The Tin Collectors

by Stephen J. Cannell

  “If you’re smart, Scully, you’ll tell me where you are now. Otherwise, this will go down hard.”

  “I want you to call Bud Halley, my old CO in L.A. He’s a good cop. Tell him what’s going on. Tell him I need to see him and to get his ass up here.”

  “Where are you, Scully?”

  “Stick by your phone. I’ll let you know.” Shane hung up and looked at Alexa.

  “Pretty good,” she said, nodding. “He’ll have his flak vest buttoned and be ready to roll.”

  They moved off the dock and skirted the water’s edge until they got to a wire fence that went ten feet out into the lake and separated the castle’s property from its neighbors. Shane climbed out on the fence, U-turned around the end post, then came back toward shore, and dropped off onto the sand inside the grounds.

  After a minute Alexa repeated the maneuver, landing on the sand beside him.

  They crept away from the shoreline and ran up toward the house, both silently cursing the full moon as they sprinted under its silvery glow. They hurried across the vast expanse of lawn, then hugged the wall, moving around the castle house slowly. They could see a row of ground-level windows throwing streaks of light out across the dew-wet lawn. They moved in that direction. Once they got to the windows, Shane dropped to his stomach and looked through a narrow glass pane into what looked like a huge billiards room.

  “Uh-uh,” he whispered, rising again and moving on. Alexa followed quietly in his footsteps.

  On the south end of the house, he found the ground-level window he was looking for. When Shane glanced inside, he saw that it opened into a basement laundry room. He took out the .38 S&W and tapped loudly on the window with the gun butt.

  “Whatta you doing?” Alexa hissed. “Why don’t we just ring the fucking doorbell?”

  “If somebody’s down here, I’d rather find out now. Better to be outside than trapped down there in the basement. I’m gonna break the glass. If we get a ringer, get small.”

  She nodded, then watched as he slammed the gun butt hard into the pane, breaking it. The sound of tinkling shards hitting the cement floor froze them. They lay prone on the grass for several long minutes, waiting.

  Nothing.

  Shane reached through the glass, unhooked the latch, and swung the window open. They slipped into the laundry room and dropped onto the basement floor. Once inside, they could hear the faint sounds of opera music playing upstairs.

  “Okay, let’s work our way through this place, starting with this side, then moving east,” he whispered.

  She nodded, and they opened the laundry-room door and found themselves in a narrow, concrete-walled corridor with a vaulted ceiling. The corridor had no carpet, windows, or wall decorations. They crept along the tile floor, trying to keep their shoes from echoing on the polished surface. They checked doors as they went, mostly storage rooms and a basement bathroom. Then they were back at the poolroom Shane had seen from outside. The room was medieval in design, with old lances and shields on the walls. Two full, man-sized suits of armor on stands stood guarding a pair of double doors.

  Movie posters hung on every wall, each one featuring a well-known Logan Hunter film. A red felt pool table loomed like a mahogany crypt in the center of the huge rectangular room.

  They slipped out of the poolroom through a side door, still heading east. Shane and Alexa found themselves transiting through a part of the basement that was beginning to resemble a dungeon—bars and studded steel doors, ornate metal hinges with brass church locks. At the end of the center hall was a wooden door with a small, eight-by-ten-inch barred window set at eye level. Shane looked through the bars into an even narrower, underlit hallway. The door was locked. He reached in his pocket for his picks.

  “What would we ever do without those?” she quipped.

  It was a simple two-tumbler lock, designed more for looks than function. He got it open quickly. The door creaked ominously as he pushed it wide.

  They crept down the three-foot-wide stone-block hallway. The first door on the right was unlocked, so he pushed it open and found that he was standing in a replica of a medieval torture chamber, replete with fourteenth-century stretching racks, wall restraints, and steel wall hooks holding every imaginable kind of leather apparel.

  “This kink is into S&M,” Alexa said.

  Shane felt a chill go through him and prayed that Chooch and Longboard had not been subjected to a dose of that madness.

  He passed through the dungeon toward a door on the far side of the room, opened it slowly, and found a hallway that ran farther underground. It stretched for about forty or fifty feet on a gentle slope. At the end of the corridor was another large wooden door with metal trim and steel studs.

  “Hold my back,” he said, then ran down the concrete tunnel. When he got to the end, he tried the door. It was unlocked.

  He pushed it open and found himself looking at Chooch and Longboard. They were blindfolded, gagged, and handcuffed to pipes in a small room that contained three giant water heaters. Shane ripped the blindfold off Chooch, then pulled the wadding out of his mouth. “You okay?”

  “Shane,” the boy said; tears started flowing from his eyes. “I knew you’d come….”

  “Shhhh…” Shane said. As Brian umphed behind his gag, Shane checked Chooch’s handcuffs before quickly turning and removing Brian Kelly’s blindfold and fishing the gag out of his mouth.

  “Shit, am I glad to see you,” Longboard said weakly.

  “You guys okay?”

  “I guess,” Longboard said. “Frickin’ scared, but okay.”

  “Stay quiet. I’ll be right back. Gotta get a key for those cuffs. They look like standard LAPD issue.”

  Shane sprinted back up the ramp to the dungeon room, where Alexa was guarding the hallway.

  “They’re down there. They look all right. I need your cuff key.”

  She reached to her belt, pulled it off, and handed it to him.

  Shane hurried back to the heater room and unhooked both sets of cuffs.

  “How many guys are here? How many guns?” Shane whispered.

  “There’s about four guys who are packing,” Brian said.

  “Shane, that movie producer is here,” Chooch said. “He owns the place.”

  “That kink didn’t put you on any of those tables up there, did he?” Shane asked.

  “No. They just cuffed us to those pipes,” Brian said. “Seems like we been here almost two days.”

  “Okay, listen up. We’re on our way out. There’s a woman with me. She’s an LAPD sergeant. Once we’re out of this dungeon, I’ll go first, she’ll bring up the rear. Stay close. Don’t make any noise. What I want to do here is just disappear. I don’t wanna fight our way out.” Shane’s words echoed softly against the walls of the stone room.

  He led Brian and Chooch up the corridor, rejoining Alexa. Silently they retraced their footsteps out of the dungeon and back into the connecting hallway. Shane paused by the door, looking into the billiards room. It was still deserted, so he pushed the door open and they headed out across the tile floor, past the suits of armor, and back to the laundry room at the far end of the house.

  They slipped inside; then Shane locked the door and turned to Alexa. “You’re first. Once you’re out there, scout both sides. We need a good exit line.”

  “Got it,” she said.

  He put his hands around her slender waist and lifted her up to the open window. She grabbed the ledge and shimmied out. She was amazingly light, which surprised him. Her intellectual weight had become so huge, it didn’t seem possible that her physical weight was only 115 pounds.

  Next he lifted Chooch. Once the boy was out of the window, Shane turned to Longboard and cupped his hands. “Hop aboard. You’re outta here.”

  Longboard stepped in, and Shane boosted him out the window. Then Shane grabbed the ledge and pulled himself up and out onto the wet grass.

  The cold, moist lake air filled his nostrils as he regained his feet and looke
d at all of them.

  “Somebody just pulled in. They’re in a truck in the drive. There’re people in the big front room now. They’ll see us moving across the grass,” Alexa said. “Our best bet outta here is that speedboat. We need keys, but if they aren’t in the boat, we could get trapped down there on the dock, out in the open.”

  “Don’t need keys,” Chooch whispered bravely. “I’ll hot-wire it. Car theft is my Vato specialty.”

  “Okay then, that’s the plan,” Shane whispered. “Alexa, you look for the keys. If they’re not aboard, Chooch, you get it going. Brian, you’re on lines. I’ll hold the back door and lay down cover fire if we get spotted. Everybody straight?”

  They nodded, their faces grim.

  “Okay—let’s do it.”

  They slipped away from the house, staying close to the west side of the property, moving like shadows against the fence line.

  They finally got to a spot where, in order to reach the dock, they had to make a final dash across an open stretch of moonlit lawn. They huddled down in the dark and checked the house. There were a few people visible in the windows. Nobody was on the porch.

  “This is as good as it’s gonna get. Let’s go,” Shane whispered.

  They started running in a group. They moved fast and low, across the open area, but quickly spread out. Alexa, the sprinter, took the lead, with Shane a few steps behind. Chooch and Longboard were losing ground. They all finally reached the pier and headed out to the dock.

  “Who’s out there?!” a male voice yelled from the house.

  “It’s blown. Move it! Move it!” Shane shouted. He was out on the small dock, standing by the ramp leading down to the float, motioning to Chooch and Longboard, windmilling his arms, trying to get them to go faster. They ran by him heading for the boat.

  Now all but Shane were on the boat.

  Alexa was looking for the keys when Chooch and Longboard got aboard.

  “No key in the ignition,” Alexa shouted. She was pulling the engine cover up, looking for a key on a hook inside, when the first shot rang out. The bullet pinged off the top of the concrete piling next to Shane’s head, then whined angrily away into the night.

  Shane, still holding his position on the dock, fired blindly up at the house. He couldn’t see anyone, so he popped only one cap—firing for effect—turned, and ran to the boat.

  Chooch was under the dash pulling out ignition wires, and Longboard ducked down low in the backseat. As Shane jumped into the boat, two more shots rang out from the sloping lawn. One of the bullets thudded into the boat’s hull. Alexa pulled her pistol and returned fire.

  “Save your rounds!” Shane yelled. “Unless you can see ’em, don’t fire.”

  Suddenly the boat engine started, and Chooch backed out from under the dash. Longboard came up from his hiding place and started throwing off lines.

  They could now see two men running down toward the dock. Both stopped halfway out on the wooden pier, aimed their pistols, and fired down from a position of advantage. Shane felt a bullet tug at the sleeve of his sport coat. He dropped into the seat behind the wheel and slammed the throttle all the way forward.

  The Chris-Craft roared away from the dock amidst a hail of gunfire. He heard Alexa’s Beretta bark near his left ear, then the distant sound of return fire from the dock.

  “Shit,” she said, and dropped onto the seat beside him. He glanced over at her, alarmed.

  “I took one,” Alexa said, looking at her side. She couldn’t see the blood in the moonlight because of the dark turtleneck.

  “How bad?” Shane shouted over the roar of the engine.

  She pulled up her shirt and checked the wound. “Looks like a through and through. The right oblique. Just drive. If I start fading, I’ll let you know,” she shouted.

  They heard two more shots, but they were distant popping sounds. One bullet ricocheted off the metal windshield, and then they were out of range.

  Longboard and Chooch were lying prone on the backseat. “Did we make it?” Longboard asked tentatively as he sat up.

  Shane looked back at the dock, a receding structure in the distance.

  “They’re out of range,” he said. All of them had wide smiles on their faces. It was a well-known police axiom that nothing is more exhilarating than being fired on without serious result.

  The little speedboat streaked across the lake, its metal-tipped bow parting the moonlit water, leaving a frothy, expanding wake behind them as they headed toward the lights of Arrowhead Village two miles away.

  “We’ve gotta get to a place where Sheriff Conklyn won’t panic making the arrest. Someplace out in the open. I don’t want one of his trigger-happy deputies ruining this perfect rescue,” Shane shouted to Alexa over the wind and engine noise.

  “How ’bout the main dock in town?” she suggested. “It’s open from all sides. He can make an arrest easily there.”

  “Good idea,” Shane agreed. She pulled out her cell phone to call, but before she could dial, the odds abruptly changed.

  It was coming at them low and fast across the water, its rotor blade flashing streaks of reflected moonlight. The blue and green helicopter was ten feet off the surface, approaching quickly. By the time they heard it, it was way too close. The throaty roar of the speedboat’s engine had camouflaged its deadly approach.

  The Bell Jet Ranger swept low across their speeding bow. Two men leaned out the open door with police shotguns aimed down at them, and seconds later the men let loose…. The teak deck and left windscreen were peppered with buckshot. Exploding safety glass flew back in pebble-sized pieces. Chunks of pellet-riddled teak flew up, caught the air, and were whipped away over their heads.

  Shane jerked the wheel right, to change the angle, taking away the Bell Jet’s point-blank line of fire. Now the speedboat was heading west, away from the town. The chopper banked, its engine whining as it turned, and in seconds it was behind them again, closing in. Two more blasts from the shotguns, and the rest of their windshield was gone.

  Shane felt sharp pain on his ear and cheek where several pellets from the widening shot pattern had nicked him. Blood started running down the right side of his face. He spun the wheel again.

  Alexa turned and was now facing back. She had her knees on the leather seat; her body was prone across the center deck. She had her 9mm Beretta in both hands, aiming up at the approaching helicopter. She took her time sighting. “Slow down, you’re bouncing too much!” she shouted.

  Shane eased the throttle back, slowing the boat and subtly drawing the chopper in closer. Then, sighting carefully, she fired twice. Suddenly the chopper veered right and pulled up fast, exposing its belly. She fired again. The pilot, feeling the hits, banked the helicopter away. He pulled back to avoid further gunfire, but was now also way out of shotgun range.

  Her shots had not disabled the Bell Jet Ranger.

  Shane sped up. The chopper paced along a hundred yards to the right, skimming low across the water, tracking the speedboat from the side at about forty miles an hour.

  The boat was bouncing badly, hitting the larger chop in the center of the lake. The waves slammed against the varnished hull, throwing water wide to each side.

  “Don’t shoot! Don’t waste rounds—we’re pounding too much!” Shane shouted. “They can’t reach us with those twelve-gauges—save it for when they come in close.”

  Alexa nodded as they sped across the center of Lake Arrowhead, the chopper flying sideways now, the nose aimed at them. Four faces were staring out from behind the bubble-glass windshield.

  Shane was headed toward Blue Jay Bay.

  Alexa pushed redial on her phone. A moment later Shane heard her shouting at Conklyn. “Sheriff, it’s Alexa Hamilton. I’m with Shane Scully and two others. A male Caucasian and teenage Hispanic. We’re Code Six Mary in a speedboat heading across Lake Arrowhead, taking gunfire from a helicopter above us. We’re at Blue Jay Bay. We need help. Get here fast, or notify the coroner.” She threw the phone down on t
he seat without waiting for a reply, then aimed her gun at the tracking helicopter.

  They streaked past a sign marking Village Point, then past two poles planted in the lake that warned:

  SHALLOW WATER—SANDBAR

  “Shit,” Shane said. He was going almost forty. If he went aground at that speed, they would all end up as part of the dashboard. He pulled the throttle back, slowing to about twenty. The helicopter veered again, vectoring toward them. They could see distant flashes of fire from both shotgun barrels, then heard the slower sound of the blasts. Simultaneously the varnish on the side of the boat exploded and turned chalky white as the pellets tore holes in it.

  The body of water narrowed abruptly ahead; they were running out of lake. Shane saw Totem Pole Point coming up on the right, marked by a hand-painted sign. Suddenly they were in the narrow and unforgiving waters of Paradise Bay, heading for the mouth of Little Bear River.

  “Fuck,” Shane said. If he turned back now, he would be forced to slow way down to make the turn in the narrow inlet, making them vulnerable to a withering shotgun attack. So he eased back on the power, cutting his speed to ten miles per hour, then headed up the narrow mouth of the river. Occasionally he could feel the boat hesitate as it scraped bottom.

  The helicopter came in close now, making another pass. Two men were leaning far out of the door of the chopper. Alexa fired three more times. One of the men screamed, his voice faint and distant, barely audible over the racket of the competing engines. Then the man tumbled out of the helicopter door and splashed into the shallows below.

  Shane could see the end of the ride coming up ahead. A sandbar was stretched across the narrowing river. He sped up momentarily so he could run the heavy boat up onto the sand.

  The Chris-Craft shot up onto the bar. He felt the sand scraping beneath, heard the propeller pin shear. The engine screamed as the propeller flew off. As soon as the boat slammed to a stop, it leaned right against its bottom, white smoke and a high-rpm whine coming from the exposed shaft.

  “Out! Out! Get out!” Shane shouted, and yanked the .38 out of his waistband. He trained it on the helicopter that was now hovering and watching, waiting for them to run away from the grounded speedboat, where they would be easy to pick off.