Over Her Dear Body (24 page)

I heard his voice outside. “Nurse, you won't need to remain here. I'll arrange for the patient's removal.”

That sure sums it up, I thought. Fischer didn't want any other ears listening to what I might have to tell him, it seemed. He didn't know that not even his ears would be listening.

The door opened, and he came into the room. It was Dr. Fischer, all right, the heavy-set, bulbous-nosed guy I'd seen at the
showcase
and talked to at the County Hospital after Lime's death. A worried look was on his face as he stepped inside, glancing toward the bed. His brows pulled down when he noticed the empty bed, and then he spotted me from the corner of his eye.

“Wha—” The word didn't quite get out of his mouth.

He was turning toward me as he gasped the word, but by then I was swinging. The heavy glass pitcher was moving at the end of my arm, coming down from over my head, and the heavy base caught him about an inch above his ear. The pitcher broke, water splashing over him and the floor, and he went down silently.

His clothes were a bit loose and short for me, but they fit well enough, and in two minutes I was dressed. The hole in my chest had opened, and I could feel blood seeping into the bandage, but otherwise all was okay so far. I said to Elaine, “We'll go out together. Come on.”

She looked pale. Pale, but game. And ready to go. I opened the door and went out first. The corridor was empty. Elaine stayed beside me as we walked down the corridor. I could feel the muscles in my legs and back tightening more with every step. “Oh, golly,” Elaine said, then was quiet.

We made it to the door. Outside, street lights threw dim illumination onto the trees lining the side street and onto the hospital steps. I glanced back as we went through the wide doorway. Behind us, the corridor was still empty. I breathed easier, feeling we had a good chance now.

We walked to the corner, then turned left on Maplewood Way. Two blocks away was my Cad. At least I hoped it was there. “Step it up,” I said to Elaine.

“But can you—”

“Baby, if I have to, I can run. Let's move.”

We didn't run, but we did use up plenty of energy walking from the hospital. Those two blocks ahead of us seemed like two miles. We made one block with no trouble. Then I heard voices behind us, shouts back at Martin's. I couldn't make out what they were yelling, but I could guess.

We covered another half block before I heard the car. When I looked back, I saw it rip from the hospital lot into the street. And right then I didn't think about anything but Elaine, couldn't think about anything but her. For a moment my mind was a blank while I tried to figure where she could go, how she could get away. Maybe into one of the houses—but they would know she couldn't be far away. And my Colt was back at the hospital, with my clothes. That wasn't all though. If the Cad's keys weren't on the floorboards where I'd dropped them before passing out.... I refused to think about it.

The car raced into the street and turned—away from us. They hadn't seen us, just knew we were gone. It was a break. But they'd be back.

“Run, baby,” I said. If we got to the car, if we could have even half a minute, maybe we could make it.

Elaine trotted ahead of me, staggered and almost fell. I didn't stop, kept going past her, building up speed, heart hammering and the ache in my chest spreading clear down into my stomach. Behind me her heels clicked on the sidewalk, getting fainter.

I reached the Cad, yanked the door open and ran my hand over the floorboards, searching for the keys. For agonizing moments I couldn't find them. But then my fingers touched them, and I grabbed the things and stuck the ignition key into the switch as I slid under the wheel.

For a miserable moment I remembered the bomb that had earlier been under the hood, but I jammed my teeth together and turned the key. The engine caught, roared. Elaine reached the car as I slipped it into gear. We were parked facing Martin's Hospital, and as Elaine opened the door on her side a car skidded around the corner three or four blocks away and raced toward us, lights looming in the dim street. It had come around the corner so fast that it swerved sharply before straightening out; I heard its tires scream over the asphalt.

We couldn't make it. There wasn't time for a U-turn; they'd be on us in seconds. There was no question about who it was in that car now, either. I made up my mind as Elaine flopped on the seat beside me. At the moment when she landed, before she even had the door closed, I jammed my foot down on the gas. The Cad leaped forward, pressing us both back against the seat, and the sudden lurch slammed the door violently shut. The other car was less than half a block away when I shot out into the street toward it, angling straight at them from the curb. I reached for the lights with my left hand, and gasped aloud at the momentarily forgotten pain that lanced through my chest. But I forced my hand forward, grabbed the knob and pulled it out when we were only yards from the car. As my lights blazed on and splashed over the car I jerked the wheel right. If that driver didn't veer away, we'd still crash—but he did.

He must have hit his brakes and jerked on the wheel with the suddenness of panic because the car's tires shrieked and it swung hard to the right, skidding, heading for the curb. We missed them by inches.

And I saw the man at the wheel as we went by.

It was the moulting-hawk face of Joe Navarro. His mouth was wide, as if he were yelling. Another man was next to him on the front seat, one or more others in the back. I couldn't count them, but I saw movement behind Navarro.

Then we were past, the sudden yank I'd given the steering wheel sending us plunging toward the curbing. I wrestled the wheel back, and we straightened out, swaying. “Watch them,” I snapped at Elaine. “Keep your eye on that car.”

She moved on the seat beside me, twisted to look behind us. “They—they...” She stopped, gasping. But then after some shuddering breaths she said, “They're sideways, stopped. But—now they're backing up.”

I'd counted the blocks from where we'd been. We'd covered three so far; before they were on our tail and moving we'd have another block or more on them. It wasn't enough. Not by five or ten miles it wasn't enough.

I kept my foot down to the floor. We were still gaining speed, and on a straight stretch I knew the Cad would outdistance them. But this was far from downtown L.A., an area I wasn't familiar with. All I knew was that the road curved off toward the Santa Monica Mountains, but I didn't know where any of the side roads went. I couldn't afford to take one that led to a dead end, either; not without a gun. Already we were out of the residential area, starting slightly uphill.

“Do you know where we are?” I asked Elaine.

“I've been on this road. But I don't know. I'm so—I don't remember.”

“You'd better remember.” I stopped, dizziness climbing up into my head again. It seemed as if the headlights dimmed. I should have been flat on my back in a bed, and the exertion of running, the strain of tugging at the steering wheel, had drained away most of the strength I had left.

“Elaine, if I head off the road or—or something, grab the wheel.” I could still see the speedometer dial and the needle was at sixty, falling back. Without being conscious of it I had slowed down. I pushed my right foot forward again.

“Shell—oh, Shell, don't ... pass out on me.” Her voice was high and tight.

“Slap me. Slap the living daylights out of me.”

I didn't have to tell her twice. She leaned over and walloped me with the back of her hand, cracked it into my cheek again. It felt as if a truck had run over my head, but when my skull stopped wobbling everything was bright and sharp once more.

She had her hand hauled back for another one, but I yelled, “Hey! That's enough. Don't knock me clear out through the door.”

She clasped her hands together, squeezing them tight.

“Honey, I'm sorry,” I said. “About this ... you know what I mean. There isn't time to tell you.”

“Maybe—maybe they won't hurt us. Even if they catch us.”

“No, baby. Take my word for it. I know who's back there, and exactly what they'll do if they catch us. They'll kill us.”

And right then, as if to prove me absolutely correct for once, a bullet crashed through the windshield high at its left. Immediately afterwards the sound of a shot reached me, then a second and third crack carried to us through the air. Only the first slug hit the car; but there'd be more.

I glanced at the rearview mirror. The other car was much closer than it had been. When I'd slowed, fighting dizziness, they must have closed the gap between us. They were still too far away for accurate shooting, but even without enormous accuracy, it was shooting. And good enough, too. My eyes flicked to the bullet hole and back to the road.

Three more shots were fired in quick succession, and I heard one slam into the back of the Cad. I shoved my foot hard against the accelerator, watching the rearview mirror. We were pulling away from them. What seemed like a long, stretched-out minute went by, then the engine coughed. The car slowed, and there was another coughing sound that jerked the Cad. We slowed still more—then the engine caught and the speedometer needle began creeping up.

Elaine said, her voice twisted in her throat, “What was that?”

I licked my dry lips. “I think that last slug hit the gas tank. I'm not sure. If it did—” The engine coughed again. I looked at the gas gauge. It registered empty.

I didn't try to explain any more to Elaine. We had a few seconds, that was all, so I said, “When the car stops, I'll swing it broadside—”

“But it
can't
stop. They'll—”

“Listen to me! When it does, you run—
away
from the Cad. Down the road. Maybe you can get ... somewhere. If only there was a grove of redwoods, or—the hell with it. One thing, they can't be sure I don't have a gun, which I don't, so when we stop they'll be a little cautious, at least. Maybe you can make it.”

For a few moments she was quiet. Then she spoke again. And, surprisingly, her voice sounded almost calm, controlled. Again it was the low, throbbingly lovely voice I'd first heard on the phone—it seemed a year ago. She said, “There aren't any redwoods, but about a mile ahead there's a park or grove of trees of some kind. Maybe a lot more or less than a mile. I just remember seeing it once. Could we—I don't know. Hide there or something?”

“What kind of park? If it's a little dinky pile of—”

“No, a few acres, but with dirt roads and all.”

“If we make it, that's big enough.”

“Can we make it, Shell? Can we get that far?”

“That slug must've hit pretty low. There's still a little gas slopping around—and still slopping out—but some of it's getting to the engine. I don't—”

The engine coughed again.

Elaine said, “I think we're near...” She didn't finish, leaning forward to stare through the windshield.

And that was when the engine coughed for the last time—and died.

Chapter Nineteen

I threw the gear shift into neutral, let the Cad coast while I pressed the ignition key over, grinding the starter. It was no good. We'd had it.

The road bent to the right. We coasted around the curve doing about fifty miles an hour. And slowing.

“There it is!” Elaine pointed. “That little road there.”

I saw it. It was about a block away, just before the street curved left again, a narrow road leaving this one at right angles. Even at our reduced speed, it was going to be a narrow squeak to swing into it without skidding left, up against tree trunks visible in the car's lights—especially with one hand on the wheel. But I wasn't going to slow down, and there was a good reason.

When we'd hit that bend in the road, the lights of the car behind us had disappeared from the rearview mirror. For a few more seconds that car would be out of our sight—and we also would be out of theirs. I held my right hand far over on the wheel's left, eased it around and then jerked it the rest of the way. We skidded into the road, almost into those tree trunks, but straightened out in time. The dirt road went straight ahead for well over a hundred yards, then turned.

I shoved in the light switch and we coasted forward in darkness. I didn't have to tell Elaine this time; she was looking behind us. I'd made the sliding turn at close to fifty miles an hour, but that sharp turn had slowed us almost to a stop; we were making less than twenty now, the needle dropping.

“They went by,” Elaine said. For some reason she was whispering.

“They'll be back. When they see the road empty ahead of them, they'll find this turnoff. But it gives us a little time.”

The Cad was barely moving. I eased to the right of the narrow road and swung the wheel left, putting on the brakes. The road wasn't completely blocked, but at least another car couldn't pass in a hurry.

I should have felt exhilarated that we'd made it to here, but I wasn't. I had been able to see in the headlight's glare that this “park” wasn't at all what I'd hoped it would be. It was little more than an area of widely separated trees, mostly open space. I hadn't seen any place where two people could duck—except behind a tree, which was virtual suicide under the circumstances. So it looked as if all we could do would be to run like hell. But I knew those guys behind us could run faster. Certainly faster than Elaine, and I wasn't about to leave her now.

Oddly, I felt quite calm. As the Cad stopped moving and I started to open the door and leap out, through my mind were running the things that had happened so far, all the close squeaks. I'd had everything come at me from knives to dynamite, from guns to...

All of a sudden a burst of energy and adrenalin and probably eighteen things I never heard of slammed into my bloodstream and lit up my brain like a torch.

Dynamite.

The dynamite bundle I'd taken from under the Cad's hood was still in the luggage compartment. Still there exactly as I'd found it, electric detonating cap and wires still attached. And in the trunk, too, was plenty more wire—not the most perfect for what I had in mind, maybe, but it would carry an electric current. I threw the door open and slid out, grabbing the car keys in my right hand. I shouted words at Elaine as I jumped to the rear of the car and got the trunk open, grabbed the four dynamite sticks and the other coil of wire near it, raced to raise the Cad's hood. I couldn't explain it well, or fully, but I gave her the general idea.