can drive.”
“Sure you can, Mrs. Rider. All you have to do is keep thinking about this gun in my pocket. You keep thinking about this gun, and what will happen to you if anything goes wrong, and I'm sure everything will be fine. Now start the car.”
She was nervous, all right, but she started the car. She was thoroughly convinced that I had a gun on her, and would kill her, and she was more than eager to do anything I said.
I directed her west, through the outskirts of Lake City, and then we hit the four lane highway and headed south and I stopped worrying about Mrs. Rider. But I worried about those cops, plenty.
Those cops with their short wave radios, and their teletype machines, and their identification experts. What I needed was a short wave radio, one like Dorris Venci had had in her Lincoln. If I had a radio like that, I'd know if the cops were already busy setting up roadblocks or if they were still fooling around that apartment house trying to flush me out of some hole.
But I didn't have a radio and I didn't know a damn thing. All I could do was hope.
Then I glanced at the Ford's speedometer and it was nosing up toward 60, and I said sharply, “Watch your speed!”
She winced as though I had slapped her again, but she jumped off that accelerator. “Please!” she said, almost sobbing. “You know how nervous I am!”
“And you know how cops are about speed laws. If we get jumped for speeding, Mrs. Rider, I'll be forced to conclude that you did it on purpose and act accordingly. That's something you might think over whenever you see that speedometer indicate more than 45.”
“I just didn't notice!” she whined. “I had no idea of attracting the police!”
“I assure you,” I told her, “that such an idea would be a most dangerous one.”
Several minutes went by. We said nothing. There wasn't a cop in sight, anywhere. After a while I got to thinking, maybe it's going to work! Maybe I got the jump on them enough to make it work!
Then, at that moment when I should have been thinking “cops” and nothing but “cops,” I found myself thinking about Pat.
That's all over now, I thought. Even before it got started, it's over. And I felt a kind of emptiness that I had never known before. By now she probably knew all about me. By now she would know that I had killed Alex Burton, and she was probably hating my guts like she had never hated anything before.
Strangely, that was my only regret at that moment. All around me were the cops, I was just a short jump ahead of violent death and I knew it... what's more, I had just seen my beautiful million dollar blackmail scheme go down the sewer... still, all I could think of was that Pat was hating my guts.
I didn't know if I loved her... or even if I was capable of love; but all the same the emptiness was there, cold and swollen inside me. Then I caught myself toying with a dangerous idea, much more dangerous than the one I had warned Mrs. Rider about. I caught myself thinking: If I could just see her and talk to her maybe I could get it straightened out. After all, she has nothing to go on but Dorris's letter; so it's my word against Dorris's word. And Dorris Venci, I reminded myself, had never given her a Balmain coat, and I had. That should make a difference about whose word she would take, if I knew anything at all about women.
I had seen Pat's eyes, that night when she had stood staring at herself in my mirror, all wrapped up in the fantastic luxury of that coat. I remembered that night and seriously doubted that my past, my prison record, would bother her a great deal.
Then Mrs. Rider made a small surprised sound and the car began to slow down.
I snapped out of it. I slammed the door on my subconscious.
“What are you doing!”
“... Up ahead,” she said shakily, licking her lips nervously. “The traffic...”
I saw it then, and my heart hammered against my ribs about three times and then seemed to stop. About three or four hundred yards down the highway traffic was beginning to pile up... and nobody had to tell me what that meant.
The police had got a jump ahead of me. They had already set up a roadblock!
I could feel my world going to pieces right under my feet. Jesus! I thought, what am I going to do now!
But this time I held panic off with both hands. This is only the beginning, I reminded myself. This is a bad spot, but there are going to be plenty of bad spots before you get out of this mess, so you might as well learn to take them.
I grabbed the steering wheel and pulled with everything I had.
Mrs. Rider screamed. I thought the Ford was coming apart as we hit the raised concrete island that divided the four lane highway, but we got across it somehow. I heard tires screech like ripping canvas as the stream of northbound traffic tried to jam into the outside lane to keep from broadsiding us.
I didn't give a damn about the traffic. I yelled at Mrs. Rider: “Floorboard it!”<
br />
Now I was perfectly cool and she was the nervous wreck. But when I made a move toward my right pocket she made a tight, squealing little sound and jammed the accelerator to the floor.
“Goddamnit,” I yelled, “take the steering wheel!”
Half scared to death, she took the wheel from me and the car heeled dangerously as she fought to get it under control. She finally got it straightened out without once taking her foot from the accelerator.
I looked back and saw that all the traffic far behind us was now crowding over to the outside lane. That meant that the cops had seen us trying to escape the roadblock. They had opened up with the sirens and were getting ready to come after us.
Well, let them come! Now that the action had started I was perfectly calm. I glimpsed the flashing red light on top of the police car, but we had a good jump on them. They weren't nearly close enough to start shooting, and I didn't intend for them to get that close.
“Faster!” I shouted.
“I... I can't go any faster! The car won't go any faster!” Her voice was a high-pitched whine, almost like a siren. This, I thought, will be a day shell never forget! This will be a day she can tell her grandchildren about—if she's smart and stays alive long enough to have any grandchildren.
I studied the road ahead for a moment, watching the city rushing toward us. I looked back at the cops and saw that they were closing some ground, but not enough to catch us for a while. At last I glanced at Mrs. Rider's white face.
“How well do you know this town?”
She worked her mouth but the words simply wouldn't come out.
I said, “I want you to take the next through street to the right, heading right for the heart of town. You understand me?”
She nodded, blinking her eyes rapidly. Goddamn you, I thought, you better not start crying! Not while you're driving this car! About five or six hundred yards up the highway she braked and bent the Ford hard to the right. She damn near rolled it—there was an eerie, floating sensation as both left wheels went up in the air.
However, this was Mrs. Rider's lucky day. This was her day to stay alive, in spite of everything. She took that corner like a champ at the Indianapolis races.
My heart was in my throat. “Goddammit!” I started to yell, “this is no race you're driving!” Then I changed my mind and said nothing. This was her lucky day, let her ride it out.
I looked back and couldn't see the police car—but this was no permanent arrangement and I knew it. We were now in a part of Lake City that I had never seen before, a warehouse district with several big tractor and trailer jobs parked along the shoulders. I said, “Turn left, that next street up ahead.” I wanted to get off this through street before the cops made their turn from the highway. There was no use wondering where we went from there. The best plan in the world was no good now—I'd just have to make it up as I went along.
Still, I knew something had to be done, and fast. You simply don't barrel through a place like Lake City at 60 miles an hour, with a cop car on your tail, without attracting some attention. The way things were now going, it was only a matter of time before the end came, and not much time at that.
Well... there was no time like the present.
“This will do,” I said.
She didn't understand me, or maybe she was concentrating so hard on her driving that she didn't hear.
“Stop the car!” I said. And this time she understood. She shot a panic stricken glance at me and began breaking to a stop.
“Now get out,” I said, reaching in front of her and opening the door. The car had barely come to a stop when I gave her a shove and that was the last I saw of Mrs. Rider. The longer I kept her with me the higher the odds became that sooner or later she would do something crazy and I would have to kill her. I wondered if Mrs. Rider appreciated the favor I'd done her. Probably she was worrying more about the groceries in the luggage compartment—that's the way women's minds seem to work.
I forgot about Mrs. Rider completely. I'd lost the cops for a few minutes, but only for a very few minutes. Already they would have radioed for help and in a very short time this part of Lake City was going to be swarming with police.
Strangely enough, I was perfectly cool now, my mind operating with the clean precision of an electronic calculator. This car, like its owner, had now become more of a liability than an asset—the big problem right now was getting it off my hands. But the cops would find it sure if I just parked it and got out; then they would know that I had to be in the immediate neighborhood.
By now I was about four blocks from where I'd dumped Mrs. Rider, and ahead of me there was a sign:
RED BALL GARAGE
DAY AND NIGHT WRECKER SERVICE WE FIX FLATS.
I turned the Ford into the big open doorway of the garage. When the motor died I could hear the sirens—more than one now. Then I noticed a black bag on the floorboards and picked it up. Inside there was a five dollar bill and some change—not much, but certainly better than nothing. Mrs. Rider, I thought with an almost hysterical gayety, don't think I don't appreciate this! I pocketed the money and felt an insane impulse to giggle.
I got out of the Ford and walked over to where a big man in grease stained coveralls had his head under the hood of a new De Soto.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I SAID, “HOW long will it take to get a valve and ring job on this Ford?”
The mechanic took his head out of the De Soto. “Maybe tomorrow I can get started. Maybe this afternoon.”
“No hurry, no hurry at all,” I said pleasantly. “What I want is a good job. I don't care how long it takes.”
He shrugged. “All right, tomorrow.” Then he screwed up his face, thoughtfully, listening. “Sounds like a fire out there,” he said, finally getting around to hearing the sirens.
I preferred to ignore the sirens for the present. “It will be all right to leave the Ford here in the garage, won't it?”
“Sure.... Sure,” he said vaguely, still listening.
There were three or four of them now, and from what I could hear, they were moving toward the north, away from the warehouse district, still looking for that Ford.
Well, that suited me fine. I figured it would take a while before they got around to checking the garages, and by that time I hoped to be far away from this part of town; far away from Lake City. I got the mechanic to make out a ticket on the repairs he thought I wanted on the Ford, valve job, new rings, the works, and then I signed a phony name and got out of there. Yes sir, I thought, it's going to take them a while to trace that Ford.
I walked out to the sidewalk and stood there listening, and the sound of the sirens was just a whisper now, just a hint of a scream in the distance. I felt secure for the moment, but I knew that wasn't going to last. The odds against me were growing fast. The impulse to run, run blindly, was almost irresistible, but I put it down. If I had taken time to think at the beginning I would be in a much better position at this moment: I'd have a gun; I'd have a bankroll; I'd be in a position to help myself.
Well, there was no use crying about it now. I had to figure out a way to get out of here, far away, and I could allow nothing else to occupy my mind until that was settled.
I moved down the sidewalk, cautiously, but not too cautiously, not so cautiously as to attract attention. I kept my eyes open; I regarded everything that crossed my line of vision as a possible instrument of escape. Just stay calm, I kept telling myself, and something will show up, something always shows up to those who wait. Then I saw something and thought, this is it!
What I saw was a railroad track—not the main tracks but a spur line that served the warehouse district—and when I reached the end of the block, I saw the lineup of freight cars and flatcars pulled off on the siding, and a small fleet of big tractor-simi jobs loading, unloading, coming, going. It looked like a busy place, and up ahead there was an old fashioned coal burning switch engine, and that started me thinking.
A switch engine.... It must mean t
hat the line of freight cars was being readied to leave Lake City. That's just what's going to happen, I thought. Those cars are going to be coupled together, that switch engine would move the whole string out to the main track where it would become a part of the outgoing freight train getting ready to pull out right at this moment.
And that was when I saw the cops. A big job pulled away from the track, and there on the other side of the truck was a black and white sedan, a red warning light on top, a long, waving, short wave antenna at the rear. A squad car, all right. I was old enough to know a squad car when I saw one!
Well, I thought, almost tempted to smile, they are a very efficient crew, these Lake City Police. First roadblocks, now they are searching freight cars, and no doubt they already had men working the bus stations, depots, and even the airfields.
Let them search. Let them get it out of their systems—I was just glad they had decided to do it now instead of a few minutes later, because in a few minutes I intended to be in one of those freight cars. I intended to punch myself a one way ticket to Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Detroit, anywhere. I didn't care where it was, just so the name wasn't Lake City.
What I needed was breathing space, thinking time—and those cops were fixing it up very nicely. It didn't occur to me that their searching the train at this particular time was a very close call; what occurred to me was that my luck must be changing. It must be changing! Surely they wouldn't come back and search that train again, after having done it once....
Yes sir, the cards were beginning to fall!
I waited patiently, watching the activity at the tracks, and after a while I saw the cops, two of them, climb out of a box car and drive away.
As soon as the police car was out of sight I began walking toward the track. Not a detail did I miss, for details were what my future hinged on. Details could mean the difference between living and dying. So I noted carefully that there were eighteen cars, four of them flatcars, two refrigerated cars, and the others were ordinary red-painted box cars.
Never Say No To A Killer Page 13
