Dirty Harry 09 - The Killing Connection

by Dane Hartman

  Even with all his first hand information, the reporter could think of very few specific places Steele could go to hide. And since no one knew about SAFE’S controlling interest, the theater seemed ideal. Harry knew Steele’s own Lafayette Park apartment was being staked out. At least the force didn’t know about the theater, so it seemed a likely place to start looking.

  Emerging from his car in the shadow of the small, simple, Indian-built Mission Delores on Sixteenth Street, Callahan wondered what had sent a woman like Lisa Patterson into this neighborhood. She had been a well-respected designer; creating windows for department stores, conceiving interior decorations for some of the city’s wealthiest citizens, as well as doing scenic and costume designs for various professional theater and opera companies.

  As Harry opened the trunk and pulled out a small tire iron, he figured that Steele must pay his crew well or perhaps Patterson just enjoyed contributing her time to what she saw as a good cause. Maybe she told herself that she was working toward the enlightenment of the masses—that she was striking a blow for the movement which would make their lot easier in the future.

  Slipping the metal inside his jacket across from his shoulder holster, Harry moved down the side street toward the seemingly deserted structure. Large indentations in the front wall which should have been windows were merely inlayed cinder block. What glass was there was thick, square, and opaque.

  The wind whipped around the one-story building, thin, greyish clouds contorting above the roof like wringing hands. The threat of more rain was in the late afternoon air and a pall hung over the autumnal city. The mood was oppressive. Harry couldn’t see if and how Steele fit into the lesbian slaughter. Why would an avowed and devout homosexual—one dedicated to brotherhood and fair play—take a shovel to the face of a female ally?

  The cop shrugged the theorizing away as he neared the side of the building. Nobody else was on the street. Harry wandered alone to the rear of the theater, bringing out the short crowbar as he went.

  The back door was easy. There was only a Master lock in addition to the inadequate door lock holding the obstruction closed. Harry pushed the narrow metal bar between the body and clasp of the lock and pulled down. The securing device snapped open with hardly a complaint. Harry pulled the broken lock from its mooring, Slipped it in his outside jacket pocket and put the crowbar back inside.

  Looking around, he slipped his free hand onto the Magnum. His hand froze when he saw three black children walking down the sidewalk across the street from him. There was a chance the kids wouldn’t notice him. They kept walking down the street.

  Harry’s right hand slid off his .44 and moved down to the loose doorknob. His other hand pulled a credit card which he kept for just such occasions.

  Slipping the plastic sheet between the frame and the knob, he heard the tumblers move back comfortably. The door opened a crack. With a shove, he pushed it open, swung around, and slipped inside.

  He sensed a shadow dropping on him from out of the darkness above. All his senses combined to pinpoint the attacker. He heard the rustle of fabric as the figure fell. He felt the subtle displacement of air. He saw the movement of the dark curtains behind him.

  Harry grit his teeth and swung the crowbar back in a vicious arc. He felt the metal hit its mark.

  The figure flew back into the slightly open door, slamming it shut. The light from outside was cut off, plunging the entry into darkness.

  Harry dug into his pocket for his lighter. The flame illuminated the figure. Harry found himself looking into the blank, featureless face of a stage dummy.

  It had arms and legs and was rudimentarily clothed in a T-shirt and shorts, like the kind the police department used for its rescue tests. Harry stood, expressionless, holding the lighter up to see a pulley unit attached to the door. It was set so that if the partition was open, the dummy would fall, much the same way as a bucket of water would drop on an unsuspecting mark.

  Callahan grinned. Remembering the kids outside and the establishment’s break-in record, he assumed that this little piece of scare theatrics was meant to chase any juvenile delinquent away. Harry had to admit it certainly did the trick. He had just knocked the thing out cold.

  Straightening, Harry extended the wavering flame, trying to break the dark by more than a couple of inches. Everything was still decked in darkness, both from the natural gloom and a wealth of hanging black scrim. He checked the wall around the doorway but couldn’t find a light switch. He moved deeper into the building.

  Callahan proceeded cautiously, sliding his feet forward and keeping the tiny flame low. He didn’t want to blind himself or make his presence apparent by holding the lighter right up to his eyes. He sidled forward until he heard a board creak not ten feet in front of him.

  His thumb went off the lighter immediately and the darkness again became complete. Harry stopped moving and held his breath, giving his hearing full attention. Whatever had made the noise seemed to be doing the same. Harry wanted to pull out his gun, but didn’t want the sound of sliding leather to tip his hand. So he waited.

  The flooring creaked again, this time off to his right. The noise was abruptly cut off, as if the offending foot had jumped instantly off the agitated board. Harry’s eyes narrowed and his own foot moved forward. Rather than lift it up to set it down again, he slid it, keeping as much even weight on both feet as possible.

  For several minutes, Harry continued his slow progress, carefully moving to the left of the last creaking noise. He kept going until a gun was thrust between two hanging scrims directly in front of him.

  His eyes had adjusted enough to see the gleam of the revolver slowly appearing between two scrim edges. It seemed to grow right out of the curtain, rising in front of Harry’s torso like a plant.

  It was a stainless steel .357 Magnum Security Special. It was a special gun, all right, a compact, fairly accurate weapon used mostly by experts. The stock was specially contoured walnut that had finger grips and its five powerful rounds nestled between a fully shrouded two and a half inch barrel and an inertial pin-hammer drop block. It was a serious weapon, good only for serious damage.

  Harry instantly grabbed it by the chamber and snaked his fist through the curtains to grab whoever was behind it. Whoever it was tried to pull the gun away, not counting on Callahan’s vise-like grip. Ducking his other hand, they then tried to pull the trigger. But Harry’s hand kept the chamber from turning. The hammer couldn’t go back if the chamber didn’t position a new round in front of the pin. It was an effective safety as long as one’s fingers didn’t slip.

  Harry pushed himself forward immediately, trying to twist the Security Special out of the hand holding it. The gun holder used Harry’s attack to his advantage, pushing one leg between Harry’s and twisting to the side. It was an old, but effective self-defense move—one that pushed Harry across the gun holder’s hip and knocked him over.

  Half-spinning, half-flipping to the ground, Harry couldn’t maintain his grip on the gun. Knowing he was going to lose it, Harry threw all his weight into the fall, allowing his body to completely flip, landing on the floor halfway through a backward somersault.

  The .357 boomed just above him, the bullet burrowing into the wood between his feet as he stopped in a crouch. Knowing he didn’t have enough time to pull out his .44 before the .357 got off another shot, Harry sprang up from his position. He caught his attacker around the waist just as the Security Special’s trigger was pulled a second time.

  He felt his quarry’s arm over his back as well as the sizzling trajectory of the bullet. The bulk of lead went over him, but tiny slivers of its shrapnel sliced through his jacket and into his lower back, making powder burns on his skin. He ignored the fleeting pain as they both flew into a hanging black curtain, bringing it down with them as they slammed back onto the floor.

  The cloth billowed over them as rope and sections of the top wood frame fell across them both. Harry kept his concentration on his opponent’s gun hand, wrap
ping all his fingers around it as if he were trying to strangle the wrist.

  Harry was on top of the pile with his right leg holding down his opponent’s left arm while his other knee pressed against the throat. The gun holder bucked while Harry slammed the gun hand repeatedly against the floor—the scrim blocking his vision. He kept slamming and kept squeezing until it seemed as if his adversary’s thin wrist would shatter in his hand. Like a flower slowly blooming, the fingers reluctantly opened, the .357 clattering to the floor, amid the cushioning curtain.

  Callahan released the wrist and scooped up the fallen gun. Then, pulling himself back, he prepared to get off his exhausted foe. In order to stand, Harry put his other hand back to get his balance. His palm landed on his adversary’s chest.

  “McConnell,” he said into the darkness.

  He was answered by silence at first, but finally a familiar voice replied with as much relief as irritation. “Well, it’s not the Avon Lady.”

  Harry pulled the black curtain off the vice cop and helped her to her feet. She dusted off the back of her jeans and straightened the dark red and blue plaid shirt she was wearing. They were standing in a small clearing to the side of the hanging scrims. Harry could see a series of ropes tied to a long bar along one wall, a lighting board along another, and the main stage through more scrims to his left.

  “Good guess,” McConnell said tersely, lightly rubbing her hand.

  Harry didn’t have to ask her what she was doing here. She was well versed with Patterson’s lifestyle to guess the GETT Playhouse might have something to do with her death. But he did ask her quietly how she found out about the Steele connection.

  “When you were told to hit the road, I hit the ceiling,” she quipped, with just as much seriousness as humor. “All it took was some judicious grilling of a few lesbian cruisers. They’re acting tough, but it’s obvious they’re scared. Their fear of the Mortician Murderer is greater than their hate of us.”

  Harry nodded. They’d do anything to see the killer caught, even squeal on a fellow homosexual. “Find out anything?”

  “I just got in the front with a lock pick when I heard the back door slam,” she admitted. “All I’ve seen so far is a side hallway and your crotch on my neck.”

  Harry looked to the stage, handed back her .357, and pulled out his own Magnum. “Let’s tear this place apart,” he said. “I’m not leaving here without some sort of clue.”

  “I’m with you, Harry,” she said.

  They both walked out onto the stage, their guns at their sides, when a powerful spotlight pinioned them. Bright white light burst across their features as the huge kleig lamp groaned with released energy. Both were blinded, the illumination seeming to go right through their heads.

  McConnell twisted down to the floor, turning away from the light. All she saw was a white fuzzball, as if she were being held in place by a feather mattress. Harry raised his gun and felt like he was about to shoot the sun.

  He pulled the trigger just as he heard the scream growing from the opposite side of the stage. The Magnum boomed and bucked, followed by the explosion of shattering glass and broken filaments. The theater went dark again.

  Both the girl and cop heard the explosion of the gun from the catacomb of dressing rooms.

  “That’s it, then,” Kim said. “They’ve found us.” She looked up from the chair at the man with the mustache, who no longer had his police uniform on. “Did you bring Michael to the new place?”

  “Sure,” he said, checking the knots that kept her bound firmly to the seat. “He bought the story of Callahan coming after him hook, line, and sinker. But are you sure the others will do as you say?”

  “They’re hardly more than zombies now,” she answered hurriedly. “All they can do anymore is follow orders. Now hurry up and gag me. You’ve got to clear out in case they survive.”

  “In case?” the young man echoed incredulously, picking up the electrical tape. “You pumped those homos so full of PCP they couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn.”

  “Maybe,” she countered. “But they’re also so high they’re suicidal.” Before she could say more, the cop started stuffing her mouth.

  When he finished, he smiled, then started to hit the bound and gagged girl as hard as he could.

  Harry could only fight by instinct when the fuzzy, burnt-out shape of a running man came at him from the wings. As he got closer, it became clearer that he was holding a huge double-edged broadsword above his head.

  Harry thanked Providence for making the idiot scream because that pinpointed him in the dark. Callahan moved back, put his leg out and swung the Magnum down. The scream was enhanced when the attacker tripped on Harry’s leg and then cut off when the gun smashed into the side of his head.

  He vaulted over Harry’s limb, diving in front of the cop’s chest, the sword flying out of his grip. The man awkwardly hit the floor, rolled, and collided with the bottom of the proscenium arch. The sword hit the wood point first, bounced, and spun into the orchestra pit.

  Harry’s head jerked toward it in confusion just as a second spotlight went on from the other side of the balcony. Harry crouched, swung the Magnum up. The second blast of the .44 did to his ears what the lights had done to his eyes. But it wasn’t enough to cover the sound of a flat being lowered from above.

  Dropped was more like it. Harry squinted up, seeing several wood and painted canvas panels weighted with a metal bar falling toward him.

  “Watch out,” he shouted to McConnell, then leaped forward, the steel pole just missing his shoulder. The entire piece of flat scenery collapsed on the stage, Harry standing in front of it, McConnell sitting behind.

  McConnell scrambled backwards, but couldn’t avoid the bar hitting her calf. She shouted in surprise and pain as Harry moved to help her. He was forced back by another flat. And then another and another.

  Looking up, all either could see were the dropping, stage-wide pieces of sets. Harry pulled himself sideways as another fell, grazing his chest. He ran back toward McConnell as a fourth one slammed down just where he had been standing.

  He reached McConnell in time to slap both his hands against the metal bar of the falling fifth, which was heading right for the woman’s head. His strength was enough to knock the steel tube behind McConnell’s head, although he couldn’t keep the ruffling canvas and wood frame from hitting her torso.

  But the flat was thrown off course far enough for him to see that the three ropes which were attached to the top frame were held together by a pulley which led to the offstage section they had fought in earlier. Harry remembered the ropes tied in that open section. The black scrims which kept the audience from seeing backstage did the same for the police.

  Harry immediately started shooting in that direction. The curtains jerked up as the bullets hit them, giving him glimpses of the far wall before they dropped again. He heard a frightened shout and then the flats stopped falling.

  A sandbag flew past Harry’s shoulder. Surprised it was enough to send him down hard to the stage floor. He landed on his side and twisted on his back just in time to see another brown bomb hurtling toward him. He rolled over, feeling the sack sliding across the hairs on the back of his head.

  The force of its weight was enough to shake the stage boards and Harry’s skull as he continued rolling forward. The sandbags were now falling in a more random pattern. He was able to roll to a crouching position just as McConnell started shooting.

  She had seen the men on the metal catwalk high above the stage which stretched from wall to wall. It ended with a circular staircase on either side. There were two bombardiers, each throwing the heavy sacks as fast as they could lift them.

  When the .357 slugs began ricocheting off the cross-hatched metal floor, they kicked the remaining bags off the walk and ran for a different staircase. The man on the left hadn’t gotten one step when McConnell’s fourth shot sailed into his leg. He stumbled, fell sideways, and hit the thin wooden bannister. The wood splintered an
d the terrified man fell forty feet to the hard stage below.

  Harry ran up just as she was aiming at the second man. “Hold it,” he instructed her. “He’s got no place to go.” As they both watched, the man tripped on the first step and fell face first. His nose was all but sliced off by the edge of the metal steps and he continued to smash brutally down the steps until he picked up too much speed to maneuver a corner.

  His broken body spun off the stairwell and somersaulted through the air. He landed on his back.

  The dust from the two falling men hadn’t settled when all the theater lights went on. The entire theater shone with a crystalline brightness. Callahan and McConnell were standing centerstage at the bottom of a low pit. Rising on all sides at the edge of the stage were simple red seats. It was a low capacity theater with seven sections. Between each section was an aisle, with only two aisles ending at the exit. Above the center section was a thick, dark, plate of glass. Harry guessed that was from where the lights were being controlled.

  On either side of the glass pane, at the top of the respective aisles, were the two spotlights with their fronts shattered. Behind the devices were two men, each holding a shotgun pointed at the stage.

  The cops reaction was instinctive. The .357 and .44 came up as one. All four pulled their triggers at once.

  The resulting report echoed like a train crash. Harry and McConnell stood, nothing touching them. Harry’s man jerked back against the wall, the .44 slug having gone into the left side of his chest. The force with which he fell was so great that he pulled the spotlight back with him. The man slid to the ground and the hot, smoking piece of equipment fell on top of him.

  McConnell’s man clutched at his arm, dropping the rifle and stumbling out from cover. He quickly tried to retrieve the weapon as Harry shouted.