A Hard Act To Follow

by Troy Conway

  She wrinkled her nose prettily. “I’m on the team, schnook. Our friend here roped me in just like he roped you in. Your weakness was sex, mine was something else.”

  “For instance?”

  “Nice girls don’t tell. Anyway, I was on the case in New York just like you were. That’s why I introduced myself to you that night in The Church of the S d Acid. I stayed pretty close to you after that but you didn’t see me because I just sort of hung in the background. But I was with you every step of the way. it’s a good thing I sweet-talked a nasty old matron into letting me make a long distance call, or I never would’ve got out to scrape up your bail money.”

  “Well, seeing as how you were in a large part responsible for my getting socked with so high a bail, let’s just call it even. Meanwhile, I’ll take you up on that luncheon invitation anytime you’re ready.”

  “Like how about tonight?”

  “it’s a deal.”

  I was just getting ready to seal it with a kiss when I heard the cop yell.

  I wheeled around just in time to see Cob LaBelle hop behind the wheel of one of the squad cars and tear toward the airport exit.

  “She got away while we were bringing the other people out of the plane,” the cop alibied.

  Another empty squad car was just a few feet away from me. I jumped into the driver’s seat at the same time that Walrus-moustache leaped into the back. Dina Grey leaped in right alongside him.

  I jammed the car into gear and tore rubber.

  Corinne’s squad car was rounding the corner of the terminal building.

  I flipped on the siren and bore down on her.

  She eased through the taxi area and onto one of the feeder lanes. Her siren started wailing too.

  Cars ducked out of our path like rabbits ducking buckshot.

  My speedometer read fifty, and I had all I could do to stay on the road.

  Corinne roared onto the main highway and headed toward the Capitol Bridge.

  I stayed with her. My speedometer read eighty, and I was giving it all the juice I had.

  She had fifty yards on me, and she kept it.

  We roared over the bridge at seventy, then through downtown Washington at fifty-five.

  At K Street she made a left

  The traffic was heavy, but it kept moving out of the way.

  We dropped to forty-five, and I gained a few yards on her, but I couldn’t get any closer.

  Down K Street at forty-five.

  Through the underpass at seventy.

  Over the Key Bridge at fifty-five.

  Around the Arlington Circle at forty.

  Right turn past the circle at thirty-five.

  Back up to sixty on the straightaway.

  Then seventy.

  Walrus-moustache tugged a forty-five from his shoulder holster and took a bead on her tires.

  “Wait!” I said. “don’t shoot! She’s going for the acid!”

  And she was.

  Down to sixty-five for a sharp curve.

  Then up to eighty.

  Then onto the highway along the river, and ninety.

  Ninety-five.

  A hundred.

  One mile.

  Two miles.

  Three miles.

  Then, wheels squealing like mad, she pulled off the road.

  By the time I was parked behind her, she had climbed halfway up the bluff that served as a riverbank.

  I took out my forty-five and started after her.

  Walrus-moustache and Dina were at my heels.

  I fired a warning shot to scare her.

  It didn’t

  She kept her pace until she was at the top of the bluff.

  Then she dived in.

  I got to the crest a few seconds after her.

  She was tearing through the water, aiming straight for a barge.

  On the barge was a vat, painted black.

  Surrounding the vat was a scaffold-like construction of stairs and gangways.

  Waking one of the gangways was a man with a holstered pistol.

  Walking the floor of the barge was another man. He had a shotgun.

  The pistol guy saw me first. He got off a shot just as I dived. It whistled over my head.

  I heard another shot as I hit the water. I looked up just in time to see the pistol guy go toppling off his perch. Walrus-moustache had got him.

  The shotgun guy was raising his gun to his shoulder.

  There was another pistol shot

  A small, red hole opened up on his forehead and he crumbled on the floor.

  My arms pumped as hard as they could.

  Corinne had reached the barge and was climbing on board.

  I got there right after she did.

  I reached for her leg and missed.

  Then I pushed myself over the side as she started up the stairs to the higher of the two gangways.

  She was fast.

  She got to the top of the stairs just as I got to the bottom of them.

  She was halfway across the gangway as I got to the top.

  At the end of the gangway was a huge lever.

  I didn’t need three guesses to know what it was there for and what she planned to do with it.

  She made a grab for it at the same time that I threw a flying tackle at her.

  My arms dosed around her knees and she hit the floor.

  But she was up again in a flash.

  I grabbed for the lever.

  She grabbed for the lever.

  I got it.

  She got air.

  Her arms flailed wildly as she groped for something to support herself.

  Then her face froze in an expression of terror as she realized what had happened.

  She had lost her footing and was tailing backwards . . . backwards . . . backwards into a vat that contained enough LSD to turn on the entire city of Washington, D.C., and its suburbs.

  I watched with a sad smile as Corinne went off on the trip of all trips.

  Then I started down the stairs.

  Walrus-moustache was waiting for me on the shore.

  More important, so was Dina Grey.