WEST ON 66

by James H. Cobb

  "Okay? Will these guys know that you're heading for Saint Louis?"

  "He will."

  "The big man?"

  "Yes. He's called Mace Spanno."

  The girl hesitated as she spoke his name, as if invoking it too often might summon him up like the devil. Lisette King­man didn't frighten easy. She hadn't even blinked at doing ninety down a storm-wracked road in the middle of the night. But Mace Spanno scared her. I had a hunch he might be the only thing in the world that could.

  "What do I call his friends?"

  "The other man in a raincoat was Nathan Temple. The one in the army jacket was Randy Bannerman. He's pretty much just a driver. Temple, though, is . . . bad."

  "As bad as Spanno?"

  "Close."

  I nodded, matching faces and names in my mind, recalling and burning in the details of heights, weights, postures, and attitudes for later reference.

  "Okay, Princess," I said. "Saint Louie it is."

  She straightened a little. "You'll still take me?" Then she paused for a moment. "Why?"

  She was a girl who could get a lot of mileage out of one syllable. Just now, she was asking me to justify my putting my neck on the line for a total stranger I'd just met along the road.

  It was a pretty good question, too.

  "Because I said I would. And when I say something, I gen­erally mean it."

  I shifted my weight in the seat and got my feet slotted in halfway comfortably between the floor pedals. "It may take us some time, though. We're going to stay put awhile and give your friends a chance to get way the hell out ahead of us."

  "When they realize we're not on the highway anymore, won't they come back looking?" she asked.

  "I'd doubt it. By the time they figure we've ducked out on them, it'll be too late. We could have cut down any one of a hundred different side roads or town streets around here. Granted these guys know where you're headed, their smart-money move will probably be to try and pick us up there. Do they have any idea about exactly where you're going in Saint

  Louis?"

  There was another flash of that wry smile. "At the moment, I don't even know exactly where I'm going in Saint Louis. That's another of those things I have to work out."

  "Okay, Princess. It's your show."

  I wasn't going to push any points yet. We'd let this deal solidify a little more first. Reaching over, I turned the ignition key to auxiliary and switched on the radio. The night wave skip was coming in, and a little fiddling with the tuner brought in some blues from downriver. Faint but clear, it was good music to stare out into the night by.

  A couple of pieces played through before I glanced at the girl again. Lisette was curled up against the passenger door in her coat, already asleep. A car seat shared with a stranger was apparently the safest haven she'd known for some time.

  A lawman, at least any kind of a one that's worth a damn, is always on duty. The mere fact that I was on vacation two thousand miles away from my home beat was irrelevant. I'd just had a hot case dumped in my lap. Why was she being hunted? The real reason, not this crap about an inheritance. I only had fragments to work with yet, but one in particular stuck in my mind. Back at the Dixie, Lisette had said that one of her pursuers was a good wheelman.

  Wheelman is the underworld slang name for a fast getaway driver. A very handy guy to have around if your profession happens to involve bank jobs, smash and grabs, and rubouts.

  "Car," I asked quietly, "what in the hell have I gotten us into?"

  The '57 didn't have any more of an answer than I did.

  I lit a second Lucky and sent a stream of smoke out of the half-opened window. Over the radio, the soft cry of Miles Da­vis's trumpet echoed bleak and bittersweet in the night.

  MISSOURI

  Saint Louis (Pop. 816,048; alt. 445', radio stations: KMOX-1120kc, KSD-550kc, KXOX-630 kc, KWK-1380 kc; several auto courts on western approach over US 66 . . .

  I drove south to Saint Louis the same way I'd have walked a combat patrol north of Seoul, nervous and not taking anything for granted. I'd said that Spanno's smart-money move would have been to go on ahead once he'd lost us, but that didn't necessarily have to be the case. He and his boys could have staked out 66 somewhere down the line, waiting for us to hedgehop past again. Accordingly, every set of headlights in my rearview mirror felt like a gun barrel aimed at the back of my skull.

  Once in Springfield and again in Litchfield, I bailed off the highway, driving figure eights through the rain-washed back streets to see if we were being followed. And at a picnic ground at Mount Olive we lay doggo again, waiting to see what might come crawling in out of the night. Nothing did.

  We moved on, the eternal cornfields a flickering, shadowy fringe along the edge of our headlight fan, an occasional win­dow glowing golden in a gaunt American Gothic farmhouse.

  At about one o'clock in the morning, we crossed into Mis­souri. Driving through the brick fortress entrance of Chain of Rocks Bridge, we followed the odd curve of the spidery span as it arced across the black waters of the Mississippi. Beyond the bridge and the big deserted amusement park that shared its name, we picked up the Saint Louis beltway that circles the city to the west.

  Lisette slept for most of the drive, and after she awoke she didn't have much to say, not even about our destination for the night. Somewhere along the line, I'd started handling the detail work. Fortunately, I had a pretty good idea about where we could fort up.

  The Coral Court is over on the southwest side of town on Route 66. Set back in a grove of pin oaks, the motel is a low, sprawling art deco affair, all glass brick and coral tile. It has all the conveniences, too, including a separate, fully enclosed ga­rage with an inside entrance for each room.

  This feature probably makes the Court an ideal rendezvous for couples who want to sample a few hours of unobtrusive paradise together. It also makes the Court a good place to dis­appear into if you have somebody on your tail. I'd noted that point when I'd stayed there on my run to Chicago.

  When I went in to sign the register, the sleep-soggy night clerk resolved my concerns about how I was going to set up the accommodations.

  "We only got one left and it has a couple of twins," he said, squinting at me in the dim office night-light.

  I made a show of thinking about it. "Ah, it's late. I'll take it anyhow. You got a pay phone around here anywhere?"

  "Yep, by the ice machine. But we got phones in all the rooms, too. Pay here at the desk for long-distance."

  He didn't ask if I was alone, and I didn't say. And when I filled out the registration card I listed my '57 two-door as a '56 coupe and transposed a couple of digits in the license number. They were the kind of mistakes a tired man might naturally make. They also might be enough to throw off anyone who might come around with a ten spot and a hankering to check out the guest list.

  Unloading was easy enough. I had one suitcase and Lisette had what she stood in. As I pulled down the door of the parking bay, I took one final look out into the night, just to see if anyone was looking back.

  The unit was clean and well maintained, but with the same slightly old-fashioned futuristic look as the motel's exterior. It also had the slightly frayed around the edges feel a motel room gets between redecorating. There was a load of tension in the atmosphere as well. There always is when a man and a woman share the intimacy of a living space for the first time. The girl still hadn't said a word about how I'd set us up for the night, drawing her air of cool detachment more tightly around her even as she tossed her coat on one of the beds. You'd have to look pretty deep to see the trace of scared little kid in her eyes.

  "This will be all right," she commented offhandedly.

  "It'll do for now," I replied, swinging my B-4 bag up onto the luggage stand. "I hope you don't mind having a roomie, but with your friends cruising around out there I don't think your being alone is such a hot idea."

  "They aren't my friends and, no, I don't want to be alone."

  "Okay then,"
I nodded toward the suitcase. "If there's any­thing in there you can use, be my guest. I'm going out for a few minutes to check around and see how secure we are here. Keep the doors locked until I get back."

  Lisette nodded, and again that calculating expression flitted across her face. "You seem to know a lot about this kind of business."

  'I do. Hands-on experience in a little place called Korea."

  I gave the knob an extra tug to ensure the lock had caught before turning away from the door. To tell the truth, I was already pretty sure no one had tailed us here, but no sense in taking any chances. The line about checking things out gave me a good excuse to get away for a few minutes, though. It also gave Lisette an opportunity to snoop through my stuff to her heart's content.

  Not that she'd find anything out of the ordinary beyond a gun-cleaning kit and a spare box of shells in a side compart­ment of my bag. My only tie-ins with the law were my badge and identity card, both of which were in my hip pocket right now. During the next day or so I'd have to smuggle them into their usual hiding place under the '57's spare tire.

  I noticed rents torn in the cloud cover as I walked toward the front of the motel, and a few wet-looking stars glinted in the sky. The last droplets of rain were being wrung out of the dying storm, and there was a softness to the air. Somewhere along our night's run we'd caught up with the retreating edge of summer, and I tugged the zipper of my jacket open.

  The phone was where the clerk had said it would be, beside a humming Coke cooler and under an arc light that drew a few tentative moths. I stuck in a dime, and a few minutes later another telephone rang out on the coast.

  Let's see, two o'clock here. Midnight on the coast. Give him two rings for his wife to poke him awake and tell him to answer the phone. One more for him to swear. Two more to stagger down the hall and ricochet around the corner. One more to knock the phone off the hall table and swear again and . . . now.

  Seven states away, someone snarled incoherently into the mouthpiece. The long-distance operator tentatively inquired if anyone there would accept a collect call from Kevin Pulaski. She acknowledged the second snarl as an affirmative and fled.

  "Hello from beautiful Saint Louis, Jack."

  "Pulaski, you baby-faced little Polack bastard! What in thee hell is the idea!"

  "Yeah, man. Nice talking to you, too."

  Few people have ever been named better than Jack Le Baer, aka Jack "the Bear." He looks like one, he sounds like one, and after a long, hot day in the LA basin he frequently even smells like one. He can also identify on sight 90 percent of the habitual criminals in the greater Los Angeles area and probably tell you where they're hanging out, who they're hanging out with, and what they're planning to do next. He's also never taken a dime of graft in his career (at least on any felony counts), and for sure he's never taken an ounce of shit off anyone, at any time, for any reason.

  This latter point probably explains why, after fifteen years of working the streets of Los Angeles as a city cop, Jack had still been carrying a silver badge. It's also why LA County was damn glad to get him when he decided to swap his police shield for a deputy's star.

  You see, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department is the glue that holds together the patchwork of small, not so small, and pretty damn big police jurisdictions that make up the greater LA area. We provide backup for the big guy and little guy alike, and we fill in all the cracks between. We go where we're needed, when we're needed. We don't wear white hats, and we don't ride horses. We do wade hip-deep through all of the same kinds of crime, crud, and corruption encoun­tered by any major police force in the world. And considering that that this is California we're talking about, we even have a few depravities unique unto ourselves.

  Three years ago, when I was only about halfway through my Sheriff's Academy training, Jack had come lumbering down the line one morning at roll call, sourly eyeing the front rank of gray-clad cadet deputies. When he came to me, he stopped, aimed a banana-sized finger in my face, and said, "This one. He looks like a punk." A week later and I was infiltrating a gang of car strippers under his direction, working as part of the intelligence detail attached to the county's Metropolitan Divi­sion. We've been partners ever since.

  "Do you have any idea what time it is here, Pulaski?"

  "Whatever it is, it's two hours earlier than it is here. Look, Jack, I'm onto something and I need you to run some people through Records and Identification for me."

  "Okay, kid. Just a second and let me get a pencil. . . . What do you mean, 'I'm onto something'! You're supposed to be on vacation, you knothead!"

  I would have to be patient. The Bear doesn't function too well when aroused rapidly from hibernation. "I am, Jack. I just sort of stumbled into something out here."

  "Well, stumble out of it again! Where the hell are you? Saint Louis? Saint Louis has cops; let them handle it and let me get back to sleep!"

  "It's not that simple, Jack. I'm not sure just what I've got going here. I need this dope and I need to give somebody a fix on me."

  That brought him awake real fast. Jack had been doing po­lice undercover work back when I'd still been in second grade. He knew that in effect I was saying, "Here's where you start looking for the body if I disappear."

  He was suddenly all business. "Okay, kid. Let me have what you got."

  I gave him the word: the Dixie, the girl, the men, the de­scriptions, and the story of how we got here and where we were. All boiled down to as few words as I could manage.

  "That's the package, Jack. I've got no real idea yet on just what the hell is going on, but I seem to have a chance to get inside of the deal. I'm going to play along until I can get a fix on the setup; then maybe we can call it in to the locals."

  "Right. These hoods look like the real product, huh?"

  "Yeah, about as badass as they come. Beyond Los Angeles R and I and Intelligence, see if you can get any kickbacks out of Chicago PD, the Illinois attorney general, and the FBI. These guys have got to have some kind of a mob connection."

  "How about the skirt?"

  "The biggest 'I don't know' in the deck."

  "She's a looker?"

  "She'd knock you dead, Jack."

  "Ah, Christ. I should have known. Watch your ass, kid. You're right; you're into something really screwball back there. And I'm two goddamn thousand miles away, so I won't be around to bail you out if you mess up."

  "I'm not planning on messing up. Just get me those kick­backs. I'll be making another touch with you within the next twenty-four hours."

  "You'll have it. And, Pulaski, one other thing." A faint plaintive tone crept into my partner's voice. "Couldn't you have called this shit into me at the office tomorrow?"

  "Are you kidding, man! Do you know what time it is here? When you get into the office in the morning, I'm probably still going to be asleep."

  A nun-stunning blast of profanity issued from the phone, followed by the sound of what might be the demolition of a small piece of furniture. I grinned and replaced the receiver in its cradle.

  The second I opened the door of the motel unit, I knew that I was going to be in for a real interesting time. The room lights had been turned off, all but the small shaded reading lamp between the beds. Lisette was lying on the inside bed, appar­ently having taken advantage of my absence to use the shower. On emerging, however, she hadn't bothered with the clothes she'd been wearing.

  Somewhere during her two decades plus, Lisette Kingman had learned that a man's shirt is one of the three sexiest things a woman can wear. That old white cotton of mine had never looked better. Its tails barely concealed the upper curves of her thighs and did nothing at all to hide the long satin-skinned legs below. The upper two buttons had been left undone as well, artfully drawing attention to the firm high-riding mounds of her breasts.

  Her hair had been brushed into a sheening brown plume that trailed over her shoulder. A touch of fresh lipstick had been added, and I could catch a spicy hint of perfume in the room'
s atmosphere. Wild rose. She'd been watching the door like a Siamese cat curled up in front of a mouse hole.

  I was being set up for something soooo bad here.

  "Everything all right?" she asked casually.

  "Yeah, no sign of anybody. I think we're okay for now."

  I checked the door lock again and set the chain, tossing my jacket on the unoccupied bed. Matching her, casual for casual, I crossed over to my suitcase and dug out the Colt's cleaning kit. Settling down in the room's single easy chair in the far corner from the beds, I began to conduct a ritual.

  I carry my gun tucked inside my waistband, using what's called a Maqui holster. That is, just a circular rawhide thong looped around my belt and back through itself to hold the pistol in position. It's good for concealment, and again, it doesn't look "cop," both of which make points for me. But it does expose the weapon to a lot of perspiration, and perspiration is murder on a gun.

  I've seen veteran plainclothes officers walk up to the firing line to qualify, only to find that sometime during the past month their service piece had sweat-rusted solid from a lack of attention. Of such men it may be said that they died because they were too damn stupid to stay alive. I don't intend to be buried in their corner of the graveyard.

  Lisette watched as I popped the clip out of the Commander and jacked the action a couple of times to verify that it was clear. "Do you always carry a gun?" she asked.

  "I got into the habit in the army and never got out of it."

  "Are you still in the army now?"

  "Nope. Got out awhile back. Looking around now for some­thing new."

  "Headed out to the coast?"

  "I live out there. I was just back visiting my brother in Chi­cago."

  That's how the old cons tell you to do it. Keep your story simple and as close to the truth as you can keep it. Just don't tell them what you don't want them to know.