Collected Fiction (1940-1963)

by William P. McGivern

  She thrust her hand toward the window, dreading a contact with his body; but she felt nothing but the wet wind like ice against her knuckles. A fold of the cloth made a tearing noise in the windstream. She held the apron between thumb and forefinger, felt it tug and billow against her grip, then released it; and as she snaked her hand away from the window, Bogan settled back in the seat, and her fingers made a tiny whispering sound on the fabric of his coat.

  But he didn’t seem to notice. He said, “If you want to smother, go ahead,” and rolled the window up tightly. “Why should I care?” There was a dangerous, vengeful tone in his voice. “I don’t care if your face turns black and your lungs burst.” Bogan flipped on the car’s radio.

  She lay completely still, exhausted by fear and tension. The back of one hand was tight to her lips to hold back a sob.

  XIV

  THE salesman whose name was Harry Mills swore angrily and fluently as he swung his car onto the graveled roadway that flanked the turnpike. His wife, Muriel, was in tears; her voice shook as she said, “We could have been killed, Harry. You almost lost control.”

  “Of course I did,” Harry Mills said furiously. “I couldn’t see the road for a full five seconds. The damn thing was plastered right over the windshield wipers. I’m going to report this.” He climbed from his car, redfaced and pugnacious, and walked around to his wife’s side. “Some cop’ll stop pretty soon,” he said, and turned his overcoat collar up against the rain. “We’re alive and kicking, hon. I guess we’re lucky at that.”

  “What was it’?” she asked in the same high, frightened voice. “What did those fools throw from the window?”

  “Well, it’s still tangled in the wiper,” he said, and he began to extricate the soggy piece of cloth which had blown from the car ahead of him to plaster itself across his windshield. He spread it out on the hood. “Well, how about that?” he said, and pushed his hat up on his forehead.

  The flaring red light of a patrol was already bearing down on him, swerving expertly through the lanes of heavy traffic. The time was nine-thirty-five.

  AT headquarters Captain Royce stood with Sergeant Tonelli and Lieutenant Trask studying the large map of the turnpike on the wall of his office. There had been no trace of the killer in the last forty-five minutes. Captain Royce knew that he had left Howard Johnson’s No. 1 with the girl at approximately eight-fifty. Forty-five minutes meant forty-five miles; and in forty-five miles the killer had had opportunities of leaving the pike anywhere between Exit 12 and Exit 5. All those interchanges were under surveillance, of course; a car-to-car search wasn’t possible, but Ford, Plymouth and Chevrolet sedans were being given close attention, particularly those that were driven by large men wearing glasses. The killer might have slipped by, but Royce was reasonably certain he was still on the pike.

  He glanced at the big clock on the opposite wall, and Sergeant Tonelli checked his wrist watch.

  In two more minutes the presidential convoy was scheduled to enter the turnpike at Interchange 5.

  Tonelli cleared his throat. “Those reporters are still outside, captain,” he said.

  “Good place for ’em,” Royce said.

  Newspapermen and TV and radio reporters had been streaming into headquarters in the last hour. They might give Royce and the turnpike a bad time if he didn’t brief them on what was going on and what plans had been put into effect to trap the killer; but Royce was prepared to accept this. All off-duty troopers were now back on the pike; it was a hundred-mile trap, guarded by every marked and unmarked patrol car that was certified for service. Three special riot squads were cruising at twenty-mile intervals, read to converge on any alarm with tear gas and shotguns. And Lieutenant Biersby at Communications had alerted all police within a hundred miles of the pike, and this net was being widened with every passing minute. The toll collectors, who were not police officers but unarmed civil servants, had been replaced by special details of State Police who had been transferred to Royce’s command.

  If this information were phoned in by a reporter to a radio or TV station, it would be on the air in a matter of minutes. And it would sound very good, Royce thought. People listening in would nod approvingly, no doubt, and decide the cops were doing a job after all. It might even allay a bit of their indignation the next time they got a ticket for speeding. But against the advantages of a good press, Royce placed one all-important fact—the killer might have a radio in his car, and he would certainly be interested in the details of the plans being made to trap him.

  A bell rang at the dispatcher’s desk, and they heard the crackle of the radio, a distant voice reporting. The dispatcher turned quickly and glanced at Captain Royce who had walked to the doorway of his office.

  “Interchange Five reporting, sir,” he said. “The President is on the pike. An eight-car convoy, with our patrols at the front and back. Traveling in the right lane at about fifty-five.”

  “All other patrols reported in position?” Royce said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Royce nodded and rubbed a hand over his damp forehead. Then he walked back to the map. He could visualize the progress of the convoy, and he knew the density of the surrounding traffic and the weather conditions on that stretch of the pike. None of it was favorable; the highway was slick with rain, and the traffic was both sluggish and heavy.

  Captain Royce!” the dispatcher in the outer office called in a rising voice. “Would you come here, sir?”

  Royce, with Tonelli and Trask at his heels, reached the dispatcher’s desk in long strides,

  “Car Sixteen just reported, sir,” the dispatcher said quickly. “He’s just checked a stopped car. The driver pulled off the pike because a Howard Johnson’s apron was thrown from the car ahead of him and hit his windshield. The apron came from the driver’s window of a ‘Fifty-two Ford with New York tags. The wife got the last three license numbers: six-four-two.”

  “Where was this?”

  “Patrol Sixteen stopped at milepost fifty-four at—” The dispatcher checked his pad. “I got his request to pull off the pike two minutes ago.”

  Royce made a swift calculation; the ‘52 Ford had those two minutes, plus the time it had taken the stopped motorist to hail a patrol. A total of five minutes, say, which would take him down to milepost fifty, at Interchange 5.

  “Who’s closest to fifty?” he asked sharply.

  “O’Leary, patrol Twenty-one. He’s tailing the President by a couple of hundred yards.” He added unnecessarily, “Keeping the traffic behind the convoy slow.”

  “Flash him. Tell him to pick up that Ford. And alert our unmarked cars in that area.”

  XV

  WHEN O’Leary received his orders from the dispatcher at headquarters, he was traveling in the middle column of southbound traffic at milepost forty-eight. The presidential convoy a few hundred yards ahead of him rolled smoothly in the right lane; he could see the red beacon of the tail patrol car flashing in the darkness.

  O’Leary sat up straighter, big hands tightening on the steering wheel. He repeated the three digits the dispatcher had given him, then said, “Check!” and replaced his receiver. His heart was pounding with hope and excitement. He had been slowly closing the distance between himself and the convoy in the last five minutes, and he was fairly certain he hadn’t passed any ‘52 Ford sedans. Which meant the killer was ahead of him, somewhere in the lines of traffic between himself and the convoy. Checking his rearview mirror, O’Leary swung into the left lane, controlling the smoothly powerful car as if it were an extension of his body. He flashed by three slower cars and, after checking their license plates, swung back into the middle lane. He remained there long enough to inspect the plates ahead of him, and to his right, then swerved back to the high-speed lane and passed the cars he had eliminated. The rain made his work difficult, but he made his moves with deliberate precision, sweeping in and out of the traffic with effortless skill.

  It was at milepost forty-three that he made contact; the Ford
was traveling in the middle lane, fifty yards behind the presidential convoy, but gaining slowly on it.

  O’Leary dropped back discreetly and grabbed the receiver from beside tile post of the steering wheel, “O’Leary, twenty-one,” he snapped to Sergeant Tonelli. “I’ve got him. Milepost forty-three south, middle lane.”

  “Hang on, here’s the captain.” Captain Royce said sharply, “O’Leary, did you get a look at the driver?”

  “No, sir. I’m three or four car lengths behind him.”

  “Any sign of the girl?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Pull on past him. We’ll cover with unmarked cars from now on.”

  “Check!” O’Leary was ready to turn, into the left lane when he saw the Ford suddenly pick up speed and pull abreast of the presidential convoy. The eight-car convoy was proceeding at fifty-five, with intervals of perhaps one hundred and fifty feet between each sedan,

  “Good Lord!” O’Leary muttered softly. The Ford was moving to the extreme right of the middle lane, angling slowly toward one of the intervals that separated the cars in the convoy. He picked up his receiver and cried harshly, “Tonelli, he’s trying to get into the convoy. That’s what he’s been wailing for!” It was a wild, desperate plan, but there was a spark of brilliance to it; if the Ford sliced into the convoy ahead of a carful of Secret Service agents, it would be detected instantly. But if it moved into an interval between newspapermen or presidential aides, it might not be noticed. And once in the convoy the killer was assured of a safe exit from the pike; the President wouldn’t be stopped at a toll gate—the entire convoy would be waved on with deferential salutes.

  Captain Royce was already issuing commands that cracked like pistol shots from O’Leary’s speaker. To unmarked patrols thirty and forty he gave the location and license number of the Ford and ordered them to intercept it, slow it down, keep it out of the convoy. To O’Leary he said, “Pull up beside him. He won’t try anything with you there. When patrols thirty and forty get into position, pull on ahead a few hundred yards. And for heaven’s sake, be careful. We can’t have a wreck, and we can’t have any shooting.”

  “Check!” said O’Leary and swung out into the left lane. As he pulled up beside the Ford, he saw the driver hunched forward over the wheel, but the streaming rain made it impossible to single out the details of his features; he had an impression of bulk, the flash of eyeglasses, nothing else. O’Leary slowed down to pace the Ford, which was still edging toward the right side of the middle lane. In the right lane the presidential convoy rolled smoothly down the pike, stately and decorous, with patrol cars at the head and rear of the column. O’Leary noticed that the Ford was swinging back gradually to the center of its lane; the driver had obviously spotted him and was postponing his move. In his rear-vision mirror O’Leary saw a pair of headlights rushing up on him through the rain that slashed vividly through the darkness.

  This would be the first of the unmarked patrols. O’Leary moved a car length ahead of the Ford, then another, giving the trooper speeding up behind him room to cut into the middle lane and position his car in front of the killer’s.

  Sheila must be lying on the floor of the Ford, O’Leary realized, and the thought was a maddening one; he hated to leave now, but there was no place for impulsive heroics in the business of policing the turnpike. And his years of training and discipline were strong enough to counterbalance any temptation toward individual action. If she was in the car, her best chances of safety lay in police teamwork. If she was in the car—the thought made him feel sick. Hut he knew the killer might have knocked her unconscious, or killed her and thrown her body into the fields alongside the pike. To stop and get rid of her body would have taken only a few seconds, and in that brief time he would run little risk of being spotted by a patrol.

  O’Leary stepped on his accelerator and moved ahead of the convoy; in his rear-vision mirror he saw a black station wagon cut smoothly in front of the Ford.

  XVI

  HARRY BOGAN cursed at his luck, cursed at the rain driving in thin, silver columns through his headlights. He hunched himself forward and wiped steam from the windshield with the palm of his hand.

  A few minutes before he had been laughing with boisterous good humor. The plan was going to work; he had been convinced of it. The intervals between the cars in the convoy were long, and the rain was a fine, steaming cover for the move he had planned to make. He had read in the newspapers of the President’s trip, that he was attending a floodlighted ground-breaking ceremony at a veterans’ hospital in Plankton, near Exit 5, and that he was traveling back to Washington that night.

  And then, as Bogan approached Exit 5, he had picked up a broadcast from the local station in Plankton which assured him that his plans to intercept the President’s convoy were timed exactly right. The mayor was being interviewed; he spoke of the honor done the village by the President’s visit, of the inspiring message the President had delivered not only to Plankton but to the nation, to free men everywhere. Bogan had listened intently, irritated by the big words, the round, oratorical voice booming in the car. And then the mayor had said, “Although he has been gone from us only a few short moments, we nevertheless miss him deeply, and our hearts wish him Godspeed on his journey.”

  That was what Bogan had needed to know—the time of the President’s departure from Plankton. Until then he had been guessing; now he was certain.

  But suddenly, as he was preparing to execute the final step, a police car had come up alongside him and had hung there with maddening persistence. And when it had finally driven on, a fool in a black station wagon was hogging the road in front of him, slowing him down to forty miles an hour and arrogantly ignoring the furious blast of his horn.

  The convoy had pulled away from him, the red light of the patrol cars fading into the darkness, and the black station wagon had then swung sedately into the right lane to let Bogan pass. But now another Tool was in the way, a man in a small pickup truck who seemed either drunk or suicidal; he weaved erratically in front of him, frustrating all his attempts to get by.

  Bogan no longer felt inflated by the proud sense of accomplishment. Everything had become confusing and pointless; as with the breach with his brother and the long years of bitter and meaningless disappointments, there was no rhyme or reason to what was now happening to him, only the feeling of having been wronged somehow and the need to strike back at his tormentors. But his trail of splintered thoughts had come to a sustaining end. Every hand was raised to destroy him. But they wouldn’t find it so easy.

  He called sharply to the girl in the back seat. “You think you’re going to marry your big handsome trooper, don’t you? You think I’ll turn you over to him safe and sound, eh? Pretty and sweet, so he can paw you. Is that what you’re hoping?”

  Sheila was lying on her side. In that position she was able to work at the buckle that secured the belt about her ankles. “Where are you taking me?” she said. There was no purpose to her question; she hoped only to distract him from his ugly preoccupation with herself and Dan. She couldn’t bear the thread of obscene excitement in his voice, the frenzy of his insinuations.

  “You’ll know where I’m taking you when we get there,” he said.

  She had given up hope that her apron would be found. She imagined it wet and crumpled on the highway with thousands of tires grinding it into a soggy, unrecognizable mass. The only chance now was when he stopped to pay his toll at an exit; if it were possible, if he didn’t discover that her hands were free before then, she would claw open the door and throw herself from the car. He would shoot her, of course; she knew that from what he had been saying and the sound of his voice that he intended to kill her one way or another. But she could choose the way; and she knew that a bullet would be infinitely preferable to being alone with him in the anonymous darkness that stretched beyond the turnpike.

  Bogan laughed suddenly. The pickup truck had moved out of his way. He hadn’t lost more than a few minutes. The Presiden
t’s convoy was traveling under the legal limit, probably only a mile or two ahead of him. There was still time to catch up with it. He pushed down on the accelerator.

  XVII

  AT headquarters battle plans were laid. Sergeant Tonelli had marked the turnpike map with a red thumb tack at the killer’s position and a dozen green ones to indicate the patrol cars surrounding him. Captain Royce sucked on his cold pipe and considered the problem to be solved; they would get the killer, of course, but the job was to get him without hurting anyone else. The presidential convoy was now well out of danger. After pulling ahead of the killer’s blocked-off car, the convoy had moved to the left lane and increased its speed to seventy miles an hour, with a patrol car clearing the way with sirens. The convoy was streaking toward the last exit now, and the killer couldn’t possibly catch it; and even if his car were fast enough, there were patrols available to cut him off.

  “We might take him right on the pike,” Tonelli suggested. “Box him in; knock him off the road. There’d be guns in his face before he knew what hit him!”

  Royce frowned at the map, considering the traffic and weather conditions in the killer’s area. He didn’t like Tonelli’s idea; blocking a car at high speed was never an easy mission, but tonight it would be especially hazardous. He trusted his men and had a fierce pride in their skill and judgment, but he didn’t intend to expose them to the caprices of a madman under these circumstances. Also, there were the civilian motorists to consider; if there was shooting or if the killer attempted to evade the patrols, it could cause a panic that might result in a bloody wreck.

  “We’ll let him get off the pike,” Royce said, “He’s got just three more chances, at Exits Three, Two and One. We’ll take him when there’s no chance of involving anybody else.”