Hopscotch (14 page)

He let it drive all the way out of sight before he got to his feet and wiped some of the stinking stuff off his face with his handkerchief. Then he started trotting after the car.

He gave it not more than a quarter mile before the high-powered V-8 would use up the fuel in its carburetor and fuel line; sure enough he was just reaching the bend when he heard it cough and die. It freewheeled a bit and he heard it stop. He cut into the woods and walked quickly on the pine-needle carpet, dropping the vital drainplug carefully into his pocket.

When he came in sight of the Olds the driver had the hood up and was playing a flashlight on the engine. Kendig moved down toward the edge of the road, picked up the five-gallon can of gasoline he'd cached there and waited in the trees, not moving, stinking of gasoline.

It took the driver a little while to figure it out. Finally he was down under the car feeling for the hole. He came out cursing audibly. Kendig watched him walk back up the road slowly exploring with the flashlight—looking for the drainplug. It must have been loose, he'd be thinking; vibration must have dislodged it; it's got to be somewhere around here. He'd walk on up to the yard, looking for the plug along the way; he'd tell the others—they'd have to bring one of the other vehicles down with a chain and tow the tanker back in.

It would take some time. Kendig carried the jerrycan down to the abandoned car, set it down and crawled underneath to put the drainplug back where it belonged. He tightened it in place with the Vise-Grips. He noticed for the first time the three-centimeter pipe that had been welded in place across the back of the car, concealed from above by the massive chrome bumper. It ran the width of the car and there were six jet-type nozzles sticking out of it, pointing down toward the road. That was useful to know about.

He crawled out from under and poured most of the jerrycan's contents into the tank; he opened the hood and disconnected the fuel line from the carburetor to pour some of the stuff down the hose to prime it. Then he splashed just a little bit into the carburetor—he didn't want to flood it—and re-connected the fuel line. He put the empty can in
the back seat and glanced at the ignition lock but the driver hadn't favored him by leaving the keys. He had to get down under the dashboard, rip a wire off the clock and feel around for the tab-contacts on the back of the ignition switch. He was no expert at hot-wiring but he knew the drill well enough; he put it in neutral and made sure the emergency brake was set and then he gapped the contacts until the starter meshed.

The car started right up. He twisted the ends of the wire around the ignition tabs and sat up, pulled the door shut and went driving up the road less than six minutes after the driver had left the car.

Pretty soon they'd be down there with their tow car and they'd find the tanker missing. They'd figure out how it had been done but they'd have to conclude it had been a rival bootlegger outfit. They wouldn't report the theft to the law; they could hardly do that. They'd start banging around their neighbors' stills and the feudist mentality of the back hills would make things pretty wild for a while. It was what he wanted: the more confusion the better.

He drove the Olds into his barn and closed the barn doors and walked back down the track to repair the cowbell tripwire he'd broken when he'd driven in. Then he went up to the house and got out of his gasoline-soaked clothing, showered and scrubbed thoroughly, got into work clothes and returned to the barn to disguise the Olds.

He carefully applied masking tape to the chrome surfaces and edged the tape with razor-blade cuts. The car was a dark green hardtop with a white roof. He had a dozen aerosol cans of black automobile
paint. He taped newspaper over the windshield and windows and went to work with the spray paint: two coats on the roof, one on the rest of the car. He wasn't an expert painter and the job looked mottled and amateurish but that was all right, it went with the age of the car. The paint wasn't thick enough to blacken the roof entirely; it ended up more grey than black but again that was good enough. He removed the license plates and threw them into the toolbox of the DeSoto in the yard, and bolted the plate he'd stolen in Birmingham onto the rear bracket of the Olds.

It was quick-drying paint. By dawn even the second coat on the roof was no longer tacky to the touch. He backed the Pontiac up to the Olds and siphoned off the Pontiac's tank, running fuel into the Olds until it was nearly full. It left him about a quarter of a tank in the Pontiac—enough, in case. He put the Pontiac back in its usual parking space in front of the house and then he went over to the wrecked DeSoto and disconnected the dome-light toggle switch from it. He wired the toggle to the ignition of the Olds and brought a pushbutton switch from the DeSoto to act as a starter switch; there wouldn't be time to fumble around under the dash trying to hot-wire it. When he had his wiring finished and everything screwed into place he tried it out and it worked fine: switch on the toggle, push the button and it started right up.

Then he inspected the spray pipe under the bumper. The faucet handles of the six spigots had heavy steel cables fixed to them; the cables disappeared through drilled holes into the body of the car. He found the control after a little searching. It was an old hand-brake lever they'd taken off
some truck or tractor; it lay down against the floor between the door sill and the driver's seat. He didn't touch it; you could only use a cable control once because you couldn't close it again without going around and closing each of the six faucets separately and by that time you'd have poured all the oil out onto the barn floor. But he did open one of the spigots a little and a hard stream of black oil sprayed out; he twisted the handle shut immediately.

They were guerrilla devices, the oil spigots on moonshiners' tankers; if you were being pursued by another car all you had to do was pick the right spot and yank the handle and you covered the road behind you with a murderous oil slick. Anybody pursuing you would slither helplessly on the stuff. Pour it out on a steep bend and you'd send pursuit to their deaths.

He didn't intend to hurt anybody; if he could help it he didn't even want anybody bruised. But it was a useful bonus—in case.

An hour after sunup he drove the Olds out of the barn and ran it very cautiously across the yard into the woods along the pioneer track he'd cut. He went down the steep grade in low gear standing on the brake, taking it as slow as he could; it bottomed a few times but not alarmingly. When he got into the bigger trees he had to do a great deal of backing and filling in places but after half an hour he'd got it down through the trees to the end. He parked it there and piled brush around it. Then he walked down to the county road and prowled for twenty minutes to make sure there was no piece of the Olds that might flash a telltale reflection to a passerby on the road.

He checked out the yard and closed in the top of the pioneer track with broken trees to conceal its existence. After that he went to bed.

Thirty-six hours later he finished the book. He put the manuscript in the false bottom of the suitcase and cached the case in the Olds together with a bottle of water, several cans of food and a can opener. Everything he'd need with him was either in the Olds or on his person. Now it was just a matter of finding out how quick they were—Cutter and the FBI.

He could leave now. Nothing kept him here. But it was time for the game to come alive and he wanted them to have the warm smell of him.

Now he hoped they wouldn't take long. If Cutter had been more of a gut player he'd worry about that; Cutter could see the clues he'd left and Cutter would realize their meaning. Kendig didn't leave clues unless he'd meant to. Cutter would have to recognize the invitation for what it was. A gut gambler might decide to pass it up; decline the invitation, take Kendig's neuroses into account, let him rot right where he was—anticipating entrapment but never seeing it happen. Time was Kendig's enemy: he couldn't sit and wait, he'd get bored with it and boredom was his essential weakness. Cutter knew that but Cutter had time pressures on him too and neither Cutter's own personality nor the circumstances would allow him to sit still even though it might have been the smartest way to handle it. No: Cutter would come after him.

The telephone rang.

It had rung a few times since he'd moved in. Did
he want to subscribe? Did he want home milk delivery? Did he want a charge-a-plate? There hadn't been any of those in the past ten days. He'd made no calls out. He'd had the phone connected only as a convenience to Cutter.

Now on the fourth ring he picked it up. “Hello?”

Scratchy silence on the line and then a dull click. He cradled it and smiled. That had to be the FBI; if it had been Cutter he'd have played it better: sorry wrong number or would you care to contribute.

He put a short piece of pipe in his pocket and left the lights burning and walked out of the house.

– 15 –

T
HE PLACE WAS
thirty miles out of town. Ross's odometer showed twenty-nine and a half when Cutter said, “This'll do. Pull over.”

He slid it over against the wooded embankment and switched off. The two FBI cars parked in tandem behind them. Cutter stepped out and spread the topographical map across the trunk of the car and played his flashlight on it. The eight FBI agents walked forward and crowded around.

Cutter said, “Ross and I and four of you will walk it from here—sound travels in these hills, he'll hear the cars coming. You four give us forty minutes, then drive in. This car and your first cruiser you drive him into the farm. The second cruiser waits down at the foot of his driveway with two men in it.” He put his finger on the map. “The Scudder farm. Pay attention to these contour lines—that driveway's damned steep.”

Greiff said, “Any chance he'd have it booby-trapped?”

“No. He's not a killer. There may be telltales.”

“He's not a killer—what is he then?”

“We want him. That's all you need to know.”

Greiff wasn't used to being talked to that way; it showed on his middle-aged face. He was the District
Director out of Atlanta and he had the habit of command.

A car came down the road, an old one jouncing on its springs. It slowed to a crawl and the three men inside it gave Cutter's party a xenophobic scrutiny. One of the FBI men slid his hand under his jacket. The, old car moved on. Greiff said, “They'll figure us for revenuers—never mind.”

Ross was looking at the map again. He saw how the farm tilted, how the driveway corkscrewed up from the road. If it was like the other places they'd passed it would be crowded pretty close by the forest.

Cutter said, “He's expecting us. All right, he won't be in the house. He'll be out in the woods watching.” Cutter's finger moved along the lines of the map. “We won't walk all the way to the yard. We'll cut off the driveway and fan out through the trees. Three of us—I'll take you two—move left. Ross and these two move right. Everybody keeps his flare pistol charged and ready. We'll work our way through the woods and bracket the place. For God's sake don't go crashing around—keep your eye on where you're walking and don't blunder into any dead trees. Now if you spot him fire a flare. If you don't just settle down and wait.”

Cutter turned to Greiff. “It'll take us about forty minutes to get positioned. Give us that long and then start up. The last car waits at the foot of the driveway on the main road. The other two go right up the driveway like you've got business there. Don't crawl but don't rush it. Keep your lights on bright. Drive right up into the yard and turn the cars around so you can pull out fast if you've got
to. Then get out the bullhorn and challenge the house. Don't go charging it, just give him a shout—talk to him about tear gas, show your shotguns.”

“Then what?”

“He'll have some diversion set up. A fire bomb in the barn or something. Don't stick your necks out and don't fall for it. Just yell at him. He'll make a move. It won't be from the house. One of us in the trees ought to be in earshot when he does—we'll light him up like Times Square with flares. Then we box him and throw down on him. Got it? All right—come on, let's walk.”

There was a good chance he'd be long gone. He'd had more than a half hour since Greiff had tested the phone. But Cutter had insisted he'd be there waiting for them. “He didn't set this up with all that care just to leave us with a cold trail. You've got to understand this is a game to him. He wants to see our faces.”

“I wish I was as sure of that as you are. Those chapters I read didn't look like kiddy time to me.”

“They're not. They had to be the genuine article, hot enough to scorch a lot of big people. Otherwise we wouldn't be playing his game.”

They'd nailed him on the phone call to Ives actually but the Southworth Bond paper had brought them close and they'd have made him on that alone; the phone call had just speeded it up. He'd bought two hundred sheets of it in Chatsworth and then he'd bought a ream in Birmingham. Chatsworth was less than a hundred miles from here. But the phone call to Ives in New York had been placed from Adairsville and there were only nine phones in town, one in a pay booth between the gas station
and the country store. The storekeeper knew Mr. Hannaway, recognized the composite Identikit portrait and said Mr. Hannaway had bought a big stock of groceries three days ago. The kid at the gas station described Mr. Hannaway's Pontiac and remembered filling it and the five-gallon jerrycan in the trunk. The kingpin in town was a back-porch country lawyer who owned the lumberyard and auto repair yard, and probably a distillery and half a dozen county politicians, and sidelined in real estate; he'd rented the Scudder farm to Mr. Hannaway and had received a second month's rent in advance just six days ago. Ross had been pleased with their detective work until Cutter told him Kendig had planned it that way.