by Dane Hartman
Harry saw as he continued through the rooms, that clothes were strewn about the floor. By interrupting the orgy, he hadn’t allowed its participants time to get themselves altogether dressed again.
He reconnoitered the remaining rooms, coming at last to the exit; the door was still swinging open, attesting to the speed with which the rapists had fled. Harry could hear the sound of motors revving up. Mounting a series of stairs that led back to ground level, he saw he was only a short distance from the parking lot.
The first car he looked for was the pink MG. It was hard to miss even in the dark. Already it was starting its bumpy way in the direction of the rutted road that would take its passengers to safety.
Though his energy was flagging, Harry drove himself as hard as he could, until he was within range of the MG. He fired first at the front left tire, then at the back one. For a moment, he wondered whether he’d succeeded in puncturing either. He was rewarded with a satisfying bang as the tires exploded, an event followed immediately by the car listing sharply to the right. By momentum alone, it kept bouncing ahead, but it must have been as clear to the driver as it was to Harry it was not going to get far.
With the MG crippled, Harry had little difficulty in catching up to it. Then, ignoring the brambles, he skirted the edge of the woods, along the road until he could get in front of the slowly advancing vehicle. It looked rather ridiculous as it lurched noisily ahead, like a drunk staggering down the street.
Shielding his eyes with his free hand from the glare of the headlights, he took up a position in the road and sighted his .44 directly on the driver. Should the driver be so foolish as to try to run him down—not an easy thing to accomplish with a car he could barely control—Harry could easily leap back off the road.
But the driver realized the odds were very much against him. The MG shuddered to a halt.
“Out of there,” Harry called.
The driver, who had a mop of tossled blond hair and the air of a slightly dissolute beach-boy, promptly complied with the order. Not so his passenger, who while not black, was very swarthy.
He lingered a few seconds too long for Harry’s liking. When he finally did get out of the car, he held his hands in back of him. Harry knew he had a gun. A blink of the eye, and he might have missed it. It was possible he may have fired even before the man brought it into view.
In any case, while his friend watched in horror, the man was hit and went down instantly, shrieking in agony. A bloody hand grasped hold of the front left wheel fender as though he meant to raise himself upright, but the effort failed. He collapsed, blood pouring from his chest into the ruts of the road. He struggled against death, but death wanted him now, and took him.
“You killed Dan, you killed Dan,” the man said over and over again, incredulity in his voice. He stooped down to examine the body, but there was no question that Dan had expired.
Just then another car came into sight. Its headlights put the pink MG, its terrified driver and its dead passenger, into a brutal relief.
The driver of this second car stopped suddenly when he saw what lay up ahead. Harry heard voices, then the slam of car doors. Evidently, whoever the occupants of this car were, they’d decided on making a run for it. Harry spotted two figures clambering up an embankment as they sought to lose themselves in the woods.
Harry could see clearly because the men had neglected to kill their car lights. As a result, the high-intensity beams kept a wide swath of land and roadbed wonderfully illuminated. Aiming his Magnum at a cluster of pines toward which the pair was headed, he called out for them to halt.
One did, the other hesitated, then broke into a run. Harry fired at the man’s feet, spewing rocks and earth.
“Over here, assholes, slowly, with your arms up.”
They came, with baleful expressions and a mournful step, till they were within a couple of yards of Harry. In the meantime the blond was so overcome by his friend’s death he was incapable of any action whatsoever.
“Give me your names.”
The blond identified himself as Sandy Lyman. The old distinguished looking fellow said he was Doctor Jonas Pine. He placed a great deal of emphasis on the word doctor. Moreover, he sounded deeply affronted he had been placed in such a humiliating predicament. Harry wasn’t interested. He turned to the man who’d been with the doctor, the one who’d seemed so anxious to escape.
“And who might you be?”
The man had his face half-averted from Harry.
Harry said, “Look at me and tell me your name.” He was tired and growing impatient. He wondered how he was going to keep these three prisoners from getting away while simultaneously tending to the traumatized woman still in the shelter.
The man muttered something.
“I don’t have all day, asshole, what is your name?”
“Andrew Dardis.”
Harry proceeded to handcuff the man who called himself Dardis, sensing he was the most dangerous. He then herded the three into his car and called in on his radio for help.
But as he sat in the car, waiting, Sugar materialized from the shelter, still disoriented and naked, moving from side to side, and occasionally tripping as she made her way in their direction.
“Will you look at that!” said Sandy, momentarily distracted by this astonishing sight. “She is fucking out of it, man.”
That was an understatement. He motioned to her, but there was no indication that she was aware of anything outside her own bewildered mind.
The doctor was shaking his head and saying, “What she needs is a controlled environment.”
Dardis wasn’t talking at all. He didn’t even appear interested in Sugar or her nakedness. A more melancholy man Harry had never seen.
If he went out to help the woman, he risked losing his prisoners. As Sugar seemed completely unresponsive, there was no question somebody would have to assist her. She might very well wander into the woods and hurt herself. Harry didn’t want to lose Sugar. She was his star witness, after all. Actually, she was the only witness.
To Dr. Jonas Pine he said, “Go out there and bring her in. I am going to keep a careful eye on you so don’t get any notions of skipping out on me. Is that understood?”
The doctor straightened himself, and said, with as much dignity as he could muster, that such an idea would never enter his mind. “My chief concern has always been my patients,” he declared.
C H A P T E R
E i g h t
When Harry left Santa Rosa, it was with the sense that something positive had been accomplished. Sugar was being treated in the ER of the local hospital. Three of the men who’d drugged and raped her were waiting to be booked in a holding cell.
Three hours after returning to San Francisco, Harry was back at his office in the Justice Building. It was late at night, and there were few people about. For some reason, the damn phone kept ringing.
Hoping to finish some obligatory paperwork, the constant interruptions had him greatly irritated. In any case, usually the caller wanted to speak to someone else.
But the fifth call was somewhat more important.
“This is Brevoort,” the man on the other end said.
“Brevoort?” Then he remembered. He was the county sheriff who’d taken custody of the suspects. “Oh yes, what can I do for you?”
“I am afraid I have some news you’re not going to like.”
Harry’s heart sank. He had a feeling he knew what was coming.
“You’re not unique in that respect,” he said. “Tell me.”
“The D.A. got here around an hour ago and after consulting with the Superior Court Judge, felt he had no choice but to release the three suspects you brought in.”
“What the hell?”
“There were certain problems, you see,” Brevoort said, trying to sound sympathetic.
“Problems?”
“Well, the absence of a warrant for one thing and the fact that we had no proof linking any of the three to the alleged molestat
ion and rape of this woman, what’s her name?—ah, yes, Lucille Finehurst, nicknamed Sugar.”
Harry struggled to restrain himself from cursing out the son of a bitch. “A warrant has nothing to do with this. I was stopping a crime in progress . . .”
“Yes, I am sure you were. But unfortunately, we have no corroboration of that.”
“No corroboration? And what about Miss Lucille Finehurst, nicknamed Sugar? There’s your fucking cooperation!”
Brevoort hesitated for a moment. “That, I am afraid, is another problem. Your Sugar, soon as she recovered consciousness, took a walk. Said there was nothing the matter with her and split A.M.F.”
“A.M.F?”
“Adios motherfucker, an expression I understand some doctors use when a patient leaves without their authorization. There was nothing they could do to prevent her from leaving.”
“You could have kept her there, she’s a principal witness. She’s the fucking victim, for Chrissakes . . .”
“Please, Inspector Callahan, I know how difficult this must be for you, but really there was nothing we could do. It seems Sugar, Miss Finehurst, declined to press charges. Says she went on her own volition and the whole thing’s her fault. She says that, what can we do? So the D.A. determined there was really no case, and it would only be a waste of the county’s money to seek an indictment.”
Harry didn’t care to listen to any more. He hung up without letting Brevoort say goodbye.
But there was more to come. The following morning another officer attached to the Santa Rosa police force left a message for Harry to call him. The note said that it was urgent.
Urgent or not, Harry was not permitted the opportunity to phone him. An emergency call had just been received by the dispatcher to the effect that a gunman was stalking the exclusive Golden Gateway apartment complex. The description of the suspect came close to matching the man Harry had arrested the night before—Sandy Lyman.
Harry couldn’t believe Sandy would be so stupid as to risk a second confrontation with the police just hours after being released from jail on a technicality. But it was possible Sandy was acting from desperation, impelled to madness by the slaying of his good buddy, the Samoan.
Maybe it was just chance, maybe it was fate, but when Harry arrived at the Golden Gateway complex, he found the same trio of officers that had greeted him on Pier 43½.
“What we’ve got here, Inspector, is a lot of confusion,” one of them said.
“That has a familiar ring to it. Could you do a bit better than that?”
“A woman name of Kaye Sissler lives up there, you see, where that window is?” He pointed to one of the apartments visible from the mall where they were standing. Behind them, a crowd was assembling, peering up at the same wide picture window, hoping to get a glimpse of the drama taking place. The only problem was there was nothing to see. The beige curtains were parted to allow a look into the room, but there was no one to be seen in the room. Several people in the crowd were debating what had happened. While everyone had their definite opinions, the fact was that no one knew for sure, and that included the police.
“Is she still in the apartment?” Harry asked.
“No, before anyone could stop him, some guy seizes her and hauls ass out of there. We’ve got men scouring the whole complex searching for them, but so far no luck. They could be anywhere.”
“Thanks, you’ve been a great help.”
Where in this maze of townhouses, restaurants, shops, and offices was the most likely place for a kidnapper to drag his victim? In his deranged state, Sandy, if Sandy it was, might not give a damn. But Harry had a feeling he would choose a part of the complex through which a great many people circulated. Rather than display his gun openly, he might prefer to keep it hidden, but still trained on the woman. Naturally, she would do as he instructed, pretend to be a friend, maybe a lover.
Harry decided to let the other officers carry out their hunt in the nooks and crannies of the Golden Gateway complex. He, on the other hand, crossed a pedestrian bridge and made his way through the throngs of morning shoppers. He had a good memory for people’s faces and the capacity for rapidly scanning a large number of them at one time.
Even a short distance away from the site of the Sissler apartment, no one seemed aware of the kidnapping and the atmosphere was one of complete normalcy. By plunging through the crowd with so little regard for those he jostled, he caused something of a stir. A few of those who got in his way shouted curses after him.
Harry mumbled his apologies, not that it did any good, and kept going, staring into faces like a madman, always looking for a mop of blond hair, but never failing to ignore those who wore hats or caps that might serve to cover over their hair.
It appeared to be a futile endeavor. It was possible the suspect and his captive had already left the premises and were well on their way out of the city, though presumably not in a pink MG.
Nonetheless, he kept on looking until his eyes began to throb. He thought he would soon start hallucinating. More than once, he believed he had Sandy in view, but it always turned out to be some other man with a woman who did not in the least resemble a kidnap victim.
He was about to give up when he casually glanced behind him and saw a man in a checkered short-sleeved shirt accompanied by a dark-haired rather pretty woman. The man had blond hair though he wore a visored cap angled sharply down over his brow. He maintained a firm grip on the woman, his arm circling her waist. His eyes darted from side to side in anticipation of impending danger. He was speaking to the woman whose face was pale and drawn. No wonder, an experience like this, Harry thought, could age one years in a matter of hours. He could see she was trembling, that while she was valiantly straggling to maintain her composure, the effort was exhausting her. It looked entirely possible she’d simply collapse in a faint.
Sandy—for Harry was certain now that it was the man he’d arrested the night before—had not yet spotted him. He was no doubt looking for uniformed police officers, not those in plain clothes.
Harry noted he was holding his jacket slung over his arm, and he guessed this was where his gun was, within easy access, and pointed right on the woman. He was guiding her down a set of stairs and onto a plaza that was filling with more and more shoppers. To risk a shootout here might well endanger a great many innocent people. Sandy, being as desperate as he was, would very likely show no hesitation about sacrificing other lives if he believed he was likely to forfeit his too.
All at once Sandy saw him. He paused for a fraction of a second, uncertain what he should do next. He wheeled about, forcing the woman to do the same, and began climbing back upstairs, brushing aside anyone who happened to be in his way.
Harry pursued them. He managed to close the distance between them with little difficulty. The woman with Sandy couldn’t run as quickly as he wanted her to. She stumbled at one point, a black pump went flying off her left foot. She might very well have twisted her ankle for she shrieked with sudden pain, causing those around her to ask her if she were all right. Sandy meanwhile hadn’t the leisure to be solicitous and he started to drag her, heedless of her missing footwear and injured ankle.
There were too many people in the way and still no one knew what was happening. In any case there wasn’t all that much space on this walkway to maneuver. Harry called out to Sandy, addressing him by name, demanding he surrender.
Instead, he did what Harry feared he would. Tossing away the jacket dangling off his arm, he brandished his weapon and pressed it close to the woman’s breast. Those in the vicinity screamed and tried to back off.
Harry had his .44 out, but it didn’t seem it would be of any use to him.
“I’ll kill her, I swear I’ll kill her if you don’t put that down and get out of here!” Sandy shouted, his voice hoarse and venemous.
Just then, before Harry had a chance to react, there was a loud blast. Blood coursed over the front of Sandy’s checkered short-sleeved shirt and he pitched over the railing
of the walkway and plummeted to the mall below. The woman was shaken but unhurt.
Predictably, the chaos that ensued in the wake of the killing made it impossible for Harry to determine who had shot Sandy. Wherever he looked, people were scrambling for shelter, understandably convinced further shots would follow though none did. There was a great uproar. Some were screaming in panic, others from horror, others from plain fear. But collectively, in this public atrium, their screams made it seem as though the Golden Gateway complex had become the temporary home of a tribe of aborigines conducting strange nocturnal rites.
By the time the uniformed officers arrived on the scene and began their investigation, no less than twenty possible witnesses were prepared to say what they’d seen. And virtually all of them declared that while they might not be aware of the context of the situation they had no doubt that Harry had been the one to fire on the kidnapper.
Harry thought it of little significance that he was believed to be Sandy’s killer. When, later that day, Bressler called him in to discuss this latest incident, Harry pointed out that his gun had not been discharged and he was certain the ballistics tests would bear him out. Not that he felt any remorse over Sandy’s death, but he wanted it made emphatically clear that he would never risk opening fire when doing so would imperil the life of an innocent victim.
Bressler, however, was not so easily convinced. “We’ve already run a ballistics test,” he said. “That’s why I called you in here. Sandy Lyman was shot by a .44 Light.”
Harry knew what was coming. But he protested that further ballistics tests would clearly show that it was not his .44 that had been responsible.
“I don’t doubt you, Callahan. But that’s not the point. It’s common knowledge you busted Lyman yesterday and because you failed to take into account certain legal niceties, he was released only hours after you arrested him. Now he’s dead. Just like Judge Gallagher, Marc Torio, and Morris Page. And now add to the list Lyman. You know what kind of publicity we’re bound to get? No matter what our tests finally show, you’ve got fifteen, twenty people out there willing to testify it was you who fired the gun. They may think you’re a hero, they’re undoubtedly as unreliable as most witnesses are, but imagine the field day the papers are going to have with it?”