by Graham Marks
“I thought I told you to stay with Shady!” Fred yelled back, unexpectedly free of the dogs, who’d stopped harassing him for a moment, distracted by Trey’s arrival on horseback. But, considering his situation, Fred didn’t wait for an answer and made a hasty, ill-judged leap for the back of the horse, which failed.
“One more time, Mr. Pisbo!” A quick glance over his shoulder told Trey they were running out of time, luck and whatever else they might need to make a successful getaway. “One more time…”
Fred Pisbo’s second attempt, fuelled by a surge of last-moment adrenaline, nearly pulled Trey off; but somehow Fred got up and Trey stayed on, urging the horse into action and galloping back to where he could just see Velma, waiting half-hidden in the bushes.
“Run, Velma!” Trey shouted. “Run back to the car!”
“She here, too?” Hanging on for dear life, Mr. Pisbo tried to look past Trey, but couldn’t. “I’m gonna…”
Trey never found out what Mr. Pisbo’s threat might have been. What he heard instead was another pistol shot, followed by Mr. Pisbo screaming that he’d been hit.
“Keep ahold, Mr. Pisbo!” Trey kept on kicking the horse as hard as he could, expecting something bad to happen to him any moment; then, as he slowed to bring the horse round onto the path leading to the door in the fence, it occurred to him that he was slap-bang in the middle of a “shoot first, ask questions later” situation straight out of a Black Ace story. Which, when you were right in the middle, was a lot less fun than reading about it, in his opinion.
A sudden feeling of anger flooded over him, that these people, whoever they were, thought they could get away with acting like that! If they didn’t give a second thought to shooting him, what would they be prepared to do to Alex? Without really thinking through what he was doing, Trey dragged the pistol out of his belt and loosed off three or four wild shots behind him as he urged the horse up the path.
Mario got to the window in time to see a horse with two people on it galloping away towards the stables. He saw one of his boys loose off another shot, which, if he wasn’t much mistaken, connected with the larger person on the horse.
“About time one of you hit something!” Mario leaned out of the open French window, just as someone began returning fire, rattling off a number of shots in quick succession, no one actually counting as bullets spanged into stonework and smashed windows. Nate grabbed Mario and flung him to the ground as two more people, automatics appearing in their hands, joined those outside, letting fly a few rounds.
Then, silence.
Mario got up off the carpet, a look of utter disbelief on his face. “Who would do this? Who?”
“We have enemies, Mario.” Nate stood, brushing himself down, thinking he was glad Esther and Alex were out of the house. “Want me to make a list?”
“What I want is those people, Nate…and I want to know who sent them here. Get Tony to take some of the boys out in a coupla cars. Somebody has gone too far.”
“D’you think this was cooked up by Dunne?” Nate stopped on his way to get Tony Burrell. “Could be that security guy of his, Joe Cullen, trying to help his boss, right?”
The corners of Mario’s mouth curled very slightly. “Bring Dunne with you when you come back, and let’s you and me ask him…”
26 CATCH AS CATCH CAN
Velma had watched, frankly amazed, as Trey did the seemingly impossible and rescued her father – while being shot at! Talk about a hero. Then, as they’d made good their escape, she’d seen her father get shot, grabbing at his leg and screaming. It was horrible.
Frozen to the spot, and wide-eyed with amazement, she felt like she was in a movie as Trey did a real cowboy thing and fired over his shoulder. She’d half expected to see a horde of Indians chasing after them, but had come to her senses and turned tail, running after Trey and her father like she’d never run before, feeling completely terrified, overexcited and not a little awestruck by what she’d just seen.
Trey took the somewhat spooked horse along the path towards the open door, the thunder of its hoofs loud on the packed earth. All he could hope was that Mr. Pisbo, who had one arm around his waist, would manage to stay on till he got to the car.
He’d seen Velma just before he’d started shooting and she’d better be right behind him as he was sure they wouldn’t have much time to get away. He didn’t know what he’d do if she got caught, because right now priorities had changed. The thing was to get as far away from Fox Lake as fast as they could – and get Mr. Pisbo, who was making terrible noises and cursing about his leg, to a hospital. The job of rescuing Alex had just taken a back seat.
The horse flew through the trees on the other side of the fence and it took all Trey’s strength to stop him from galloping past the car and off down the road. He managed to turn him, and pull the sweating animal up to face a stunned Shady Jones, who had been getting more and more puzzled the longer Trey and Velma were away and the more guns he heard being fired.
“What you done stole a horse for, boy? Sound like we in big enough trouble already.” Agitated, Shady was doing a nervous jig, with Banjo, his lead attached to the car’s door handle, joining in. “And what the matter with Pisbo?”
“He got shot, Shady, in the leg…” Trey slid off the horse – now intent on clipping grass after all his exertions – leaving a pale Mr. Pisbo behind. “Help me get him down.”
“What foolishness you get up to, Pisbo?” Shady joined Trey and began helping Mr. Pisbo off the horse, uninjured leg first. “Man, lookit you! Clothes torn up good, big old hole in your leg – who you been in a fight with? Must at least had to be a bear, with a gun.”
“Cut it out, Shady.” Fred Pisbo put an arm around his friend’s shoulder and leaned heavily on him, wincing. “Help me over to the car…and Trey, go make sure Velma’s okay, quick! We gotta get a move on…”
Trey left Shady and Mr. Pisbo and ran back through the trees; coming the other way, her legs a blur, he saw Velma and felt a huge sense of relief flood over him.
“Where’s my dad?” she yelled. “How is he?”
Trey came to a halt and began running back to the car with Velma. “He got shot in the leg…Shady’s getting him to the car…you see anyone following?”
“I don’t know, I didn’t look.” Velma slowed down as they reached the car and she saw Shady helping her father down onto the running board, his right trouser leg covered with a heavy, reddish-brown stain which had to be blood; she looked like she was about to burst into tears, but at the last minute didn’t. “Oh my… Dad, are you okay?”
“It’s not as bad as it looks, sweetheart…” Mr. Pisbo did a really bad impression of a smile. “Honest.”
“My opinion?” Shady reached into the inside breast pocket of his jacket and came out with a small chromed flask in his hand. “It worse than it looks – you want a drink, Pisbo, as I sure do.”
“What d’you mean, Shady?” Velma ran over to her dad. “Why’s it worse?”
“I ain’t no doctor or nuthin’, but one thing I do know, Pisbo here? He don’t look to me like a man can drive a car…” Shady twisted off the flask’s cap, took a sip and handed it to Mr. Pisbo. “And as I never learned me how to do it, we in trouble with a big old capital ‘T’. Am I right, Pisbo?”
Fred Pisbo accepted the flask and nodded. “’Fraid so.”
Trey hung back, his head buzzing with one thought: did he dare? Sure, he did kind of know how to drive, but the trouble was he’d never driven on a road with other cars, even back roads such as those here; but on the other hand this was a real emergency. He had to take the chance.
“I can drive,” he said.
27 ROAD RACE
The Chrysler 50 was a whole different ball game to the Ford Model T pick-up down on the Circle M, but Trey was determined he was going to do this. No matter that he’d stalled once or twice (the clutch on the Chrysler did not need working nearly as hard as the cranky old Ford’s) or that he’d crashed the gears a couple of times, fo
rgetting the exact sequence he needed to do things in.
Trey was concentrating so hard on not wrecking Mr. Pisbo’s car that he daren’t look at the speedometer to see exactly what speed he was doing, but he thought it must be quite a lick. The fastest he’d ever driven down on the ranch was 15 mph, which could hardly be called getaway speed, and, now in third gear, he knew he was going much, much quicker than that.
Up front next to him sat Shady who, Trey was all too aware, had his legs braced against the floor, hands gripping the seat like it was a life-jacket and he was on the Titanic. Shady was the picture of a man waiting for an accident, an accident he was more convinced was going to happen than anything else in his whole life. His attitude did not instil confidence.
In back, Mr. Pisbo was attempting to staunch the flow of blood from the bullet wound. A cursory inspection had shown it to be what Trey had read was called a “through-and-through” wound, the bullet having gone in and come straight out again. Whether or not it had hit anything vital was not something the stories in Black Ace magazine had equipped Trey to ascertain.
Velma and Banjo were back with Mr. Pisbo. After having a pretty good strip torn off her for taking the gun in the first place, Velma was now making herself useful by reloading her father’s Colt with fresh ammunition from the box he kept in the glove compartment.
“Are you sure you’re gonna be okay, Dad?”
“Completely…” Her father grimaced as he tightened a tourniquet, made of a none-too-clean piece of cloth they’d found in the trunk. “Unless I get shot again – mind pointing that gun away from me, Velma?”
“Sure.” Velma did as she’d been asked. “You only have another eleven, no, twelve bullets left, Dad.”
“It only takes one to get the job done, as my old boss Jeff always used to say – ouch!” Mr. Pisbo grunted with pain as the car hit a pothole in the lane and he was jolted about. “Trey!”
“Sorry, Mr. Pisbo!” Trey, gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles hurt, could feel the sweat running down his back.
“You’re doing great, Trey, really…”
Shady snorted. “You believe that, you must still believe in Santy Claus and the Tooth Fairy.”
“Mr. Jones, you are so mean! Tell him, Dad!”
“Mean? Me?”
“Will you quit beefing, you two, and let Trey drive?” Mr. Pisbo’s voice sounded strained and edgy and everyone quietened down.
“Dad…?”
“I’m fine, Velma…but I’ll be a whole lot better when I get to see a doctor.”
“I be a whole lot better,” Shady muttered, “when I get me outta this car.”
“Keep this up and I’ll have Trey stop and let you out, Shady, I will.”
Shady hissed and sputtered to himself like a kettle boiling dry, but he stayed quiet, allowing Trey to concentrate on the job in hand, viz, not crashing.
Things had been going quite smoothly for some few minutes when Trey risked checking the speedo. To his amazement, it showed the needle hovering uncertainly around the 45 mph mark; and then he glanced in the rear-view mirror. Coming up very fast behind them he saw a sleek, dark red Pontiac, the driver and passenger both wearing fedoras. Although he was well aware that the fedora was a popular style of hat with people other than mobsters, the fact that Mr. Pisbo had just been shot by possible hoodlums whilst trespassing made Trey feel things were about to take a turn for the worse.
It also made him speed up.
Even though there was a sharp bend fast approaching, Trey took the car right over the other side of the road and into the curve, without bothering to slow down even a little. The driver of another car, coming the other way, had to make an impromptu detour onto the verge to avoid a collision.
“What you doing, boy? This ain’t no dumb fairground ride!” Shady made a grab for his door handle. “Tell him to let me out right now, Pisbo…think I’ll live longer if’n I walk back to Chicago!”
“Calm down, Shady!” Mr. Pisbo grunted with pain as he leaned against the pull of the bend. “Trey, what’re you doing, son?”
“Behind us…that car…” Trey gritted his teeth and pushed the accelerator pedal down a bit further. “Sure it’s following…there’s men…in hats!”
“He’s right, Daddy!” Velma was on her knees and looking out of the rear window. “And I can see four of them!”
“There they are!” Tony Burrell yelled, catching a glimpse of the Chrysler 50 as it disappeared round a bend in the twisty road. “Don’t lose ’em!”
The men who’d taken off across the lawn after the horse and riders had missed nabbing them by moments; but as luck would have it, they’d been in time to see Pisbo’s car as it disappeared round a bend. When Tony and his crew had come by minutes later, they’d told him what make it was.
It had not taken very long to catch up with the Chrysler. But, just as Tony’s driver was about to take a straight line through the corner coming up, he’d had to jam on the brakes and wrestle with the steering to dodge a head-on with some car being driven back onto the road from the verge.
Vibrantly cursing weekend drivers at the same time as he expertly fought the skid, the driver brought the Pontiac under control and, with a squeal of tyres, back into the chase. “Just cos this ain’t the city, don’t mean you gotta drive like you was on a farm, right, Tony?”
“Sure…but when I said back there not to lose them, I also meant, don’t kill us in the process, okay?”
“Ain’t killed no one yet, Tony,” the driver grinned. “Leastways, not in an automobile.”
The plain-clothes Bureau of Investigation officer, driving the car which had been coming down the narrow road in the opposite direction, took a very deep breath and blew it out. “Did you see who was behind the wheel of that first car?”
The man sitting in the passenger seat shook his head. “Nearly having two head-on collisions in as many minutes, I was kinda otherwise engaged; who was it?”
“I’d swear on a stack of Bibles it was some kid…” The driver, who had stalled the car, tried starting it up again, the engine finally turning over on the third attempt.
“You pulling my leg?”
“Nope. And I suppose you didn’t get a look at the men in the second car either?”
“Can’t say as how I did, why?”
“Because, you want my professional opinion – based on me recognizing someone – what we just saw, that was a car chase. You think any place round here has a phone we can use?”
“Back a piece, maybe. Who’d you recognize?”
“Tony Burrell.” The driver checked his mirror and began to turn the car round.
“Good spot! I’m sure we passed a house I saw had a phone line…”
“Hey – I can’t see ’em!” Velma, still glued to the rear window, cheered. “I think they might’ve hit that car we just missed!”
“Velma, sit down!” Fred Pisbo grimaced, the state of the road – and style of Trey’s driving – bouncing him around rather too much for comfort. “There’s bullets all over the darn place here – finish loading that pistol and give it to me, okay?”
“I saw my whole life flash all in front of me, Pisbo!” Shady shot a quick, squinty glance over his shoulder. “And that ain’t a thing a man such as myself ever wants to have happen to him…and,” here Shady shook a finger in the air, in the manner of a politician on the hustings at election time, “and, dang if I don’t want to negotiate you paying me a substantial amount of danger money for putting me through this when I should be somewhere else entirely!”
“Put a sock in it, Shady, you’re distracting Trey from his driving with all your kibitzing and arm-waving.”
“Where do I go now, Mr. Pisbo?” Trey could see a junction coming up and, for all he knew, either way could take them heading straight for Canada.
“We going to hell in a handbasket, that where we going!”
“Shady!” Mr. Pisbo, sounding gruff and in pain, grabbed a hand strap as Trey braked. “Hang a right, so
n, hang a right!”
Trey, who now knew what the expression “he had his heart in his mouth” truly meant, was about to change gear when he checked the rear-view. “Oh no…”
“What’s the matter?” Velma leaned between the front seats. “We running out of gas?”
“No – they didn’t crash, Velma…they’re right behind us again!”
“You keep your eyes on the road ahead, Trey; everything’s going to be just…” Whatever it was Fred Pisbo might have been about to say was drowned out by a loud explosion, which turned out to be Velma; figuring that her dad was in no condition to shoot straight, she was hanging out of the window and taking a potshot at the car behind them.
“You get back in the car right now, Velma!” Fred Pisbo made a grab for his daughter, but was flung the other way as Trey swerved to avoid another large pothole.
“Don’t worry, Daddy, I can handle this.” Velma, her hair whipped here and there by the slipstream, looked back over her shoulder. “You just stop yourself from bleeding to death!”
“What we s’posed to do about us not bleeding, little girl!” Shady, feeling he’d gone way past the point where panicking was going to be of any use at all, lit a cigarette, on the principle that it might help calm him down some. “None of us exackly bulletproof!”
“Did you hit anything, Velma? Did you?” Mr. Pisbo was finding it hard to credit that a situation he thought was bad enough could be getting worse. “Because we don’t know for sure that those people in that car are actually following us, Velma! We don’t know that!”
After having to slow down to turn the corner, Trey was beginning to pick up speed again. Not so long ago he’d been feeling a tad miffed because Mr. Pisbo had left him behind when he’d gone off to scout out the Twelve Oaks estate for any signs of Alex, thinking how exciting it would’ve been to go with him.
Well, his gramps was very fond of telling him that you should be careful what you wish for in case you get it, and now he surely had got some excitement. Lead was flying, he still didn’t know what had happened to Alex and his chances of being home in time for an early supper with his father were looking slimmer by the minute…