The Old Dick

by L. A. Morse

  Tony New’s car moved over and hit mine just in front of the door. I had to fight hard to hold the road. He hit again. My right tires hit gravel.

  “Oh, shit!” O’Bee said.

  I managed to get back on the road. A split second before I was about to slam on my brakes in an attempt to get behind the kid, he got the same idea and beat me to it, eliminating my options. Now I could only go forward.

  And faster. Every time I tried to slow down, either to keep control of the car or to try to get him to go by me, I got hit from behind. He was laying right up against me, forcing me to go faster and faster. I was hunched forward, both hands gripping the wheel, neck muscles straining, knuckles white, trying to get reflexes that were geared to turning pages of paperbacks to respond to hairpin curves.

  I was going fifty, twenty miles over the road’s limit. And being pushed harder. Fifty-five. Sixty. Nearly sixty-five around a curve with a warning sign to slow to twenty.

  “Look out!” O’Bee shouted as a car coming downhill came around the bend.

  I went up on the narrow shoulder, and the only thing that kept me from going over a two-hundred-foot drop was that my rear fender smashed another warning sign and I was bounced back onto the road.

  “Whoo!” O’Bee said, and slapped the dashboard with his hand. I stole a quick glance at him. His lips were drawn back. His eyes were wide, gleaming. But he wasn’t afraid. No, just another speed-crazed adolescent.

  “Any idea where this road’ll come out?” I shouted above the roar of the wind and the whine of my complaining engine.

  My question was answered two minutes later, as I careened around a curve. We were at the top of the mountain. And the end of the line.

  A tall, heavy chain-link gate and fence blocked the way. Unspecified but official-looking signs were posted, warning everyone off. There was no indication who or what was behind the fence. The vagueness of it all made me pretty sure it was a missile site, one rib of the nuclear umbrella, buried deep in the mountain and not even disrupting the ecology or the view. Yeah, a vestige of unspoiled, unchanged Old California up here.

  I considered ramming the fence, trying to break through to get help from whoever was inside, but it looked far too sturdy.

  “Hold on!” I shouted.

  The near-miss with that other car had slightly slowed down the kid and given me about fifteen seconds of breathing space. I was going to use it to turn around and pass the kid going down. I didn’t have the time or the room to do it safely, so I kept my foot down and tried to swing as wide as I could. Too fast. I left the paved road and drifted up a hill that sipped from the right. I slammed on the brakes and twisted hard to the left. The car flew, bounced, down the hill, nearly crashed into the fence, sailed across the road, bounced on the pavement, came to rest on the opposite shoulder, pointing in the direction I wanted to go.

  And stalled.

  Goddamn son of a bitch!

  I turned off the ignition, pumped the gas pedal, and turned it on again.

  Unnhh, unnhh, unnhh.

  After twenty years, I knew my car well enough to know that that sound meant I was going nowhere. It’d probably start in a couple of minutes, but not just then.

  And I didn’t have the time. Tony New’s car hurtled around the bend.

  “Don’t argue,” I said, turning to O’Bee. “We split up. He’s going to come after me. When you’ve got enough room, get back to the car. Try to get it started, and go for help. I’ll try to keep away from him until you get somebody up here.” He looked at me. “Go!”

  We opened our doors at the same time. I was almost out, when I reached back, opened the glove compartment, and took out my gun.

  O’Bee shook his head, then smiled. “Good luck.”

  “Yeah, you, too. Just do what I said.”

  I moved across the road just as the kid’s car squealed, shuddered, to a stop, His door was open even before the car had stopped bouncing. There was a gunshot, followed instantaneously by a scraping, pinging noise in front of me. I was running for all I was worth, but from the kid’s position I must’ve looked like the slow line at a shooting gallery. “Hit the tortoise and win a plastic key-chain.”

  Without pausing or aiming I pulled off a shot in the kid’s direction. Damn! The last time I’d done that, Eisenhower was president. I heard the bullet strike metal. Not bad. At least I could still hit the side of a car at twenty yards.

  I heard Tony New cursing as he dropped out of sight, and I made it across the road, up the hill about ten strides, and dropped behind a boulder. My heart was pounding like a son of a bitch and my legs were shaking. My dark-blue suit was already covered with dust.

  I stuck my head up and saw Tony New moving in a low crouch, at an angle, in front of me. I couldn’t hold the gun steady so I rested it on the rock and fired again. I was way wide, but the kid still went running for cover behind a large rock close to the road. He came up firing, causing chips to fly off of my boulder and sending me down as he reached new cover, ten feet closer to me. He was getting ready to move again, but I beat him to the draw and sent him ducking as I just missed with my shot. It was hard to believe. Right next to a hundred megatons of modern weaponry, and the kid and I were shooting it out with pistols, behind rocks. Hopalong Spanner. Swell. And where was the cavalry now?

  I looked out the far side, but couldn’t see O’Brien. Just as well. Tony New was still way too close to the road. If O’Bee was going to have a chance, I’d have to draw the kid farther off. That meant I’d have to move.

  I fired twice, then took off. I was aiming for another rock, twenty feet higher up. In my mind, it had seemed entirely plausible, just a hop, step, and jump up the hill. I must’ve forgotten I wasn’t thirty anymore, or even fifty. Two-thirds of the way to my next cover it started to feel like I was running through quicksand, sucked down, unable to lift my knees high enough. Then the kid started firing. As though I needed encouragement I gritted my teeth and scrambled, desperately grabbing onto twigs, rocks, anything to pull myself up higher.

  One more big step and I was there. Right leg onto that rock, then push off and I was behind cover. I moved with all my weight, all my strength. Up. Pull. Push. The rock gave way. Momentum pushed my body straight up, then backwards. I cried out in surprise. My hands shot out to the side, the gun flew behind me, and I tumbled back down the hill.

  It must’ve looked like I’d been shot, because I heard O’Bee call my name. Then the kid giggled.

  I rolled head over heels a couple of times, until I came to rest ten feet below, sprawled out on my stomach, facing downhill, my feet higher than my head. I felt stabs of pain where I’d hit the sharp edges of shale or thorny branches, but nothing bad enough to suggest a serious injury. So much for the brittleness of old bones.

  Still, the shock had shaken me badly, immobilized me. My gun lay five feet away from my outstretched hand, but it might have been across a chasm. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t move, make myself move, any closer to it.

  I heard a sound and with difficulty raised my head to see beyond the gun. Tony New was advancing toward me, slowly climbing up the hill. His pop eyes were bulging, the color of slate. A pink tongue darted out, moistened his smiling girlish lips in anticipation of what he would do to me. He wore a dark-blue shirt, white tie, pants, and shoes, and a hideous red, white, and blue plaid jacket, all pretty dusty. The one imbecile thought in my mind was, how could I be killed by someone who looked like that?

  Easily. Very easily.

  He stopped close to me, grinning, giggling under his breath. He hoisted his gun and slowly took aim. From the angle, it looked like he was planning on a leg shot, to start with. He was going to enjoy this, and didn’t want something like my death to prematurely terminate his pleasure.

  His mouth curled into a broader smile; then suddenly he jumped back as a rock sailed over his shoulder and landed in front of him. He whirled and looked down the hill. O’Brien was slowly coming up, struggling, stopping every few feet to ineffectually
lob another stone.

  “O’Bee, no!” I called. “No! Run!”

  But he kept coming, his face red and sweating, pushing, panting, heaving his quivering bulk up the hill. Tony New looked at him, unconcerned, just letting him come on.

  “O’Bee! O’Bee! O’BEE!”

  Then the kid seemed to get bored. “Another fucking old man,” he said; then, calm as anything, fired twice.

  I saw two red flowers blossom in the center of O’Bee’s pajama shirt, expand, then cover his belly. He tried to throw the rock in his hand, but it only went a foot or two, and he sank to the ground.

  “O’Bee!” I cried; then my voice turned to a mindless animal roar of anger and despair.

  Without thinking about doing it, I suddenly found myself on my feet, moving forward, screaming, yelling. With an agility I had thought was long gone, I bent and scooped up my gun without breaking stride.

  The kid turned toward me. For the first time his coolly sinister mask cracked, and there was fear. I didn’t know what I looked like, but I hoped Tony New saw me as the Angel of Death descending on him, because that was how I felt.

  He half-stumbled back a step and fired. My left arm exploded in pain. It felt on fire. Red, yellow, blue flames danced behind my eyeballs. But it made no difference. I pulled the trigger. Through my burning vision, wavering like a heat mirage on the highway, I saw his eyes pop ever wider in surprise; then a red circle opened in his throat and began to gush.

  I tossed my gun away and closed with him. As I hit him, his gun went off again, but I had no idea whether he hit or missed me. He was knocked onto his back and I stayed on top of him, sliding down the hill, riding a giant wave of mindless hatred. When we stopped, I grabbed his pale blond hair with my left hand and began to pound his skull on a rock. I didn’t know, he might have been dead when he hit the ground, but I didn’t care, didn’t think, just kept pounding, beating, his blood pouring over me, until I could lift my arm no more, until I was empty of the madness.

  I staggered off him, stumbled over to where O’Brien lay, dropped beside him. His eyelids were still fluttering.

  “O’Bee, you stupid son of a bitch,” I gasped, sobbed. “Why didn’t you do what I told you?”

  It looked like he tried to smile. “Don’t take any shit, Jake,” he said. Then he died.

  “O’Bee.” My voice was barely audible. I closed his eyelids. My own dropped down. Heavy, dark thunderheads rolled over me, muffling, suffocating, obliterating.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  I woke up and found myself lying between starched, brilliantly white sheets. A muted light next to the bed revealed light-green hospital walls. It was dark outside the window.

  I turned my head and saw two figures at the end of the bed. I blinked and they came into focus. One was Nicholson. Slightly behind him stood Lieutenant O’Brien.

  Nicholson moved over and sat in a chair close to me. The bed was high, so our heads were nearly level.

  “You goddamn foolish, stubborn old coot,” he said.

  “Is this some new kind of treatment? Verbal abuse?” My throat was incredibly raw, and my voice was little more than a croak.

  Nicholson snorted, then shook his head. “In case you’re interested—though the way you act I don’t see how you could be—you’re going to be okay. It was just a flesh wound. In and out. Clean. You’ve got lots of bruises and you’ll be sore for a while, but other than that, you’re fine.” He shook his head again.

  “How’d I get here?”

  “Your little gun battle attracted the attention of the men in the... uh... installation up there, and they investigated.”

  “At least they didn’t think they were under attack and launch a retaliation.”

  Nicholson looked at me, then laughed. “When they got there, they were sure they had three bodies. You were covered in blood. I guess most of it was Novallo’s.”

  “He kind of upset me.”

  Nicholson sighed, stood up. “There’ll be a few questions, you know.”

  “I figured there would be.”

  “But there should be no trouble.” He looked down at me, sighed again. “I suppose I’m glad you’re all right.”

  “Only suppose?”

  “Do me a favor, would you, Spanner? The next time you feel the urge to pull some stunt, do it in another jurisdiction. I got enough problems.”

  “I’ll keep it in mind.”

  “Sure, you will. I might as well talk to the fucking wall.” He put a large hand on my shoulder, smiled. “Take care, old man.”

  After he went out, the lieutenant came over and took his place. He looked a little drawn, gray around the edges, but otherwise calm, in control.

  “I thought I told you to stay out of trouble.” He smiled weakly.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Jake—”

  “It was all my doing.”

  “Jake—”

  “I wanted to keep him out of it.”

  “Jake—”

  “He tried to save my life. Lieutenant, I’m so—”

  “Jake, shut up a minute! Please.” I shut up. “Listen, you don’t have to tell me about my old man. I know what he was like.”

  “That still doesn’t—”

  “Would you wait a second! Jake, he was dying. Cancer. It was inoperable.”

  The news didn’t really surprise me. I’d been reading the signs, and I knew he was pretty bad. I just hadn’t wanted to admit it, actually confront it.

  “Why didn’t he tell me?”

  “You know, that was his way, Jake. He only had a few more months, two-three at the most, and they were going to be bad, very, very bad. It scared him. He didn’t talk much about it, but I knew he was afraid, and it really got to me. It wasn’t the dying that frightened him, but the pain. And the waiting. Just watching, feeling himself going, and being unable to do anything. One last time he wanted to do something, Jake—feel alive, in control, to make a difference. You gave him that chance. And he found a way to go that he could accept—or that was at least more acceptable. This may sound strange, but for his sake, I’m grateful to you.”

  It all made sense. His enthusiasm at being involved, his annoyance when I cut him out. I’d tried to protect him from the one thing he wanted.

  “You get some rest now, lake. We’ll talk about it all later.” The lieutenant stood up. “From what Nicholson tells me, I guess your adventure is at an end.”

  I looked at him but didn’t say anything.

  He looked back, a curious expression on his face. “Not yet, huh?” I kept my gaze steady. The lieutenant broke into a broad grin, then winked, exactly like O’Bee used to. “Good. Give ‘em hell.”

  He was partway through the door when he leaned back in. “You ever need a license-plate run, give me a shout.”

  I smiled at him and nodded. Remarkable. I’d subverted another O’Brien.

  After the lieutenant left I thought a lot about his father. O’Bee hadn’t just tried to save my life; he’d succeeded. Seeing him gunned down so coolly, so terribly, had done something to me that fear for myself had been unable to do. What I couldn’t decide was whether he’d given me a gift or I’d given him one.

  A pretty, young nurse came in and gave me a shot that put me out for another twelve hours.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Next morning I was a lot better, though still a bit ragged. As long as I was careful moving my arm, the gunshot wound hardly hurt, but the bruises were starting to make themselves known. However, aches aside, I had to admit I felt pretty good, almost soaring. It was probably due to the medication, but I felt, if not actually youthful, certainly no longer old. Ultimately, panic, terror, and violence are probably unhealthy. They do, however, tend to break the routine.

  I had just pushed aside the breakfast tray, when the phone rang. It was Barbara Twill.

  “How’d you find me?” I said.

  “You don’t know? Jake Spanner, you’re a hero. You made the morning paper.”

&nb
sp; “Oh, shit.” Publicity was not what I wanted. “What did it say? ‘Old Dick Rubs Out Young Punk’?”

  “Words to that effect.”

  “Swell.”

  “I must say, you sound all right.”

  “Oh, I’m fine. Why?”

  “The report made it sound like you were at death’s door.”

  “Exaggeration. I tried, but they wouldn’t let me in.”

  “That’s good, ‘cause I got something that’ll make you feel even better.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. Got a line on our mutual friend. Located the hired muscle, guy that sapped you. Ex-football player, now a collector for a shark. Does free-lance on the side. Thought the whole thing was so funny, he talked about it. I picked up the chat, got in touch with him. No question that he was hired by our friend, who now calls himself—”

  “Winchester?” I cut in.

  “Right. Pretty good, Jake.”

  “Oh, I’m only slow before the fact. After it, I’m a regular whiz. Did the guy meet with Sal?”

  “Yeah. You won’t believe this.”

  “What?”

  “Met him in front of the museum—the one opposite the Coliseum.”

  “So?”

  “So, our friend Winchester was working there. Selling ice cream from one of those bicycle carts.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Isn’t that something? I can remember when he very nearly ran this town... Think you can get onto him?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll try. Look, Babs, how much did you have to put out for this info?”

  “A couple of bills. Don’t worry about it.”

  “No, I’ll pay you back.”

  “Forget it. I can afford it, and it’s been more than worth it. Sal the Salami pushing popsicles! Hah!” She hung up.

  I lay in bed a few minutes, then swung my legs over the side. I leaned against the bed until I was sure I could make it. I was stiff and sore, all right, but somehow the aches felt good, badges of honorable endeavor.

  I shuffled over to the closet and put on the clothes that the cops had brought for me. The ones I’d worn yesterday were completely ruined. No more funerals for me. No, not even my own: “Sorry, but I don’t have a thing to wear.”