Silence

by Thomas Perry

  “What are you going to do if it’s the people who killed Louanda?”

  “Try to get a good look at them. I’d love to catch them, but our main concern right now is to get you to Los Angeles safely.”

  “There’s an exit coming up. Half a mile,” she said.

  “Good.” He watched the speedometer for a few seconds. “That’s right. Same speed. Nothing to give away what you’re going to do.”

  “A quarter mile.”

  He looked back along the line of headlights to pick out the ones he wanted to watch. “Keep it steady.”

  “Here we are.” The exit ramp carried them off down a slight incline. They were moving too fast, and Ann Donnelly had to brake hard at the bottom of the ramp to make the right turn. Till kept his eyes on the road behind them as the car made its second right and bumped up a drive into a parking lot.

  Ann Donnelly could see the lot belonged to a 1950s-style fast-food restaurant that seemed to be called Good Food Good Times, and she swung around the building and into a space behind it.

  Till said, “Wait here,” and then was out of the car and trotting along the side of the building toward the front. He stopped there and looked. There were lots of cars going past, and any of them could have come off the freeway while he was behind the building. None of the drivers seemed to be scanning the parking lots looking for a particular car. Two cars pulled into the strip mall just past the restaurant, and they both parked by the Laundromat. But a woman got out of the first car with a basket of clothes. Another car went by and stopped at the gas station farther down the road.

  Ann sat in the car with the motor running. She lowered the window beside her so she could hear, but there was only the steady, dull sound of cars passing unseen on the street in front of the restaurant, and beyond that the occasional whine of a truck flashing past up on the elevated freeway.

  After a long time, Jack Till came back and leaned on the roof of the car beside her. “If they followed us off the ramp, I didn’t see them.”

  He got into the car, took out his cell phone and dialed a number. The phone rang several times before someone answered. “Jay?” he said. “Yeah. I know it is. I thought I should call now, before you go to sleep. I’ve got her with me.” There was a pause. “Soledad. It’s a couple of hours south of San Francisco. We’re driving in.” He listened for several seconds, then said, “We should be there tonight. I want to take her to your office in the morning. From there it’s an easy drive to the DA’s. Can you be there to let us in about seven A.M.?” He listened. “Thanks. And Jay? Don’t tell anybody we’re coming, even if it’s your favorite cop or your lifelong friend in the DA’s office.” He listened. “I know you’re not stupid, but I had to say it. Thanks.” He put away the phone.

  “Who was that?”

  “Eric’s lawyer. He’s been with me on this. He wanted me to tell you that he’s grateful that you’re coming with me.”

  “How about Eric? Have you talked to him?”

  “I was there when he got out on bail. He was happy to hear that you were alive, but he doesn’t know that I’ve found you. Jay will try to keep it quiet until you’re there.”

  “Will I see him?”

  “I don’t know. If you want to, we can try to arrange something.”

  “Maybe it’s not such a good idea. I’ll think about it.”

  “Ready to let me drive for a while?”

  “Okay.” As she got out and began to walk around to the passenger side of the car, there was the loud growl of an engine near the front of the building. Ann instinctively ducked low and crouched in front of the grille. Till had been getting out of the passenger seat, and he kept going and left the door open for Ann. He stepped to the next parked car and stood sideways with his hand inside his coat.

  The car’s tires squealed as it came into the lot and past them, came to a quick stop and rocked forward on its shock absorbers. The doors swung open and four young girls got out, laughing loudly at something that had been said inside the car. A moment later a second car’s tires squealed as it made the turn into the lot and then stopped beside the first car. This one’s doors opened and three boys got out.

  Jack Till stood close to Ann Donnelly, guided her into the car and slammed the door shut. As he did, he heard another car’s engine come to life on the far side of the building and accelerate onto the street.

  Till got into the driver’s side and pulled the car to the edge of the lot. He noticed a sign on the street, placed so that drivers would see it after they took the exit from Highway 101. It said G15. Under it was King City, 12. He pulled out to the right.

  “Why are you going that way?”

  “If somebody is following us, it’s time to make them show themselves.”

  26

  I CAN’T BELIEVE IT,” Sylvie exclaimed. “She was actually out of the car, standing up where I could see her perfectly, and I couldn’t get a shot at her.”

  “We can’t open up with two carloads of kids standing around watching us do it. We’ve got to have them someplace where there aren’t witnesses.”

  “I know that, Paul.”

  Paul refused even to look at her. His eyes were on the rearview mirror. She sensed that she had made a mistake.

  “There,” he said. “Duck down.”

  She slid on the seat so her head was below the window. Paul leaned to the side over her to stay low. After a few seconds, he sat up, fastened his seat belt, and pulled away from the Laundromat where he had parked, and onto the street. “This is good,” he said. “I thought he’d turn the other way to get back on the freeway.”

  “Well, he’s not. Where’s he going?”

  “He’s taking the back roads. Get ready and maybe there will be a stretch where we can take them before King City.”

  Sylvie pulled her hair back into a ponytail and put a rubber band on it to keep it from blowing around if she opened a window. She took her pistol out of her purse and set it on her lap, then began to prepare herself.

  This stupid job was turning into an endurance test. It made her cranky and made Paul silent and withdrawn. This was all just temporary, an unpleasant few days. Now maybe she could end it. If she could just get a clear shot at that woman, the job would be over. Paul would drive away, find a place where they could ditch this car, and then take her home.

  She leaned close to Paul and stared at the dashboard. “Do you think you can catch them here?”

  “We’ve got twelve minutes, maybe only ten if we’re going to speed up to catch them on this stretch of road. Let’s hope it’s dark and empty ahead.” Paul seemed absorbed in his driving, moving beyond the glow of light from the gas stations and the street lamps, and into the dark countryside. They passed a few houses set at increasing intervals, each one slightly smaller than the last, until they passed a couple that had sides of gray weathered boards and windows that had been broken out years ago. The land in this part of the state had once been divided into small farms, but farms were enormous now, all owned by corporations instead of people.

  Sylvie gazed ahead at the red taillights in the distance, then looked back for headlights. “There doesn’t seem to be anybody behind us.”

  Paul didn’t respond to the hint. He stared ahead at the taillights, but she could detect no increase in his speed.

  She held her gun the way he had taught her, with her finger alongside the trigger guard and her thumb where it could feel the safety. She flicked it off, then on again. “Honey, I’d like to take them on this highway. I’m ready to do it now.”

  “So am I. But I don’t want them to see us coming. I’ve got to stay back while the road is straight and try to catch them on the curves, where they can’t see us.”

  “Come on. If we catch them, then they’ll be dead, and it won’t matter if they saw us.”

  “They’ll speed up.”

  “Then they’ll be more likely to lose control and die.”

  “So will we.”

  “I’m willing to bet my life on
you. I’ve done it before.”

  Paul turned to look at her, and his expression was amused—not exactly fooled by the flattery, but enjoying it. “All right. We’ll give it a try.”

  She could feel the car begin to accelerate, and she pressed her back against the backrest as they built up speed. When the car went over a slight rise in the road, it became almost airborne for a second, rising up on its springs and then sitting down again. When there was a dip, the car skipped over the first part and bounced into the upward incline. Sylvie watched the broken yellow line in the center of the road, the dashes looking shorter and quicker every second, until they looked almost solid.

  Sylvie stared ahead as the other car went into a curve to the left, and she was glad she had coaxed Paul into making a move. The timing was just about the way he had wanted: He could speed toward them unseen on the curve, and come out practically on top of them. “I’m ready,” she said.

  They went into the curve to the left, and Paul held the car to the inside of the lane, his left tires over the dividing line. Sylvie could feel the centrifugal force trying to push the car outward into the black stands of trees to her right. Her seat belt tightened on her and kept her from sliding into the door.

  Paul brought the car well into the curve, but then Sylvie saw light ahead on the trees. “Someone’s coming the other way.”

  She only had time to say it when she saw the headlights coming at them, and then they flashed past, and she heard a long blare of the horn, the Doppler effect taking it higher on the scale as the two speeding cars diverged. “God!” she muttered. The curve seemed to her to become more severe, but then they were out of it again, going straight. The taillights of Till’s rental car were directly ahead, only a couple of hundred feet away. “Beautiful, baby,” she said.

  Paul was still gaining. “All set?”

  “Yes. Just tell me when.”

  “I’ll get him to pull into the right lane to let me pass. As soon as we’re beside their car, fire into Till’s head.”

  “Okay.” She pushed the button on the door’s armrest to lower her window. The wind that came in was incredibly strong, brushing her right cheek and making it hard to keep her eyes open. She kept blinking, then held her left forearm up to divert its direct force. She turned to see how it was affecting Paul.

  His hair was only a couple of inches long, but it was fluttering wildly, as though he were in a hurricane. She could still see his jaw set, see both his hands gripping the wheel, and feel the car accelerating.

  Paul flashed his high-beam headlights at the other car, signaling that he wanted to pass, but Till hugged the left side of the road. “He knows,” Paul said.

  “What?”

  “He knows. He’s not letting me pass. He would let me pass him, like any normal person, if he didn’t know we were trying to get them.”

  “Are you going to back off?”

  “We’re committed. He’s seen this car. We’d have to ditch it, and we’re a long way from home. I’ll try to get closer, but you’ll just have to take the shots you have, and hope he’s hit or makes a mistake.”

  Sylvie held the gun out the window and rested her arm on the door to fire, but at this speed every tiny bump in the road bounced her arm upward. Twice when her arm came down, the door was on the way up to hit her elbow. The jolt almost made her drop the gun. As she tried to sight the pistol, it bobbed and slid over Till’s image, and she couldn’t seem to hold it steady on target. “A little closer,” she said.

  Paul kept the car accelerating, and it seemed to Sylvie that he was testing it, bringing the speed up an increment at a time and then holding it there for a few seconds to see if the wheels wobbled or the engine overheated. Paul moved to the left into the oncoming lane to give Sylvie a better angle. She extended her arm, held the sight on the speeding car ahead of them, and fired. The shot kicked her arm upward, but she fought it back down against the wind and fired again.

  This time the rear window of the car ahead of them turned milky and then blew out of its frame, falling like a curtain of ice onto the trunk and sliding off onto the road. Some of the pieces, glittering in the glare of Paul’s headlights, blew into the air and ticked against the windshield and grille of Paul and Sylvie’s car. Sylvie ducked back inside to avoid being hit.

  “Keep firing.”

  Sylvie leaned out again and aimed, and this time she could see the two headrests clearly. She aimed at the one on the left where Jack Till’s head was, and fired twice, then a rapid volley of four shots. She had no way of knowing how many of her shots had missed Till’s car entirely, but she could see two holes in the trunk, and the safety glass of the windshield had a white impact splash of pulverized glass in the upper-left corner.

  Sylvie released the gun’s empty magazine and dropped it in her purse while Paul pulled back into the right lane. A car, then two more, flashed past in the oncoming lane. Sylvie fished in her purse for the spare magazine.

  Jack Till’s car made an unexpected move to the left as though he were unable to keep it straight. It drifted to the left into the oncoming lane. Paul said, “Look! You must have hit him.”

  Till’s car veered across the left lane, off the pavement at an angle. As it crossed the shoulder, it kicked up gravel and a cloud of dust that made it hard for Sylvie to see. She listened for a crash, then looked for red taillights. When she found them, they were off the road in the field beside it, bouncing up and down wildly in the darkness.

  Paul turned his car and crossed the road to the left shoulder, and Sylvie said, “No, you’re not—” But he was already on the shoulder by then and following Till’s car. As they left the road, Sylvie could hear the steady swish of weeds on the underside and rocker panels. The car hit a rut and bounced, aiming the headlights up into the sky, then down again. She could see that Paul was driving into a field of weeds that had probably belonged to a farm long ago. Everything on both sides was night-black emptiness, but ahead under the headlights she could see the dry yellow-brown weeds, and the swath that Jack Till had marked, pressed down flat where the tires had touched, and only half-down in the middle where the undercarriage had passed and bent them over.

  She said, “I’m not sure I even hit him. Maybe I didn’t. He can still drive.”

  “Keep trying.”

  With difficulty, she braced herself against the car’s bouncing, drew the full magazine from her purse and inserted it into the pistol. She pushed it home with the heel of her hand, and tugged back the slide to cycle the first round into the chamber. She held the gun out the window, gripped her elbow with her left hand to steady it, and fired again.

  This time she was sure her shot had gone high. She tried again, but her correction looked low. It was much harder to aim now than it had been on the road. The two cars were bucking and rocking as they crossed the field, but they were still going at least forty miles an hour. “Get him. Get closer,” she said. “We’ve got to be closer.”

  Paul was wrestling with the steering wheel. When the tires hit uneven ground, he had to wrench the wheel back to correct it, then wrench it the other way. But he didn’t argue with her, and she felt the car speeding up a bit. The next jolt brought her up off her seat, so the seat belt tightened painfully across her chest and shoulders.

  Till’s car reached the end of the flat field and bobbed down an incline, then went up a hill on the far side. Sylvie could see that this was pastureland, where the native short bushes, live oaks and dry grass reasserted themselves. She could see rocky outcroppings in a few places, and then Till’s car climbed a ridge and disappeared over the top.

  Paul coasted to the edge of the field and stopped.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “We can’t drive up there.”

  “He did.”

  “He’s taking us off into the woods where there’s cover, and I can’t see a damned thing. It’s an ambush. He’s going to lie down in the right place, aim his gun, and wait for us to come creeping along at five miles an hour. Besides, if w
e wreck a wheel or something and get stuck out here, we’re finished.”

  She was relieved. She sensed that she would be in a stronger position if she didn’t exactly agree, but only acquiesced. “Okay.” Men didn’t really want consensus. They wanted to be obeyed.

  Paul turned the car in a slow, wide circle until the headlights illuminated the path of flattened weeds he had followed to get here. Sylvie could look up the path to the end of the headlights’ beam where the weeds faded into the dark. Till had led them far from the road.

  “ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?”

  “Yes.”

  Till’s rental car was tilted to one side in a creek bed. The only sound was a trickle of water a few inches wide that ran out from under the car and meandered among the stones into the dark. After a few seconds, Ann Donnelly realized the water was probably from a puncture in the car’s radiator.

  Jack Till switched off the headlights, pushed his door open against gravity until it stayed, and pulled himself up and out. Then he held on to the side of the car and walked around to Ann Donnelly’s door. “Come on. We’ve got to get away from the car.” He opened her door, reached across her and released her seat belt, then held her to keep her from sliding out too quickly. She put her feet down and found her footing.

  They climbed up the far bank of the creek together. In the moonlight Till could see taller vegetation along the creek. He conducted her to a spot about fifty feet downstream where the brush was thick. He said softly, “We’ll wait here for them to catch up.”

  Ann sat down beside the thick bushes. She looked closely at the leaves and realized they were probably young oak trees competing for space and light at the edge of the creek. Even in the dark, she could tell the back of the car was a mess. Besides the blown-out rear window and the holes punched in the trunk, there were dents and scratches along one side and one of the wheels had been knocked askew by the rock Jack had hit when the car went into the creek bed.