Fast Friends

by Susan Dunlap

  Ellen gave a great nod, as if all the gears had caught at once. She grabbed Liza’s shoulders. “ ‘Bentec went on forever and didn’t say anything.’ Liza, doesn’t that sound like he’s got your phone tapped? And right now he’s running his finger up the map looking for the town of Max?” She sank back against the sink. “Liza, how can this be happening? It can’t be real. This is Sunday morning. Friday morning I got up and my biggest problem was the opera ticket Harry wasn’t going to use. And that it might snow. Now Harry is dead. Your husband has been gunned down. And we have the police after us. How is this possible?”

  Liza took her hands. “I’ve been asking myself the same question. But we’re going to have to figure that out later. Now we’ve got to move. If Bentec really did tap the phone, our only chance is to get out of here quick.” She opened the door and half-guided half-shoved Ellen through the café and around back to the Camaro.

  As she unlocked the door Felton, settled in the driver’s seat, grunted. No way, boy. You had your outing. I know you’d like another, but you’re going to have to wait.” She held him out to Ellen as a comfort but Ellen was staring straight ahead. So she plunked him in the back, got in and drove the car slowly, with exquisite care out of the lot to the street. She checked both directions—“No cops”—and turned left.

  Ellen said nothing and Liza just drove, checking the rearview every minute, eyeing each cross street and when the cross streets ceased and the road became rural again, eyeing each clump of bushes or trees for lurking police cars. She was operating at capacity, driving, trying to make Ellen’s last hour here safe. Trying not to think about what she’d done to Ellen. Trying to hide how panicked she was about what the hell she was going to do when Ellen was gone and she was alone. And there was the more immediate problem of money. She only had what was in her purse when she left Malibu and half of that had gone for gas. It wasn’t as if she could run to the cash machine. If there was fifty in her wallet it was a lot. That was the irony of it all—Jay involved in some deal probably worth millions and her lucky if she could scrape up gas money. She never planned ahead, always counted on her wits at the moment, but this was asking a helluva lot from just wits.

  She glanced over at Ellen. Tears were running down her cheeks, but she was staring straight ahead as if she was too deadened to feel the chill.

  “Oh, God, Ellen. How—I’m so sorry. I feel—”

  “Forget it,” she snapped.

  “No, really—”

  She sighed. “Liza, I don’t blame you. This thing is way beyond blame. All I want is to get out of here. Harry Cooper was the most honest, responsible, law-abiding man on earth. He stopped at yellow lights. The only mistake he made was to love me. And now he’s been shot dead. Nothing you can say will make it better. But fortunately, Liza, now nothing can make it worse either.”

  “Don’t say that out loud.”

  “What?”

  Liza realized she had mumbled her appeasement to the gods. Just as well. “Nothing. You close your eyes. Even if you can’t sleep it will help you get yourself together. I’ll wake you when we get to the airport.”

  “Hmm.”

  Liza leaned forward, arms on the steering wheel. She was checking ahead for side roads, behind for cops, she was juggling the pros and cons of staying on this road and hoping Bentec hadn’t traced her call, or chancing one of the side roads, heading west, hoping it would link up with 101. “Ellen, sorry to wake you. Is there a map in the back? I want to see how far we’d have to go on the freeway. If Bentec’s got cronies watching it, we don’t want to chance it too long.”

  “If they’re watching the freeway here, they’re probably watching the airport.”

  Liza nodded. If Bentec traced her call, then by now he’d called back and interrogated the woman at the counter and found out about the pilot in Eureka. And the pilot, would there be cops on either side of him?

  “No, pig, I’m not reaching for you. Go back to sleep till Liza can deal with you. Okay, I’m looking, but I don’t see any map. Omigod, behind us!”

  Liza turned around. A car was coming fast. She couldn’t make out anything but shape through the dark-tinted back window. She could feel Ellen’s panic radiating, but she was cooler than ever. “No lights and sirens. Look! It must be going a hundred miles an hour.” She floored the gas.

  “What are you doing! We can’t outrun the police, not in a strange car, not on roads they know and we don’t.”

  “Let me—”

  “No! If I’m going to die I’d rather take a bullet than be in a wreck and die in sixteen pieces. Pull off up there.”

  “Hang on. I can do it.” The car had to be going over a hundred. She couldn’t take her eyes off the road to check the speedometer.

  “Are you crazy?”

  “It’s our only chance.”

  “You’ll get us killed. Liza, you owe me! Pay up now. Stop the damned car.”

  “El—”

  “I’m serious, Liza. You keep saying you’re my friend. Do this for me.”

  In the rearview the car was getting smaller. She could outrun it.

  The car jolted. Ellen had shoved her foot off the gas. “What’re you—”

  “I said, I’m serious, Liza. Pull up over there now.”

  The car was almost on top of them. It was too late now. “I hope you remember ‘your friend’ when I’m in jail.” She put on the right turn signal, slowed, keeping her mind on her driving, not letting herself think ahead, counting on her wits. Outside, all she could see was dust.

  Thirty-One

  BENTEC SMILED INTO THE phone as a male voice said, “We’ve got a make, Inspector.”

  “Where is she?” Bentec said.

  “Max. Little town in Humboldt County by Redwood State Park.”

  “Where the hell is that?”

  “Say you’re not a nature lover, Inspector?”

  “Where?”

  “Less than an hour south of Eureka just off one-oh-one. The phone’s at eighteen Redwood Avenue.”

  Bentec hung up. “Damn! God damn, fucking damn…” His voice trailed off and even as disgusted as he was by this turn of fate, he felt foolish swearing all alone. He had to get up there to Eureka, get Liza Silvestri before she talked. But he couldn’t leave Heron untended. That’s the way it always was in police work—you sit in a surveillance car hour after empty hour trying not to drink too much coffee. You do drink and you stay there in the car till you’re like a cow before milking, all the time not a thing is happening. When, finally, you open the car door, all of a sudden suspects are running down a driveway, a car’s doing a hundred and ten in the street, and shots are coming from every house on the block. All or nothing, every cop knew that.

  Bentec called his Homicide liaison, his man in Homicide. “Get on the horn to Humboldt County. Silvestri’s wife and companion are at eighteen Redwood Avenue, Max.”

  “Max?”

  “Yeah, that’s the name of the town. Tell them in Humboldt not to short on manpower and take no chances. These women are armed and wily. I’m not saying sworn officers up there in Humboldt are naive, but I don’t want Liza Silvestri wiggling her way out of this, if you know what I mean. So make it clear to them that they need to keep these two women separate and incommunicado till I get there. Get me on the next flight to Eureka. I can be at the gate by eight.”

  Eight was cutting it close, but that’s the way he liked it. Thank God the waiting was over. Now the whole operation was moving into high gear and he was in the driver’s seat.

  Thirty-Two

  THE OTHER CAR TRAILING them screeched to a halt by their front fender, blocking access to the road. Ellen stared numbly.

  Liza let out a sigh. “It’s not a patrol car!”

  “What is he then, a carjacker? Has God run out of locusts?”

  The driver loped toward them, hitching up his over-large jeans as he moved. His long bleached hair wagged a bit but it was too wetted down to shift much. He wasn’t so much eyeing them as he was
ogling the new Camaro.

  “This kid’s no carjacker. I’ve handled lots worse than him. Sit back, close your eyes, relax. Don’t say anything,” Liza hissed. Before she could reply, Liza opened the door and was outside, running her hand through her long blonde hair like a high-school kid herself, standing hips thrust forward, hand on the car. “Like it, huh?”

  The boy glanced from the hood to her and back. Then he bent and peered into the car. “Where’s Aunt Gwen?” The stud in his lower lip jiggled. In Kansas City he’d be passé, but fashions linger in small towns and he looked like a kid aching to rebel but afraid to do it. He looked, Ellen thought, like one of those unsure high-school boys who flips out and starts shooting. Liza was still grinning. Didn’t Liza see how close to the edge he was?

  “Aunt Gwen?” Liza repeated.

  Oh, shit, Gwen! This kid was Gwen’s nephew. Not just a friend in the chase for the hell of us, but a nephew who’d never hear the end of it if he stopped the car and didn’t find Gwen.

  He’d been saying something. Now his voice rose. “What did you do with Aunt Gwen? You’re not leaving here till you tell me, understand? No, till you take me to her.”

  He was a big kid. Maybe seventeen. A Great Dane of a kid. There was no way they could get past his car or him.

  Liza stepped toward him. Hands on hips she declared, “She’s not here. You know that. You’ve already looked inside.”

  He planted himself between her and the road, almost pinning her against the car. “You take me to her.”

  “I don’t know where she is.”

  “She left with you.”

  “We dropped her off an hour ago.”

  “Then you take me to where you dropped her. I’m not going without her.” His face was taut; his hands in fists.

  So this was how it would end. There would be no plane back to Kansas City. No escape north for Liza. This boy would force them to drive back to the trailer park, but they’d never get that far south because the police would stop them. The kid looked pumped up and desperate. There was no chance of Liza and her overrunning him. Still she couldn’t leave Liza out there alone. She could shove the driver’s door open between the two of them, then be out her door, and…and she’d see. She reached across the seats.

  Liza spotted her and shook her head.

  The boy was repeating that he wasn’t leaving without Gwen. He grabbed Liza’s shoulder and said, “My Uncle Gil told me to bring her back and that’s what I’m doing. I already called him in Max when I spotted this car. I told him I found her. I’m not going back without her.”

  Ellen reached for her own door. She glanced back at Liza just in time to see her swing her hand up onto the boy’s, one buddy to another. “I hear you. You’re not going back and end up having him call you a liar, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re not going to have everyone in the house laughing at you.”

  “Yeah,” he said, and then with a look of surprise, “Yeah.”

  Ellen took her hand off the door. She’d underestimated Liza. Liza did understand this kid. She was mirroring his sullen look, that make-me stance.

  “So you’ve got to have something to show you really stopped Gwen’s car. It’s not your fault she’s not here. You can’t help that, right? You did what they asked you to, you found the car. No one else did that.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So what you need is the car, right? You need to bring this car back to Gil.”

  “Yeah, okay. That makes sense. We drive back and I show him—”

  Liza nodded. Her body jerked; her hands slapped her head. “Rats! We can’t be driving south now. We have to be in Redding tonight. If it were tomorrow…”

  “I can’t wait till tomorrow. They’ll roast me alive tonight. They’re never going to believe me.”

  Ellen almost felt sorry for the kid.

  “Wait! It’s the car you need, not us, right?” Liza’s hands were on his arms. “I’m going out on a limb here. Can I trust you?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “I don’t even know your name.”

  “Trent. Trent Hickock.”

  “Hmm. Well, Trent, I guess I could let you take the car overnight. We could use yours.” Liza cast such a disparaging glance at the old Honda, Ellen expected the kid to hit her. “We’ll drive it to Redding and circle back tomorrow and pick up the Camaro from you.”

  The kid looked skeptical. He eyed the Camaro again and slowly began to grin.

  Ellen’s stomach clutched. Oh, God, what would the rental-car company do? “If he has an accident I’ll be liable.”

  Liza stared at her, her lips quivering on the verge of…of something. Jeez, had she been thinking out loud? About the rental contract? Even the kid looked shocked.

  Liza turned back to him and nodded. “Yeah, I guess it is a bad idea. We have our responsibilities to the rental—”

  “No, wait. Wait. It could work. I’ll be careful.”

  Liza shifted to the side, a small move physically, but in its import huge. Hers was the stance of control now. “How do we know you’ll even be at Gil’s house? This is a hot new car. By tomorrow you could be in Canada.”

  “Uncle Gil would kill me. He expects me back tonight. I told him about this car and all. He’s waiting.”

  Liza crossed her arms, making a show of considering. After a minute, she said, “I’m going to need something from you to show you’re serious about being there tomorrow.”

  “What? All I’ve got is my driver’s license and wallet.”

  Liza gave a big sigh. “Well, cash isn’t really as good as I need, but I guess it’ll have to do. Give me what you have?”

  “All of it?”

  “You can keep five.”

  He pulled out a wad of bills and handed it to her. A small wad, Ellen noted.

  “Okay, Trent, get our stuff out of the trunk. Ellen, get the things from the back.” Liza moved around the Honda, opened the driver’s door and peered in. Then she was back at the Camaro, scooping her pig up, sticking it in the Honda while the boy was opening the trunk. In a minute the whole transaction was done. Liza held out the keys. “Okay, Trent, see you at Gil’s tomorrow night.”

  “Hey, you know where Gil lives? You need me to draw you a map?”

  “Gwen told us. See you.” Liza pulled onto the road.

  “Ellen,” Liza said as soon as she’d shifted into third, “that was one brilliant comment—about the rental contract. Great reverse psychology. You really goosed that boy along. You know you’ve got a knack for this kind of thing.”

  “Idiot savant,” she muttered.

  “Another term for a natural.”

  Ellen didn’t answer. She didn’t even look at Liza, couldn’t bear to. Liza was crazy. She was no natural at deception and manipulating and car half-stealing, she was just worried about the car rental and…She closed her eyes against the idea she couldn’t face, the line she didn’t even want to think of crossing.

  Thirty-Three

  FRANK BENTEC’S STOMACH WAS churning. It always churned when he went into high gear. He left his car in his spot in the parking lot, signed out an unmarked to J. Johnson and light-footed it on the pedal, keeping under the speed limit the whole way to Loray Park. If Heron and his buddy were late he’d have a problem. But Heron was reliable. He was counting on that. The sky was middling gray already, and a distinguished-looking white man in this neighborhood was going to be as memorable as Silvestri’s wife’s tattoo. But he’d chosen this park, in this neighborhood because it was not an early-rise area. Still, he pulled on a baseball cap to cover his thick graying hair as he sighted the park.

  There they were, Heron and his partner, sitting in their shiny black Bronco like a Christmas gift waiting to be unwrapped. Even at a distance he could make out the wary hunch of Heron’s shoulders. Heron was no fool; he knew there was no protection there.

  Bentec swung left in front of them, and made a swooping loop with his right arm, ending with finger pointing toward
a copse of trees in the center of the park. He didn’t look back at Heron’s reaction. He could picture the scowl on the thug’s weaselish face and Heron’s buddy grumbling, “What is this, some kinda fucking scavenger hunt?” if he knew what a scavenger hunt was.

  Bentec took his foot off the brake, letting the car edge forward till he had an unobstructed view of the whole park, and of Heron and friend, driving across the muddy park, the wheels hub deep, the two men almost back to back in the front seat, rotating their heads like dashboard hula dolls.

  He eased on the gas, rolling at 10 mph, giving a wave as he neared the center of the park. Heron barely nodded. His weapon wasn’t visible, but he’d have it at the ready.

  Bentec hung a U, pulled up to the Bronco, driver’s window to driver’s window, lifted the sawed-off he’d confiscated from some con years ago, and erased two of his problems. That just left his nine-millimeter outstanding. Too bad there hadn’t been a smooth way to get that from Heron before.

  He eased the car forward and jumped out, ignoring the groans of the dying cons.

  Three minutes later he declared the search for the nine-millimeter a failure. His weapon was nowhere in this car, not in the glove compartment, the trunk, under seats or inside door panels.

  Dammit, did Heron have it socked away somewhere, or hadn’t he bothered to get it out of Silvestri’s house? But either place, Silvestri’s house or Heron’s, that gun would tie him to a corpse.

  There was no time to go hunting for it. He’d planned all along to burn his bridges with this operation; he just hadn’t expected there to be one moment when the whole fire went up.

  He wiped off the sawed-off, tossed it toward the two corpses and headed for the airport.

  He’d covered half a mile when his pager beeped. He jumped half out of the seat, and that angered him more than Heron or the gun. He was not a man to lose his cool. He checked the number, and couldn’t help sighing with relief. A 707 number. Using the car phone, he dialed.

  “Inspector Bentec? Pete Hanks, here. Humboldt County Sheriff’s Department.”