The Dark Mirror (A Mike Faraday Mystery Book 1)

by Basil Copper

  Then I had to work hard myself. I threw away the sacks, found I could stand without feeling dizzy. I got the iron bar firmly clasped in my two hands and shuffled over towards the door. Tucker and Sirocco were rolling over and over and there was a hell of a lot of noise going on. I could hear the thunder of the negro’s feet on the stairs and I knew he’d have his gun out when he came through the door.

  I braced myself against the wall, steadied the jemmy in my hands, which the wire rope strengthened, and put one foot out in front of me. I didn’t want to be brained by the backlash of the door when Uncle Tom burst through it. I didn’t have long to wait. Dan Tucker and Sirocco were swapping violence on the floor when Uncle Tom took the door in his stride; he looked about a mile high and just as broad when he ripped it back on its hinges. The lock went one way and I felt a stabbing pain in my toe; I thought it might be broken but I didn’t have time to worry about that.

  Jones had the Luger out as he came through; I brought my clenched hands over and hit his hand with all the strength I could muster. I saw blood burst through the broken skin, the big negro grunted and the gun went skittering along the floor. That was my first worry over; my second, and biggest was the strength of this coon. Any normal person’s arm would have been broken and he’d only grunted. I followed him up from behind, flailing at his head with my iron bar; I’d got it pretty securely held and I felt a couple of good ones thud on his skull.

  They just bounced off. Guess his dome must have been made of pure rock. Uncle Tom grunted again, this time with surprise as well as pain; I kicked him in the back as we went waltzing down the room and I got in another hard one across the thick of his neck as he went crashing full tilt into a steel pulley block that protruded from the quarry machinery. The last blow had hit home; I felt the bar sink in. I had put every ounce of strength into it with the hope of breaking his neck.

  But this wasn’t a normal man. It was far from mortal, but that one he felt. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Tucker and the junky rolling over against the rusted mine machinery and I heard Sirocco groan once; but I was too busy to take much more notice. When he felt the weight of my iron bar, Uncle Tom seemed to go mad. He writhed like an epileptic and then went up towards the ceiling like a rocket; I stepped back in case he was fooling and caught him one across the kidneys as he went by.

  There was foam on his lips and his eyes were full of raving madness but his face was curiously calm. As he crashed back across the room I could hear a strange noise from between his clenched teeth. For the first time I began to feel afraid. Uncle Tom was singing to himself as he fought; warming to his work. I had noticed this peculiarity among some negroes before but it was the first time I had experienced it in person. It wasn’t pleasant.

  Uncle Tom came at me then with his fists flailing; I caught him on the knuckles again with the iron bar, but one of his balled hands caught me a glancing blow on the side of the head. It was probably a love pat for him but it was a five megaton punch for me. Flashes of light mingled with the brilliant technicolor fireworks. Then I went back against an iron girder jutting out from the wall and skyrockets added to the beauty of the night.

  More seriously, as I put out my hands to save myself they ripped against the rusted metal; the iron bar came unhooked from my hands and went clanging down the length of the room. I hit dirt and a numb despair came into my mind. The negro went after the iron bar like a cat. I heard Dan Tucker or Sirocco make a choking noise. The nigger crouched on his heels and felt for the bar.

  “Your death come now, white trash,” he whistled through his teeth. I put my shoulder against the wall and levered myself roofwards. The negro stood up. He still looked about a mile tall and twice as wide even from the other end of the room. I balanced my hands on the floor and prepared to shove. It was then that Dan Tucker got to the Luger. There was a grating noise along the floor as he slid it to me. The wire round my wrists chinked and I felt the reassuring coldness of it against my hands.

  I held it between my two hands and got upright just as Uncle Tom started his run in towards me. I knew the safety catch wouldn’t be on so it was no risk. Even so, I thought I’d give him the chance he’d never given anyone else.

  “Drop it, Uncle Tom, less you want two ass holes,” I told him.

  “Gonna kill you, white trash,” he said for the last time. I nodded and put a slug in his right shoulder. The gun sighed as I squeezed the trigger. A large hole stencilled itself in the nigger’s shirt front; the big slug flung him against the wall but he kept on coming.

  I gave him another in the gut and as he lifted one leg in front of another, one in the belly; he was almost on me now and still lifting the iron bar so I gave him a fourth in the heart. He made a loud groan and scarlet froth bubbled out of his lips. There was a crash like the fall of doom as he hit the floor. Then I gave him another one, for Bert Dexter, as he lay there.

  “Jeezechrise,” said Tucker in the heavy silence. “Some coon.”

  I could see Sirocco’s eyes white as marble straining from a face like a death’s head, pinioned under Tucker’s massive arm. I thought he was just frightened until I found his neck was broken. Like me, Dan had to make sure.

  The thin wail of sirens began to fill the night air, coming up the valley towards the quarry. I let the Luger fall to the ground with a thump and the silencer broke off as it hit the floor.

  “I could do with a cigarette,” I said to no one in particular.

  I went to the door and waited for the prowl cars to arrive.

  *

  We drank coffee someone had thoughtfully produced from flasks. The big room was full of cops, the yard overflowed with gunning motors and spotlights stabbed across the windows and around the sheds down below. Stella’s face looked white and anxious as she sat opposite me with McGiver. Dan Tucker, starting his third apple with relish, winced as he paused in rattling out instructions, and fingered his wrists. For the second time — things didn’t seem to be getting through to my consciousness very well — I repeated our story to Stella.

  I put my teeth on the rim of my coffee cup and savoured the hot liquid. It smarted against my cut mouth but that didn’t matter now.

  “How did you find out?” I asked Stella. She shot a glance at McGiver.

  “Sergeant Clark got a bit too clever,” said McGiver. “He’d been told to get you and the captain out here. But he thought it would be better if your secretary were included. He rang Stella — in confidence of course. Said you wanted to see her. She didn’t leave it at that. She rang back to check on something about a half hour later, on her way across town. Unfortunately for Clark he had gone off duty, so the call was put through to me by the relief desk sergeant. Then we added things up and got the hell out here.”

  “And Clark?” I asked.

  “He’s been arrested already,” he said. “He gave us a couple of other names. Looks like we’re having a new D.A. too.”

  “What was Clark’s idea in exceeding his instructions?” I asked McGiver.

  He smiled. “He was on the lookout for promotion,” he said. “In the organization, of course, not the force. He thought his employers would be pleased with him for turning Stella over.”

  “Like hell they will,” I said.

  “Have you got road blocks out for Gregory?” I asked Tucker. “And you’d better ring the airport.”

  “Relax,” said Tucker. “That was on the air within five seconds of their arrival. The whole State’s sewn up by now. It may take all night, though, if Gregory’s managed to change cars; he might even bluff his way through a cordon if he’s high up enough in Washington.”

  I looked across at the two shapes under the sheets in the other corner of the room. Flash bulbs were still going and a ballistics sergeant went by with Jones’s Luger wrapped in a piece of cloth.

  “Tell the labs I want a complete report in an hour,” Tucker told him.

  “Right,” said Peters and went out briskly.

  “I haven’t had a chance to say
anything, Mike, but thanks,” said Dan as he passed me. He rested his hand on my shoulder for a moment.

  “We’ll talk about it in our rocking chairs at the police smoker,” I told him. I grinned at Stella. She still looked anxious but the paleness had gone from her face. I got up clumsily, found I was aching all over and hobbled to one side with Tucker.

  “How will this affect Paul Mellow’s end?” I asked him. “I’d like to let Mandy know how things are making out — just to round off the case.”

  Tucker’s face creased into a brief smile. He crunched another apple. “You can tell Mandy I think he’ll draw a suspended sentence. And tell him to keep the boy out of trouble in future.”

  As I turned back to Stella, the door opened and MacNamara came in. He took one look round the room, sniffed, and came on over. He surveyed the two sheeted bodies and glanced at me.

  “Do you have to kill people during the night?” he asked sourly. “This is the third evening I’ve been called out in a row.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “I’ll remember that in future. We’ll give you time and a half.”

  To my surprise he smiled thinly. I thought the front of his face was going to fall off. “Come and sit over here,” he said. “I’d better have a look at you.”

  He went over me. He whistled when he saw my hands. I winced when he pressed against my ribs.

  “I think you got a couple of cracked ones,” he said. “I’ll tape you up to make sure.”

  Inside fifteen minutes I began to look like something out of a B horror film. With bandages round my wrists too, I was quite a sight.

  “You’d better get your own doctor to run over you in a day or two,” he said. “Otherwise you’re as good as new.”

  I thanked him. Then he went over and pulled the sheets back from the two bodies on the floor. He was silent for a moment. He prodded the negro with his toe.

  “Looks like he died of bullet wounds,” he said.

  “Tell me something new,” said Dan. “Want a complete autopsy report on both by morning. Watch for wrist powder burns from that Luger on the nigger, that’s important.”

  MacNamara looked at his wrist watch and sighed. “Why the delay?” he said. “I thought you were going to ask me for the paper work in half an hour.”

  “We don’t believe in overworking the staff,” said Dan. He clapped him on the shoulder as he went by. MacNamara winced. As we went out the door he was already putting on a white apron. I stumbled and Stella put her hand on my arm. McGiver stayed to direct operations. The yard was full of cops and cars. The night air smelt good as we went down the stairs.

  “This is better than being carried down,” said Dan with enthusiasm.

  “They’d never have carried you down,” I said. Dan’s laugh boomed in the night. There was still quite a heat in the atmosphere, not quite dispersed in the light wind from the hills. Spotlight beams from the cars were stabbing paths in the bushes and curious faces were turned up at us out of the darkness. Two big white ambulances pulled in at the entrance to the quarry as we got down to the ground.

  “All right, Bish,” said Tucker as a brawny-looking patrolman saluted him. “Take Mr. Faraday’s car and follow us back to town. You’re not fit to drive,” he added to me. I nodded. Truth to tell I felt pretty bushed and the rest on the way back would set me up for the night.

  “Perhaps you’d get in back, miss,” said Tucker, opening the rear door for Stella. I got in the right hand front seat next to Tucker and sat staring at the fly smears on the windscreen. It felt like a million years since I’d enjoyed the luxury of leather seats and contemplation. I wondered how Mr. Gregory would feel when he realized that his plan had misfired; more important, who Mr. Gregory was. For all we knew he might be in custody already, although we should have heard on Tucker’s car radio.

  A big chunky cop I hadn’t seen before got in back with Stella and slammed his door. He smiled at me sympathetically. I heard the scratch of a match in back and the flare of it made a momentary glow in the darkness round the car. I caught a brief glimpse of myself in the glass of the windscreen. I looked real beat up. I sneaked a look at my watch. To my surprise it was only a quarter to one; barely three hours since I had first hit the dirt road to the quarry. I felt at least ten years older.

  The lights of L.A. were shimmering through the blur some miles off. My ribs twinged. Tucker went around to the driving seat and got in. He was breathing heavily and I felt the glove locker click as he reached in for an apple. I couldn’t help grinning to myself in the gloom. I fingered my ribs again and came up against my empty holster.

  “That reminds me,” I said to Dan. “Did you see what happened to my Smith-Wesson after I dropped?”

  He grunted. He handed me something metallic across the seat. Butt first.

  “Safety catch on,” he said. “We took it off Jones afterwards.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I don’t feel properly dressed without this.”

  I put it back in the holster. I expected it might feel heavy against my ribs but the bulk of it there in the webbing seemed to smooth the pain away.

  “Where to?” I said.

  “Headquarters first,” he answered. “When it gets light we’ll take the Chase National. And we ought to contact Washington as soon as possible.”

  Dan gunned the motor and we turned out of the quarry entrance, tyres scuffing on the gravel. A cop standing by a patrol car at the entrance saluted. In the mirror I could see the lights of my own car behind. There were two cops in it. As we came out on to the dirt road I could see more lights in the top of the quarry building and men in white coats climbing the staircase. The night air felt suddenly cool on my cheek as we went down the road. Dan didn’t use the siren and there was a remarkable peace. It didn’t last for long.

  We had gone about two miles down the twisting track from the summit. Dan had pulled way ahead of my own car for he wanted to get back to town as quickly as possible. The Buick hadn’t got the pace anyway, and I was glad the patrolman driving hadn’t tried to pull up level as the dirt road wouldn’t have improved the springs any, and I didn’t want the engine flogged. We had just passed a point where the dirt road branched into another which led way off into the hills. I was looking idly out of the window on my side, puffing my cigarette, when I saw two dark shapes some way back from the road. They looked like cars.

  As we passed, side-lights winked on one of the dark shapes and a few seconds later the car had pulled on to the road behind us. I didn’t fall in for a moment or two. Dan Tucker hadn’t noticed anything; he had his eyes on the verge ahead. We had come to a part where there was a pretty big gully down into the brush and underscrub at the roadside and there were one or two nasty rock formations jutting out. It occurred to me that Dan might have thought the car behind was mine, when suddenly it began to accelerate.

  I just had time to tell Dan, “We got company,” when a blinding glare etched everything in the car with the light of day. I glanced back and saw that the car behind, a cream roadster had a big spotlight on the screen upright switched on.

  “What the hell —” Dan began when there was a bang from behind; I thought we’d burst a tyre and then the back window of the prowl car disintegrated into a thousand starred facets and something buried itself in the upholstery with an ugly thud.

  “Get down,” I yelled to Stella and everyone flattened themselves to the floor, except Tucker, who had to go on grimly steering. He told me afterwards he felt as big as a barn door up there in the glare of the light.

  “Get over into the middle of the road,” I told Dan. As he pulled the big car over I could get the cream job clearly in view. I couldn’t be absolutely sure but there was only one figure in the car and the white raincoat clinched it.

  “It’s Gregory,” I shouted to Tucker.

  “Persistent cuss, ain’t he?” he ground out. “See if you can do something about that spot before he alters the shape of my spine.”

  I got the Smith-Wesson out and lined up on a point
about a foot above the driver’s head and to the left of the pursuing car. He got off another shot at that second, but it must have gone wide, because Dan had started weaving across the road. I hoped there weren’t any couples sitting in cars parked without lights up ahead. As soon as Dan stopped his criss-cross and steadied I loosed off a shot. The gun coughed and Gregory’s car swerved convulsively but the light didn’t go out; then I saw that the windscreen had gone, but the figure in white was sitting bolt upright in the moonlight, apparently unharmed.

  “Weave again and then steady up,” I told Dan. “Shout when you’re ready.”

  The cop in the rear offside seat with Stella had got his revolver out, but he hadn’t had any chance to use it because he was sitting too far over.

  “There’s a tommy-gun under the seat,” said Tucker to the patrolman, as though reading my thoughts. “Use it if you have to, but for Chrissake get that light out.,,

  I took one look at the speedometer before I turned back to face the rear. We were already doing more than sixty and if we hit a rock at that speed on this rutted, poorly made road, verged by dangerous ravines, anything could happen. Dan swerved as Gregory fired again; I caught the stab of fire, but the bullet apparently got the bodywork of our car and was deflected. As Dan straightened up I got in a burst of three, quick shots, shifting them upwards and outwards to stitch across the windscreen. There was a vivid cracking noise which I could hear even above our engine and then the spot suddenly went out with a loud bang and a puff of smoke.

  The sports job swerved and then, just as quickly, the headlamps came on brilliantly and flicked up to full beam. Gregory was pretty good, I had to give him that. When I turned again I could hardly believe my eyes. Gregory was accelerating straight for the back of the prowl car.

  “Watch it, Dan,” I said. “Looks like he’s going to ram us.”