Night Talk (32 page)

There was no sign of Bob.

“He would have killed him,” Ali said. She was asking for confirmation that the poor man wasn't burning to death.

“Before the fire.” He didn't say that to comfort her but as confirmation to himself. It was a sure thing Bob never left the house—his truck was still in the driveway. The only way the killer could have gotten into the house and roamed around to find them was to get past Bob.

The people who had gathered on the street in front were mostly staying back out of fear of an explosion. They would be wondering if someone was still in the house, but Greg doubted anyone in the neighborhood actually knew the man well enough to know Bob's name.

A car pulled up near Greg and Ali, a Ford Taurus, and stopped in the middle of the street. A man got out, leaving the driver's door open and the car running as he ran to join the crowd near the house. As men were coasting the camper down the driveway to keep its gas tank from going up, the fire flared and the big front picture window exploded. The men abandoned the camper and got away from the front of the house.

Ali started in the direction of where they had parked their car and Greg grabbed her arm to divert her.

“The guy might be out there,” he said. “Let's take this to our car.”

They were on the driver's side of the Ford Taurus idling in the street. He got behind the wheel and she got into the rear passenger seat behind him to avoid having to run to the other side of the car and get in. He put the car into gear and started backing up when the guy who had gotten out of it yelled and ran toward them. Greg hit the gas still going in reverse and the Ford careened down the street backward, sideswiping a parked car before he got the vehicle turned around and headed front end first away from the guy who was yelling for them to stop.

They had parked two blocks away. They quickly got out of the stolen car as they came up and stopped behind the Honda. The angry car owner was not far back, running for them.

“Must be a damn track star,” Greg said.

He tossed the man's car keys into the bushes to make sure the guy couldn't pile into his car and give chase. They got into Franklin's loaner with Greg behind the wheel and Ali next to him. As Greg fumbled getting the key into the ignition, Ali screamed as Greg's door was jerked open by the owner of the car they'd stolen.

“Bastard!” the man shouted.

Greg put the car into gear as the man grabbed at his neck. As the car jerked forward, the guy got his fingers on Greg's shirt collar but his grip broke as Greg hit the gas and the car picked up speed faster than the man's legs could pedal, and he let go and stumbled and fell.

Ali said, “God—I hope he doesn't have a spare key under his seat. He's madder than hell. Greg, do you think we can—is there anything—”

“Bob's gone. And I'm sure before the fire. Anyone who opens a door to that killer is doomed. Bob got what he's been running and hiding from most of his life. A visit from Big Brother.”

“I—I just don't … I can't—”

“You and Agent Scully. But she was getting paid by the network to be a diehard skeptic.” He glanced back in the rearview mirror as they put road between them and the man whose car they had borrowed. “He's gotten back into his car but I don't see headlights so there's still hope. For sure, he's not a happy camper.”

“Let's hope he doesn't find his keys until morning. He's mad enough to hunt us down and ram us.”

A white van with a utility company emblem on it appeared on the main road just ahead of them.

“He'd have to get in line,” Greg said.

 

62

The white van was waiting for them with its headlights off where the residential street met the highway back into town. Greg hit the brakes, not sure which way to go, but the decision had been made for them. They couldn't go back into the residential area without running into a lynch mob and they couldn't turn right and head into town because the van was waiting there.

The only place to go was to make a left turn and head in the opposite direction, up the foothills and into the mountains.

“Where's this road go?” Ali asked. “Is there a town?”

“I'm not even sure there are any houses. It's a national forest.”

He had no idea as to where the road went or even how far it went but knew that the area got more and more deserted and desolate the farther they went in. Many of the roads in the mountains ended up as dead ends.

The moment they made the turn toward the foothills the van followed them and its headlights came on.

“He's going to kill us,” Ali said.

That appeared to be self-evident.

“He's a patient bastard,” Greg told her. The killer had been waiting in case they didn't burn up with the house. “Now he's forcing us away from town.”

Staring out through the back window, Ali said, “He's not catching up; maybe it's just a coincidence, another van.”

“No, he's pushing us up the mountain where the road's narrower and bordered by steep cliffs. The van's bigger than this car. He's planning on pushing us over a cliff.”

“What are we going to do?”

“We can't turn off. I've been in the San Gabriels before, the side roads are mostly dead ends. I'm not sure any roads go all the way over the mountains. This one may peter out, too.”

“Getting out and running is better than being pushed off a cliff.”

“Not if he has a gun.”

Greg didn't say it, but he couldn't imagine the killer without a gun. He looked up at the rearview mirror, at the headlights behind them. There was no turning back. No way to go except heading up the mountain and hope for a break.

“Can we outrun him?” Ali asked.

There was fear in her voice, but not panic. He felt surprisingly calm. Escaping the burning house had used up all the fear he had.

“No way. Franklin chose the car because it wouldn't pop out, not for speed. He's going to ram us. The faster we go, the more likely we'll be unable to keep the car under control when he hits us.”

He tried to imagine what he should do when the killer in the van made his move. The van would come up behind them and … then what? Hit their car in the rear? Not likely, at least not square-on bumper to bumper because it would just push the small car forward and potentially disable the van by getting its front grill pushed into the engine fan.

A cop on Greg's show once described how bumping a car in the rear off center during a high speed chase, hitting the left or right rear corner near where the taillights are, caused the car to spin out of control. It wouldn't take much for the larger vehicle to knock the Civic out of control by hitting it in a rear corner. Would the killer try that? Maybe not. Police cars commonly had strong bumpers or push bars that kept the engine from being disabled. More likely he would push them off the road by hitting the Honda on the side with the side of the van. That way the van wouldn't be immobilized.

The van kept its distance. The killer was in no hurry. As they went up the desolate road that wound up the mountain the van stayed back a hundred feet.

“He's still hanging back,” Ali said. “What's he up to?”

“Waiting for the right spot. I think he'll come up beside us when there are cliffs on the right.”

“And send us over. Let's stop and run for it on foot.”

“If that's what you want, we'll do it, but if he has a gun…” Greg shook his head. The terrain was too steep and rocky for them to outrun bullets. “I'd rather take my chances in the car.”

“He can pull up beside us and shoot. We'd be sitting ducks in the car. Or just push us over the side. How can we stop him?”

“I have an idea.” He described how a bump to the rear corner of a car could throw it out of control. “The same goes for the front corner. At some point when we have nothing but cliffs on our side he's going to gun it to come up beside us and push us off. As he comes up, I'll swerve and hit the van in the right front corner and send it out of control.”

The plan made him breathless. It assumed everything would go perfectly—including keeping the smaller car under control after it was rammed by the bigger one.

She stared at him as if she was amazed at his audacity and shook her head slowly, in wonderment. “I hope to God all that information you learn working radio's graveyard shift isn't going to get us killed.”

They waited, with Ali turned in her seat to watch the headlights, and Greg keeping an eye on the rearview mirror.

He realized there were flaws in his thinking but couldn't get his head around what the problem was. The road was only two lanes, one in each direction, with almost no shoulder on either side. It had been carved out of the mountain, leaving a wall on the left side. On the right side there would be short spurts where the terrain was extremely steep just a couple of feet off the pavement with nothing but a short metal guardrail between the asphalt road and the cliff.

The guardrails weren't much protection. They were only a couple feet high, the sort that would wake you up if you started sideswiping them, but they wouldn't keep a car receiving a direct hit from going over.

The van's high beams went on.

Greg said, “He's looking ahead, waiting for a section where there are cliffs running long enough to—”

“He's coming!” Ali screamed.

The van sped up, riding the center line of the road. It seemed to cover the distance between them in a flash.

Greg jerked the wheel, sending the car into the oncoming lane, and jerked it again to keep the car from going all the way across the lane and hitting the rocky wall that paralleled the road, missing the van.

A frantic glance behind him only showed blinding headlights and he jerked the wheel again, careening to the left and then again to the right. As the car swerved it rocked on its tires and for a moment appeared ready to go over, then settled back on four wheels.

The van was suddenly beside them and Greg slammed on the brakes, sending the Honda into a skid as the van hit it, the van's passenger door striking the left front quarter panel of the car, sending it into a spin around and around and into the side railing with a clash of metals.

Suddenly the noise of screeching tires and bending metal stopped. For a frozen moment Greg couldn't move, couldn't think. Ali cried out beside him and his nervous system kicked back on.

“Cliff!” she said.

The Honda was still in the northbound lane but was now facing the opposite direction, the driver's door pressed up against the railing. The cliff was on his side and started a couple of feet after the railing. As he looked out all he saw was a dark emptiness.

He jerked around in the seat. The van was behind them. It had spun out also and was now sideways against the rocky mountain wall across the road. The van driver's door was against the wall. The passenger door was open, indicating the killer had climbed out that way. The man was out of the van and running toward them.

The Honda's engine died.

Greg stared at the steering wheel, stupefied.

“He's coming!” Ali screamed.

Greg turned the key again and the engine came on and started to fade and came on again, rocking the whole car for a second.

He put the car in reverse and turned in the seat to look out the rearview mirror as he hit the gas.

“What are you doing?” Ali shouted.

The Honda hesitated for a moment and then kicked into gear, lurching back and suddenly accelerating. Greg couldn't keep the car going straight back. The Honda screeched as metal ground against metal, as the driver's side scraped the guardrail.

The man running full speed up behind them darted to the left to get out of the path of the car, throwing one foot over the rail and then the other foot, straddling the narrow space before the cliff.

Greg hit the brakes and shoved the car into “drive.” The trans rumbled and the car skidded backward for a second, then leaped forward. Behind them the man came back over the railing and ran for his van.

 

63

They went back down the road with Greg keeping a heavy foot on the gas and no idea as to whether the killer and the van were on their tail.

There were no headlights behind them and they saw nothing coming up from behind them.

“I didn't see what happened to the van,” Ali said.

“It was on the shoulder with the lights on. Maybe it blew a tire when it skidded, got stuck or whatever. Something made him get out of that van and come at us on foot.”

“Maybe he thought that was the best way to kill us rather than trying to shove the car over the cliff.”

That hit home. “You're right. He wouldn't want to risk banging up the van until it didn't run, leaving him stranded out here in the middle of nowhere. He had something in his hand. I'm not sure what it was; it didn't look like a gun but it must have been a weapon.”

Greg suddenly turned to the right onto a road that was even narrower than the mountain highway. He turned off the car lights and leaned forward in the seat to get closer to the windshield and navigate with moonlight. The road had thick vegetation on both sides.

“What are you doing?”

“Hiding.”

The pavement quickly ended and he continued on the dirt road.

“You shouldn't have turned off. If he comes behind us we'll be trapped,” she said. “This dirt road isn't going to go anywhere and we won't be able to get around him.”

She was right. He questioned his impulse to get them off the main road and hide. He did it because he was certain that the killer was coming down the mountain without his lights on. There was enough moonlight to do it.

“He would catch up with us on the main road because he's crazy. He's the guy who went nuts and tried to kill me on a public street. Even if we made it to the bottom I don't want to end up on city streets in a wild car chase that would attract cops.”