Dirty Harry 11 - Death in the Air (15 page)

The bullets shattered a mirrored column and sent a standing ashtray jerking into the air. Harry stayed under the bleeding, drooling, defecating dead man but fired back with the nine-millimeter automatic. The bullet whined by the killer as he jumped off the trunk and followed the two other masked assassins into the main body of the hotel.

Callahan pushed himself from under the corpse and went after them. Before he turned the corner, he saw that the car’s driver was lying across the steering wheel, his chest crashed against it. The ski-like mask had been torn so that Harry could see his open, mangled eyes, and the blood pouring out of his nose and nearly toothless mouth.

The crash must have smashed him against the windshield and dashboard, while the others could have cushioned themselves the way he had twice previously. A sudden thought of Patterson drove him on. He refused to let these amoral murderers get away with it.

The Fairlawn Hotel Tower yawned in front of him as he came around the corner. The structure was designed with a hollow lobby that had circular balconies built into the walls. Below the main floor was a tall plaza with fountains, cafés, and stores. Moving among everything were glass-enclosed elevators which rose and dropped majestically on two tracks.

Into this civilized environment erupted a trio of masked gunmen. As Harry sped around from reception, the last killer was vaulting over the main floor railing. Harry whipped out his .44 and fired like a Wild West gunman.

His instinct with the Magnum was impeccable. The high-calibre lead caught the third killer in the back, just as he was beginning to drop. It spun him lengthwise, making him a whirling missile which smashed into a shallow tile fountain.

The foam-flecked water splashed onto surrounding tables as late-night diners ran for cover. Within moments, red liquid began to mingle with the blue, until it started pumping out from the main water jets.

The last two killers split up, hoping to double their chances. One moved into the shadows as Harry jumped off the main-floor balcony and landed on the plaza level. The other stood his ground amid a patch of potted trees, letting off a burst of semi-automatic rifle fire as Callahan got his balance.

The bullets tore up the ceramic and plastic floor covering as Harry shielded his head and ran into a clothing store. The gunman was inspired to move forward, blasting the picture windows as Harry ran among the perfectly tailored mannequins.

The dummies shattered and fell—arms, legs, and heads ripped off—as the killer matched Harry’s progress through the front of the store. Callahan didn’t bother to shoot back, since the broken glass that cascaded like a crystalline waterfall afforded him all the cover he needed.

At the last second—before he reached the shop’s far wall—he risked jumping through the falling shards to gain the cover of a stairway. From there, he returned the fire with the Browning, driving the gunman back to the protection of an open-front Walden Books store.

Harry jumped from the stair cover, rolled, and came up behind a garbage can, shooting all the while. The Program gunman returned the favor from behind a rack of horror books. The latest tales of tortured teenagers ripped asunder in the wake of the violence and the pages fluttered to the ground like so many dead birds.

Desperate and frustrated, the killer broke from the store, trying to nail Harry in a frontal attack. He threw a display shelf of the latest historical rape novel in front of him and fired through it.

Harry kicked the refuse receptacle forward, spilling garbage everywhere as he ran to meet the assassin head-on, the gun in each hand blazing. It was like a game of “chicken”—but instead of cars racing toward each other, two armed men seemed to be intent on speeding up their showdown.

The Program killer gave up first, pivoting to the side and trying to make the cover of a thick, wooden door. Taking his attention off Harry was his worst mistake. It gave Callahan time to push the Magnum out in front of him and fire.

The killer was stopped in his tracks, and pushed back by a bullet in his side. He lost his balance and fell in the front hall of the Country Squire Restaurant. By the time he was able to get to his feet, Harry was framed in the doorway.

The man tried to bring his rifle around. Harry shot him with the Browning. This bullet hit him in the right shoulder, spinning him into the salad bar. The greens spun overhead as the killer sought to keep his feet. He knocked aside tubs of dressing, the oily colors mixing together on the floor.

The killer stumbled back, patrons moving far out of his way as he pathetically attempted to escape with two holes in his torso. He crashed into a table and nearly fell, but something kept him on his feet. The Inspector followed inexorably behind—making sure no one else would be hurt, but keeping his distance. The rattlesnake could still strike, even in its death throes.

When the snake managed to face Harry again, the cop was standing with the .44 held right out in front of him. The message was clear. The gunman ignored it. He tried to bring his own gun to bear. Harry shot him in the head.

The killer’s neck, and what was left on top of it, snapped back, and he fell on the grill set up in the center of the circular restaurant. Harry heard the sizzle of the gunman’s shirt and of flesh baking, before he pulled him off the grill and dropped the corpse on the floor.

“Bon appetit,”
he told the dead man.

Callahan let his exhaustion catch up with him as he walked back out into the plaza section of the hotel. He had forced himself to accept the escape of the last man. At least he would bring the all-too-clear message back to Carr. Harry Callahan knows where D. Patterson is and he’s not telling. And he’ll send every Program operative to hell, first.

The Inspector had put one foot on the stairway back to the lobby, when the steps were riddled by more bullets. Harry threw himself back as the lead ripped up the stone staircase.

He fell and slid across the slick floor until his head hit a table leg. Looking up, he viewed a hellish sight. The last gunman had been waiting for him in the open-air elevator. He had been waiting for Harry to press the up button, so that when the doors opened, he could have blasted the cop.

He had been waiting with a carful of innocent hotel guests.

And when Harry didn’t do the logical thing—when an exhausted Harry took the stairs, against all odds—the enraged gunman had pressed an upper-floor button and rose above it all. Rose above it to shoot down at the amazed Inspector.

The elevator kept rising, and the gunman kept firing as the glass in front of him cracked and fell like jagged rain. Harry got to his feet and started running, the bullets following him wherever he went.

He got a momentary respite when the last killer’s weapon ran dry. Harry raised his Magnum to shoot back, but stopped in mid-motion. He couldn’t shoot. No matter how good he was, at this range and angle, he couldn’t chance hitting one of the killer’s hostages.

And even if he nailed the bastard perfectly, he also knew that the high-powered rounds would probably go right through the killer and into an innocent victim. Callahan had to wait and look for a way out while the murderer reloaded.

The shooting started again as the car continued to rise. Harry dodged, twisted, turned, and ran, looking like a ballet dancer on speed. He realized that the killer was just toying with him now. He was sadistically enjoying the predicament he had forced the cop into.

Finally, Callahan managed to gain safety behind the stairway he had originally started up. It gave him time to catch his breath and think. But that time was cut short.

“Callahan,” he heard. “Callahan, get out here or I start killing them and dropping their bodies one by one.” The gunman’s voice echoed out in a singsong over the sobs of fear from the elevator’s passengers.

Harry jumped, grabbed the banister and pulled himself onto the stairway. He ran up as the bullets ran up after him. He made it under the lip of the main floor balcony just before the rounds caught up with him.

“Callahan!” The voice was stronger and harsher this time. “I told you I’d kill them!” Then the man returned to his condescending, sarcastic tone. “Just come out and take your medicine and they won’t be hurt.”

Harry looked at the lobby. The dust had settled, and many of the hotel’s employees were gathered there with the petrified security staff. None of them had ever experienced anything like this before. They all looked at him helplessly. He knew how they felt.

Harry stepped out from his cover just as the elevator stopped on the thirteenth floor.

The doors opened behind the gunman. Naturally, the terrified passengers began streaming out. The killer whirled. “Don’t move,” he barked. “Everybody stay just where you are or you’ll die.”

Harry looked up at the scene. The .44 snapped forward as he was realizing that the angle was perfect. As soon as his elbow locked his arm straight, he pulled the trigger.

All those hours on the target range paid off with that one shot. It went up all twelve floors, entered the gunman’s head at the top of his spine, and exited out the top of his skull. The only other thing it hit was the elevator’s ceiling.

As the passengers watched, the top of the man’s head split open. It was a horrible sight—but better than dying.

Harry left before his own force caught up with him. He didn’t feel like explaining tonight. Tomorrow, there’d be the reams of paperwork, the triplicates to be done in triplicate, but tonight he just wanted to get back to the room in the shadow of the freeway where Patterson was.

He left it to the approaching patrolmen to take care of the immediate details, then slowly made his way back to the damaged patrol car. With a Magnum in one hand and a Browning in the other, no one considered stopping him.

No one but the superintendent of the Grand View Park Apartments.

He came out of the shadows behind the car as Harry tossed the handguns into the front seat. He first smashed Callahan in the kidneys, then grabbed his hair and slammed his head on the patrol car’s ceiling.

“We learn our lesson quick, asshole,” he said in the nearly-unconscious Inspector’s ear. “After all the men you murdered in 4-B, we started wearing flak jackets.”

Before anyone could do anything about it, the man with the bullet hole in the chest of his jogging suit shoved the Inspector into the car and drove off.

C H A P T E R
T h i r t e e n

N
o wonder the super had looked different at Jessup’s office. No wonder the killer had taken so long to die in the Fairlawn restaurant. They had all been wearing bulletproof vests under their jackets.

This realization did Harry absolutely no good at all, as everybody he had shot in the chest during the last few hours watched the superintendent beat him to a pulp.

Actually, the only one available was the killer who had stumbled out of the police car with his head on fire. And he was in no condition to really enjoy the show. In fact, he was lying on a cot, moaning.

His head looked like an overcooked marshmallow, but the super couldn’t very well bring him to the hospital, considering the situation, as well as the fact that he might reveal something in his delirium.

So he lay groaning in pain, as Harry tried to keep himself from doing the same. It wasn’t easy. The super was angry, impatient, and extremely vindictive. He had kept coshing Callahan as they drove back to Nineteenth Avenue—seemingly to warm up.

All of Harry’s guns were in the far corner of the Grand View cellar apartment, which, seemed miles away from where the cop hung. The grunts the human marshmallow made sounded in harmony with the creaks made by the crossbar Callahan was attached to.

“You were too fast for me to kill, back at Jessup’s place,” the super admitted, putting on the thick, black leather gloves. “Every time I got a clear shot at you, you kept moving. Well, you’re going to stay still now.”

He walked to the middle of the cellar studio, surveying his handiwork. The cop was literally hung up by his wrists, to a beam twelve feet off the floor—naked.

“Following you was easy,” the super continued, flexing his fingers and smiling. “I just walked behind the wreckage.” He looked at the Inspector’s already bruised, battered body, admiring the aged scars that revealed the trials of his career up till now.

“Big, tough guy,” the super scolded. “Think you’re really something, don’t you? Well, let’s see how long it takes me to make you nothing.”

Then he started in. The first part was simple. Taking a reed cane, he whipped the cop.

It was a scene out of a childhood melodrama come to painful life. Harry remembered his school days when the teacher would take a hickory stick to someone’s backside or a ruler to somebody’s knuckles. He remembered the sound of those whips coming in for the kill. He remembered that whipping sound as being the worst part of it.

His memory lied. The whipping was the worst part. And the super was an experienced, practiced torturer. He was very particular about where he placed the stick, and when.

He was very practical in his approach, and proud of it. So proud, in fact, that he lectured Harry on the subject while he beat him.

“You see,” he said, “we don’t want to hit your chest, or it might start the heart palpitating. You could get a seizure and die that way. We don’t want that. And we don’t want to go for a cheap shot in your balls, or your blood might overheat, causing you to faint. I want you up and aware.”

So he went for the painful, not permanently damageable parts. Like the ribs, the back of the legs, the fleshy part of the back, the shoulder blades, and the armpits.

He took his time and carefully aimed and executed each blow with all his strength. The pain was beyond belief.

It was a great shock to him just how much pain his body could tolerate. There was a breaking point, but he hadn’t reached it yet. That didn’t make the search for it any more tolerable.

As much pain as he felt, however, he did not feel fear or dread. He knew just what this man could do to him, and that sooner or later, one way or the other, it had to end. Death was easy. Working up to it was the hard part.