Ikon (26 page)
physically fight back at them; but , can, and I intend to. So the second that Susie is back at the car, tug her in, and I’ll start hitting out. I may get away. I may not. But the first thing you have to do is drive directly towards me, so that I can have one good try at breaking free.’
They’re armed, for Christ’s sake,’ protested Rick.
‘Sure they’re armed. But we’ve got the benefit of knowing what’s going to go down, and they haven’t. So use the surprise.’
‘You’re being very masterful all of a sudden,’ said Kathy.
Daniel opened the car door. That’s my daughter out there, with one of the most sadistic people I’ve ever heard about. You think I care about anything else?’
‘Bonne chance,’ said Kathy.
Daniel stood beside the Monaco, using the open passenger door to shield the lower part of his body. He felt chilled, but very determined. He wanted Susie back, he wanted Susie safe. If there was anything at all that he had ever done in his entire life which was worth preserving, it was Susie. Susie had been born out of his passion for Candii, out of his pleasure and joy in those all-American girls who made the West what it was. He wanted her alive, and that was all.
‘Skellett!’ he called. Then, quieter, ‘I’m coming across. I want you to let the girl go.’
‘We’ll let the girl go when you’re halfway, Mr Korvitz. No point in taking risks. But I warn you - any ridiculous tricks and you’re both dead meat.’
I’m coming, Mr Skellett.’
Daniel left the car and began to walk the twenty echoing paces towards Skellett and his entourage. Susie’s eyes widened as he came nearer, but she didn’t cry out any more. Skellett at last gave her a gentle push and said, ‘Start walking, Susie. Walk towards the blue car. Don’t stop to talk to daddy. You’ll be seeing him later.’
Warily, unsteadily, like a fresh-born foal, Susie began walking towards Daniel. She stared at him intently all the time, as if she was desperately hoping for some kind of
signal that everything was all right, that this entire pantomime of Skellett’s was a bad adult joke; and that soon they would be back at the Downhome Diner, frying bacon and boiling grits and waiting for the first grumpy customers of another Apache Junction day.
As they passed each other, Daniel paused, and Susie instinctively paused, too. Skellett called, ‘Come on, Korvitz. Let’s move it.’
With extraordinary unpractised grace, Daniel rolled over sideways, snatching Susie as he did so, and rolled over again and again and again. For a long perceptible moment, nobody spoke, nobody reacted; but then two things happened at once. Rick gunned the Monaco’s engine, and Walsh reached inside his sport coat for his gun. There was a scuffling blurt of echoes as Skellett and his three Hell’s Angel bodyguards started running towards Daniel, and Daniel staggered, fell, got on to his feet, and grasped the Monaco’s doorhandle just as Rick skidded to a halt beside him.
Walsh fired twice: two light automatic bullets which ricocheted off the car’s hood and roof, and snapped away across the parking-lot. Then Daniel had bundled Susie into the front seat of the car, and heaved himself in beside her, knocking his head against the half-open door, and Rick had thrown the Monaco into reverse and started to back up, with blue smoke screeching out from the tyres.
Walsh fired again, and the windshield turned to milk. ‘Thank Christ we’re going backwards!’ yelled Rick, his backside half-lifted in his seat, one hand on the steering-wheel, his eyes fixed on the rear window as they skidded at 30 mph in reverse along the whole length of level four.
But at the corner his stuntman’s judgement failed him: he collided heavily with a car that was parked right by the top of the ramp, and there was a smash of impacted metal. He thrust the gearshift into drive, then reverse again, and swung the Monaco wider this time, backing wildly down the concrete ramp and saying a prayer that nobody would be trying to come up the ramp in search of a parking-place.
As they swerved backwards into level three, Daniel realized with horror that Skellett had been running after them; and that he had caught up with them. Skellett thrust his gun into the open window and pointed it directly at Rick’s head and screamed, ‘Stop! Stop this goddamned car or I’ll kill you!’
Daniel seized Skellett’s wrist and twisted it around so hard that the tendons burst. The gun fired once, inside the car: a sooty hot blast of flame and smoke that tore the ceiling lining to shreds, and left them all deafened. Daniel almost let go of Skellett’s arm, but Rick yelled, ‘Hold on to the bastard! Daniel! Hold on to the bastard, you hear me?’
Lifting himself up in his seat again, Rick jammed his left foot against the gas pedal, and the Monaco roared backwards along the entire length of level three. Skellett, his arm twisted in Daniel’s grip, was dragged along with it, his shoes bouncing and jarring on the concrete, his face contorted with surprise and pain. He shrieked. ‘Go! Let me go! Let me goV but Daniel held on to his arm so tightly that he succeeded only in turning himself over on to his back, and wrenching his arm muscles. He let out a long, desperate, ‘YaaaaaahhhhhhV
The Monaco reached the end of level three just as a small family ranch wagon appeared at the crest of the ramp. The driver of the ranch wagon jammed on his brakes and stared pop-eyed as the Monaco hurtled towards him in reverse, and then smashed through the railings at the end of level three with a noise like a derailed locomotive, and bounced out into the sunshine on to the roof of the building next door. Skellett, his legs flying in the air, was still being dragged along with them. Daniel wasn’t going to release him for anything or anybody, except the Lord Himself.
‘Jesusl’ cried Skellett, in total fear. ‘Jesus Christ let me go!
Walsh, at the far end of level three, crouched down and opened fire with his small automatic. One bullet penetrated the Monaco’s radiator, and there was a sudden
hiss of released pressure. Another slapped into a tyre, but didn’t deflate it.
‘Go!’ shouted Daniel, and Rick swerved the car backwards in between the ventilation stacks and the garbage and the brick chimneys, and four buildings away they slithered to a halt beside a wide vehicle ramp, leading downwards.
‘Get that bastard into the car!’ said Rick. ‘Quick, move!’
Daniel released Skellett’s arm, then opened his door, and opened the back door, and heaved Skellett on the back seat, next to Kathy. Kathy stared at Skellett in fright and distaste, but Skellett was too bruised and concussed even to notice her. He groaned, and sank down on to the seat, and hunched there with bloody dribble hanging down on to the lapel of his powder-blue suit.
‘Where does that ramp lead?’ asked Kathy.
‘It looks like a car showroom,’ said Daniel. That means that we should be able to drive all the way out to the street.’
‘Daddy!’ shouted Susie. ‘Daddy, they’re coming!’
Daniel stuck his head quickly out of the Monaco’s side window, and saw that Skellett’s assistants must have run back to their limousines, and were speeding towards them along level three, headlights blazing. Rick wrapped his shirt-tail around his wrist and punched out the milked-over windshield; then gunned the engine again, and drove the Monaco straight down the vehicle ramp into the dark depths of the building at nearly 40 mph.
They collided against the left-hand wall as the ramp spiralled rightly downwards, losing hubcaps and doorhandles and ribbons of chrome trim. They passed a bod-yshop floor, where mechanics were working on cars with acetylene torches and hammers; then they passed an upper showroom floor, crowded with sparkling new cars. Then they suddenly found themselves zooming into a first-floor showroom, with bright lights and brand-new Toyotas on turntables, and customers walking between the cars, peering into the windows and browsing through brochures.
‘Oh, God!’ gasped Rick. He didn’t have to tell them that he couldn’t stop. The Monaco careened across the showroom floor at full speed, its tyres howling on the polished marble, colliding with potted palm trees, desks, cardboard displays, light fixtures, and chairs. It rear-ended a brand-new bright-red Toyota estate car, crushing the back end and sending it nose-first into a concrete pillar. Then, when Rick frantically tried to back up, the Monaco’s rear bumper caught a new Toyota’s bumper, and tore off half the front grille.
‘Daddy, they’re here!’ cried Susie and with a throaty scream of engines and a scraping of metal, Skellett’s two grey Cadillacs came barrelling out of the service ramp like huge hungry wolves, lights full on, horns blaring.
‘Here goes!’ Rick shouted, and banged his foot down on to the gas pedal.
Daniel saw what happened next as a spectacular daydream. The Monaco burst straight through the car showroom’s front window into the street, with glittering glass exploding everywhere, and tumbling in the morning sunlight. There were fragments like diamonds, fragments like swords, and all the time his ears were filled with a sound like breaking glaciers, creaking and crackling and tinkling and pattering.
The first of Skellett’s Cadillac limousines skidded around sideways in a vain attempt to chase them. Its long rear-end slammed against the red Toyota station wagon which Rick had already wrecked. Its wheels spun on the polished floor. The second Cadillac collided with it, denting its nearside door, and then tried to drive around the side of the showroom and chase the Monaco by heading towards another window. But it skidded, struck a concrete pillar, and came to an abrupt dead stop.
There was a huge explosion as the Cadillac’s gas tank blew. A rolling mushroom of orange fire incinerated the car, and everything living or mechanical within twenty feet. Then the first Cadillac’s tank blew, too, and the showroom was turned into a furnace. A woman with her hair on fire, her dress turned into flags of flame, went
screaming into the street. A man who didn’t even look like a man managed to crawl out on to the sidewalk, to lie there burning and shuddering and far beyond help. There was nobody else. The showroom blazed with a hungry rumbling sound, and all that anybody could do was stand and watch, and thank God that they hadn’t been inside.
Thirty-One
They stripped Skellett naked, tied him with cord, and locked him into the bathroom, which was the only room without a window. Rick and Daniel and Kathy went into the sitting-room and awarded themselves a large whiskey each, and sat there staring at each other in delayed shock and overwhelming relief. It was extraordinary to Daniel that the sun was still shining through the patterned net curtains, and that it wasn’t even lunchtime. They still had plenty of time to go to Butterfield’s for a salad and a glass of wine, or to the Cock’n’Bull for ribs. Not that any of them had the stomach.
Susie had seemed unmarked, and unhurt, although her hair was filthy and she hadn’t changed her clothes since she had been kidnapped. Daniel had gently bathed her, and given her milk to drink, and a child’s sedative, and tucked her into his own bed. She had fallen asleep within minutes, a child’s immediate and innocent reaction to being safe.
Rick yawned, loudly. ‘I’m sorry, he said. ‘I always yawn when the tension’s over.’
Daniel glanced over at Kathy, and wondered if she were thinking the same things that he was.
Rick said, ‘Those guys are madmen, right? I mean, they’re really crazies. Just like you said.’
Daniel nodded, and sipped his whiskey.
Kathy said, ‘I couldn’t believe the way we went right through that showroom. I’m going to have nightmares about that tonight.’
‘Pretty fancy piece of driving,’ said Daniel.
‘Why, thank you,’ Rick acknowledged.
‘Pretty fancy piece of lying, too,’ said Daniel.
Rick swallowed whiskey, and then sat up straight in his chair, pointing at his own chest. ‘You mean me? Is that me you’re talking about?’
That’s right. Rick Terroni, the happy-go-lucky stuntman and fortunate hitchhiker. Let’s say rather too fortunate hitchhiker. The hitchhiker who doesn’t quite know where he’s going, and doesn’t quite know where he’s been. The hitchhiker who’s got friends all over town and no place to stay. The hitchhiker who will happily spend half the night tuning a car for a dangerous and crazy expedition with total strangers, and never complain once.’
‘I think you’ve got me wrong, Daniel/ frowned Rick. ‘I think you’ve got me completely mixed-up.’
Daniel shook his head. ‘One thing gave you away more than anything else. Why did you insist that I held on to Skellett, and why did you make sure that I dragged him into the car? If you were nothing more than a hitchhiker, you wouldn’t care what happened to Skellett; in fact you’d probably be delighted to see the back of him. You certainly wouldn’t insist that we took him along with us, or take such obvious relish in tying him up and locking him into the John. You’re not what you say you are, Rick. I don’t quite understand what you really might be, or what interest you could possibly have in any of this. But you do have an interest, and I’d like for you to explain it to me.’
Rick grinned, and finished his whiskey, and gave both of them a cheerful smile. ‘You’re not satisfied you got the little girl back?’
‘I’m more than satisfied. I’ll never be able to repay you
for what you did today. I mean that. But I still believe that you’re lying.’
‘Well, there are lies and lies.’
‘Which particular kind of lies do you tell?’
‘I tell the patriotic kind of lies.’
‘Can there be such a thing?’ asked Kathy, caustically.
‘Of course. Any lie that you have to lie in defence of the American people and their right to be free, that’s a patriotic lie, you get me? And therefore forgivable at all times.’
‘Rick, said Daniel, gently, ‘I want to thank you with everything I possibly can for saving Susie today. For saving all of us. That was a wild and risky plan, but as it turned out, it worked. You made it work, with that Dukes of Hazzard driving of yours. But there’s something you have to know. We’re not just dealing with hoodlums and kidnappers here. We’re dealing with political conspiracy; something far greater and far more frightening than anything this nation had to face before. Leastways, that’s what we believe it to be.’
