by Ben Benson
“Five minutes,” he said to me in a squeezed voice. “I need five minutes to get away. If not, I’ll kill her. And you know I’ll kill her. Five minutes, Lindsey.”
He backed up, pulling the girl with him. He brought the gun up and held the muzzle to the girl’s neck. The girl’s mouth opened spasmodically but no sound came. Her knees started to buckle. Fleer put his arm around her and held her up.
I began to edge for the counter gate. “Where can you go?” I asked him harshly.
“Five minutes,” Fleer said, his voice taut. He kept backing. He half-dragged the girl as he moved for the fire door. I opened my holster flap and brought out the service revolver. I started to bring it up.
“I said I’d kill her,” he said, soft-voiced. “Move away from the gate, Lindsey.”
I backed away, the gun hanging loosely in my hand.
Fleer was up against the fire door now, the girl in front of him. The other girls, screaming, had skittered away from the door and were hiding behind the desks. Fleer reached behind him, fumbled with the lock of the door, and opened it. He moved back on the fire escape, gingerly, feeling his way, dragging the girl with him. The door slammed shut.
I ran. I clattered down the front stairs and outside. I started for the rear of the building with my gun cocked. But around the edge of it, instead of Fleer, the girl’s nyloned leg and skirt came into view. He was crouched behind her.
“Get back,” he shouted at me. He saw the cruiser. He lifted his gun and fired at the front of it, the bullet whacking into the radiator. He moved along, shielding himself with the girl. There was a gray convertible parked twenty feet away. He opened the door and backed in crabwise. He dragged the girl in behind him. He started the motor. The car swung around. The gate guard, who had heard the shot, was outside his shack, looking with bewilderment. The gray convertible swept by him. As it went through the gate opening and turned onto the road, I jumped for the cruiser.
I started it. I went through the gate and turned out after him. I had one hand on the wheel. The other hand was holding the radiophone. I called Troop E. I gave them the name, description and registration number of the convertible. I told them he was traveling south on Route 7, that he had kidnapped a girl and that he was armed.
He was ahead of me a quarter of a mile by now. I pushed the gas pedal down to the floor. The cruiser bucked and raced forward. But his car was fast. I saw steam beginning to wreathe around the hood of the cruiser. There was a smell of heat. His bullet had done damage. The motor began to skip and the steam thickened. Globs of water were hitting the windshield. The cruiser was coughing, slowing and falling back. We came to a hill and went over the crest of it. The distance was widening between us.
A half-mile straight ahead there was a route junction. I saw a pale-blue cruiser move across it and block the road. The gray convertible slowed, swerved onto the dirt shoulder of the road and skidded to a stop. The door opened and Fleer ran out. He slithered down the embankment. I drove up and jammed on the brakes. I was out of the car fast. I ran by the convertible, took one quick look, and saw the girl huddled, bug-eyed, in the front seat. I went over the embankment.
It was a field. The grass was high. I saw him running across it. I heard a siren whining in the distance. I stumbled through the high brown grass after him. He turned and fired twice at me. Haphazardly and frantically. His shots were wide. He came to a stone wall, waist-high. He vaulted over it and disappeared. There he stayed. I moved up, my gun still by my side. His head bobbed up from behind the wall. He took two more shots at me and missed. He ducked again. I was walking slowly now. He was only ten feet away.
“You’ve got one round left,” I called to him. “Use it.”
There was no answer from him. I couldn’t see him behind the wall. I moved the ten yards, came to the wall and stopped. I brought up my gun. My shoe was prodding the chinks of stone for a foothold.
“Hold it,” Fleer shouted. “Don’t, Lindsey. See? I’m throwing away the gun. I’m unarmed.” The pearl-handled revolver came twinkling over the wall and dropped at my feet. I kicked it away.
“Stand up,” I said. “With your hands behind your head.” He stood up, breathing rapidly, his breath wheezing. His fingers were laced in back of his head. I opened my handcuff case. I half-turned. On the road I saw two more cruisers parked. In the field, running toward us, were Hank Ravelli and Manny Green.
Ravelli came up first. He grabbed Fleer, twisted him around, and took the handcuffs from me. He locked Fleer’s arms behind his back.
“You had a chance to shoot him,” Ravelli said to me. “Manny and I were afraid you—”
“I know,” I said bitterly. “And I was thinking about it, too.”
CHAPTER 22
WHEN I drove home to Cambridge I saw a black Mercury in front of our house. I knew it was Captain Walsh’s. I came inside and kissed my mother.
“Where are they?” I asked.
“On the sun porch,” my mother said. “Captain Walsh is discussing something with your father.”
I went out there. They were looking at a page of notes. When my father saw me he put his pencil down. He said, “What do you think, Ralph? We’re going to write a book.”
“A book?” I asked. “What kind of a book, Pa?”
“A sort of history of the State Police,” my father said. “It’s going to keep me pretty busy. It was Captain Walsh’s idea.”
“A man needs a hobby,” Walsh said. “And I don’t know of anybody who’s more qualified to do a history of the S. P.”
“We can get a lot of stuff from the state archives,” my father said. “In the old days,” he continued reminiscently, “they called them the state constabulary. They rode horses then.”
“Which was before my time,” Walsh said to me. “But when I get through next spring, I can help your father with it.”
“You, sir?” I said.
“Why not?” Walsh said. “I’ve only got a few more months to go. I might as well start planning now. I can do the leg work, and go out and interview all the old-timers. I’d enjoy that.” He stopped and looked at his watch. “I have to go now. I’ve got to inspect a couple of substations.” He went to the doorway. He turned. “I’ll tell you right in front of him, Walt,” he said to my father. “You’ve got a good boy. He’ll make out fine. If he don’t get court-martialed first, he’ll end up as executive officer or captain-adjutant. You’ll see.”
I said, “Thank you, sir. I’m trying to make all my mistakes now.”
“We never stop making mistakes,” Walsh said. “But as long as they’re honest ones we get by. While I’m here, I might as well tell you, Ralph. You’ve got an extra day off. Don’t report back until Saturday night.”
“Thanks, sir,” I said.
“You did wrong in going after Fleer without orders. If you’d lost him, you’d have been discharged immediately. You know that now, don’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you know it when you went after him?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You brought him in. So I had no choice but to give you a day off. But I wouldn’t try it again. The Commonwealth spent too much money training you and I’d hate to take your badge away. Good-by, Walt. I’ll call you.”
He went out. I looked at my father. There was a smile on his face. “You can’t say Fred isn’t fair,” he said. “But what are you wasting time around here for? Ellen is home.”
“Ellen doesn’t want to see me.”
“For a tough cop, you’re a lot of mush when it comes to girls. How do you know she doesn’t want to see you?”
“She let me know, all right.”
“Look, when I was courting your mother—” He stopped and shook his head. “No, no more stories. I just say a man doesn’t know until he tries.”
So I went over to Ellen’s house. She answered the door herself. She was wearing a new dress with a flared skirt and her shoes had high heels.
“If I’m not welcome,” I said, �
��you can shut the door quick.”
She kept it open. “I was waiting for you,” she said. “You’ve been home ten minutes. But it seems like hours since your car drove up.”
“If I had known—” I started to say.
“Oh, there are so many things you don’t know. You’re the biggest hick in the world, sometimes. Let’s go for a walk.”
She stepped outside. We went down the stairs and walked along the sidewalk. I scuffed at the leaves.
“I was over to your house before,” she said. “I was talking to Captain Walsh. He’s a real grizzly bear, isn’t he?”
I grinned. “Hard but fair, as my father always says.”
“And sensible, too. We were talking about how a man selects his company and how it shows his true character. Then we talked about Manette Venus. You still insist she wasn’t a bad girl, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I said.
The breeze whipped at her black hair. She pushed a wisp away from her freckled little nose. “That Andrew Fleer,” she said. “He married Manette when she was only eighteen. She’d never been away from Ames, Iowa. He brought her to Chicago. I’ll bet anything she didn’t know what he was doing when he tried that blackmail thing.”
“Most likely not.”
“After she divorced him, she ran away and hid in Cleveland under an assumed name. But she didn’t know how to hide. He found her. He forced her to contact you, to pick you up. I kept thinking what a sap you were to fall for it. But you weren’t a sap. She was a nice girl, wasn’t she?”
“Yes, but not as—”
“I know.” She smiled. “You’re going to say she wasn’t as nice as me. She probably was, maybe nicer. You wouldn’t know in such a short time. Anyway, I’m sorry I was so thick-headed about it. Or would you call it bad-tempered?”
“Quick-tempered,” I corrected. “And I like it on you. It’s part of you and I’m used to it.”
We kept walking. She said, “Manette must have loved you a great deal. Perhaps I sensed it and that’s why I was so jealous. But don’t be too hard on me. I made plans to marry you a long, long time ago.”
“Then as long as we’re talking about it,” I said, “let’s follow through.”
“That’s what I was leading up to so subtly,” she said, smiling mischievously. “But don’t hand me generalities, trooper. I can be tough too. Lay it on the line. When?”
“I don’t know.” I grinned. “I thought the girl usually set the date.”
“Then you’ve made a deal,” she said. “You’d better be ready in thirty days, morning suit, ring, best man, and all. Okay?”
“Okay.”
She stopped. “Well?”
I stopped. “Well, what?”
She sighed. “At least,” she said, “you could kiss me.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” I said. “But here? In the middle of the street?”
“Here,” she said firmly. “So pucker up, trooper.”
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22