Doctor, Lawyer . . . (The Lt. Hastings Mysteries)

by Collin Wilcox

  But it was the second door, not the one I faced now.

  “Step outside to the sidewalk. Close the door. Wait for further instructions.”

  I lifted the bar, swung open the heavy metal door and stepped into the passageway. A dim shaft of light from the storeroom fell across broken, uneven paving bricks. I was in a dark, foul alley, roofed over with split, gaping boards. It was a service alley between two buildings. A dozen reeking trash cans lined the rotten wooden walls. Rats scurried from the door’s pathway of light to the safety of shadow.

  I pulled the door closed, turned to my left and stumbled across the cracked pavement. The alley was illuminated by a pale square of light from a small barred window, high on one wall. The flight bag and recorder bumped against garbage cans and teetering piles of rotting cardboard boxes. Ahead, I saw a doorway dimly outlined by its ill-fitting frame. I stepped to the door and pushed up the pivoted bar. The door swung easily toward me on squeaking hinges. In the sheltering darkness of the alleyway, I stood perfectly still, looking and listening. I was facing Natoma, a narrow, poorly lit street lined with old, decaying houses, some of them cut up into tenement apartments, some occupied by marginal business enterprises. Natoma and Minna streets were little more than alleys parallel to Mission and Howard. On Natoma, no one stirred after nightfall. No one answered his door, or responded to cries for help.

  The alleyway was a foot below the level of the sidewalk. I stepped up to the sidewalk and pulled the door closed behind me.

  Wait for further instructions, the voice had said.

  Nearby, I knew, a half-dozen police cars were systematically crisscrossing the area, searching for me. Or, if Friedman had kept me in sight, he had now surrounded the Tumbleweed Inn and was struggling with the kind of agonizing decision I’d faced so often—a no-win decision: whether to roust the bar, and expose me, or wait one more long, terrible minute, desperately hoping that—

  A car was turning the corner to my right. Natoma was a one-way street. With both curbs solidly lined with parked cars, there was room for only a single lane of traffic. The approaching car was a dark sedan, coming very slowly. It was—

  “Stand on the sidewalk,” the voice from the tape recorder said suddenly. “Hold the flight bag in your left hand. Hold the paper sack in your right hand. Wait.”

  The car was closer, barely three car-lengths away. It was a Chevrolet, five or six years old. Momentarily I took my eyes from the approaching car, quickly scanning the silent street. Nothing stirred, the sidewalks were deserted. Were police cruisers waiting at either end of the block, concealed? I didn’t know, couldn’t guess.

  The Chevrolet was almost abreast of me. I could make out a dark, anonymous silhouette of the driver, the car’s lone occupant.

  “Get in the car,” the driver said.

  It was a soft voice—a tight, hushed voice.

  A woman’s voice.

  Laura Farley.

  Instantly, my whole body tensed. With positive identification, I could escape, run back through the passageway to the—

  Pale light shown on the short, ugly length of a sawed-off shotgun aimed at my chest.

  “Get in the car, Frank. Now. Or I’ll kill you.” Her voice was low and vicious—cold, and deadly purposeful. “I’ll kill you, and take the money. And I’ll get away. Your cars aren’t here.”

  As I moved forward, I heard her say, “Put the bag and the recorder on the seat beside me.” At the same moment a slim flashlight beam swept over me. She was looking for a gun. I swung the bag and recorder into the car, then slid cautiously onto the seat beside her.

  “Close the door.”

  As I obeyed, I realized that she’d unscrewed the car’s interior light.

  The Masked Man thought of everything.

  “Lift up your pants legs.”

  I obeyed. With the shotgun on her lap, trained on my midsection, she flashed the light on my exposed legs. She was looking for a gun in an ankle holster. It was a precaution only a cop would take—a cop, or a cop’s woman. She’d known that I’d come wired, too. She’d made a guess—taken the gamble, and ordered me to get rid of the microphone.

  “Open the flight bag—carefully.”

  As I unzipped the bag, her flashlight beam briefly illuminated the banded packets of money. In the dim light, I saw her nod. It was a brisk, businesslike movement.

  “Put your hands on the dashboard. Lean forward.” She ran her hands under my arms, around my waistband, finally down over my crotch, and my legs. At her touch, I stifled a gasp of half-hysterical laughter, remembering the other times she’d touched me—in the same places.

  I heard the bitter humor in her voice, echoing my own: “No gun in your pants.”

  “No gun.” As I said it, I realized that my shirt was sweat-soaked. My heart was hammering.

  A moment later, the light winked out. She placed the flashlight on the dashboard and grasped the steering wheel. The idling engine’s note deepened. We were moving. She drove with her right hand, holding the sawed-off shotgun with her left. Trained on my torso, the gun rested easily in her lap. She’d once told me that her husband had taught her to shoot. She’d been able to outshoot him, finally. I should have remembered.

  “Keep your hands on the dashboard. If you move them off the dashboard, I’ll kill you. I promise.”

  Silently, I did as she ordered.

  We were approaching the Seventh Street intersection. I glanced at the Chevrolet’s steering column. The car had an automatic shift; she could easily drive without taking her right hand from the wheel—without taking her left hand from the stock of the shotgun.

  She was driving slowly, steadily. I remembered driving with her, two years ago. She was a good driver. It was a nonfeminine trait, she’d once remarked. Saying it, she’d smile at me.

  “Give it up, Laura. There’re cops all over. Every other car is a cruiser.”

  She turned left on Seventh Street. “You want me to give up with a half a million dollars on the seat?” It was an ironic question—light, bantering. The Masked Man was still in control.

  “I don’t want to see you killed.”

  “Just keep your hands on the dashboard, Frank. You know how it goes.” At the intersection of Seventh and Howard, she gently braked, waiting for the traffic light to change. We were proceeding across the intersection, traveling at moderate speed. Quickly I glanced to the right and left, trying to pick out the cars that could be police cruisers. Only a few cars traveled the half-empty streets, all of them moving sedately on steady courses. The sidewalks, too, were almost empty, peopled only with the furtive creatures of the night.

  “Were you wearing a mike?” she asked.

  “Yes.” As I spoke, I craned my neck to look at her, for the first time fully. She was dressed as a man, in a tweed hat, a windbreaker and slacks. Her hair was short, as it had always been.

  We were coming up on Folsom. She guided the Chevrolet into the inside lane, and switched on the turn indicator.

  Was she making for the freeway? Would she make a run for the south, and get rid of me along the way?

  We were on Folsom, driving east at a steady, law-abiding twenty-five. The traffic lights were with us as we passed Sixth Street, then the Fifth Street intersection. Now the car was moving into the outside lane. The turn signal began blinking again. We would turn south on Fourth Street. As she began the turn, I tried to look back over my shoulder, still searching for help. If Friedman were behind me, I’d bail out. But it must be now, before we gathered speed again.

  “Keep your eyes to the front,” she snapped. The twin muzzles of the shotgun jerked menacingly as she spoke.

  We were on Fourth Street now, heading for the industrial area south of the city. The car was gaining speed as we passed a vast tract of rubble-strewn land recently razed to make room for public housing. As she drove, Laura constantly glanced in the mirror. Her profile was taut, but revealed no fear. We weren’t being followed, then—at least, not closely followed. My only hope was t
hat Friedman had set up a rolling tail: several cars, linked by radio as they alternately followed, then turned off.

  “Are you taking me hostage?” I asked. “Is that it?”

  “No. You won’t be going far.” She spoke with soft, sibilant malice. I saw hatred boiling deep in her eyes—hatred and murder. Some secret rage had tipped her over the far side of sanity.

  It was necessary, then, to get her talking—keep her talking. A madman was like a bomb—not dangerous when it was ticking. As long as she talked—and drove—she wouldn’t kill me.

  “Are you and Vicente in it together? Is that it?”

  “Shut up.”

  “That is it, isn’t it? You stole the guns, and he did the work. He planned it—did the actual killing.”

  “If you don’t shut up, I’ll kill you. I’ll stop the car right here, and kill you, and dump you out in the gutter, where you belong.”

  “Give it up, Laura. If you do, you won’t get the death sentence. I promise you.”

  “You’ll promise me?”

  “Yes.”

  Suddenly she began to smile. Then a dribbling of sound began, finally erupting in a burst of high, harsh laughter. “Dave’s been dead since Friday afternoon, Frank. So what’ll you promise me now?”

  She’d killed Callendar, then. Vicente had killed Ainsley and Bates. She’d killed Vicente, then Callendar. And now she was running with the money. It was all in her face as she looked at me with a leer of manic triumph, then looked down at the flight bag. She’d wanted the money. All along, she’d wanted the money.

  Always, it ended with the money—with greed. Pure, simple greed.

  “Was Irving Meyer part of it? Is he dead, too?”

  Now the single harsh peal of her laughter was derisive. “Irving started it all. He didn’t know it, but he started it all. He began stealing things—guns, and other things. I found out—and told Dave. We followed Irving. He was peddling the guns down in the Tenderloin, like any other hustler. We robbed him. We wore his-and-her Halloween masks, and Dave brought a shopping bag so he wouldn’t have to touch the guns. He just held out the bag, and Irving dropped in the guns—without even being told what to do. He was so scared that he wet his pants.” She giggled. “It was so simple. They dropped right into my lap. Dave and Irving—they both dropped right into my lap.”

  “Is Irving dead?” I asked again.

  “No, he’s alive—as far as I know, anyhow. He’s just running away—from the whole world.”

  “So it was your idea. Your plan. The whole thing.”

  “That’s right, Frank.” She was almost crooning. The sound evoked other times—other places. She’d spoken to me like that before. She’d caressed me with her voice, then with her hands.

  “When I first knew Irving was stealing the guns, I saw how it could go,” she purred. “At first, though, I told David that with the guns—with Irving’s prints on them—he could blackmail Dwyer for his job. That was the hook. Then I told Dave that if we committed murder with one of the guns, we’d really have a lock on Dwyer. That’s how it started. The rest was easy.”

  “Stop the car, Laura. Give me the gun. Let me help you, for God’s sake.”

  For a long, silent moment she kept her malevolent gaze focused furiously on the road ahead. But I could see the muscles of her neck cording. The smooth, mannequin-cold contours of her face were twitching spasmodically as she lost control of her facial musculature. Finally her lips began to writhe, forming the words she couldn’t hold back. “I’m glad they sent you, Frank. I thought they’d send you. It makes everything perfect, with you here. Do you know that? Do you know what I’m saying?”

  “You’re saying that you want me to know that it was you.”

  Her wild mouth twisted into a grotesque smile of wordless triumph. “Yes,” she answered breathlessly. “Yes.”

  “That’s how people like you get caught, Laura,” I said softly. “Someone like you—the Masked Man—has a wonderful plan. You make it work—commit the perfect crime, you think. But then, after you commit it, you can’t stand the idea that someone doesn’t know about it. So you—”

  “None of you suspected anything. None of you. I know.” It was a quick, fierce whisper. I’d touched a nerve.

  “You’re wrong. You’ve been tailed for days. Didn’t you know?”

  “I knew.” As she spoke, the car rumbled over railroad tracks. We were paralleling the sidings and switchbacks that served the San Francisco docks and their adjacent storage facilities. It was a barren landscape, without movement during the night. Illumination came only from dim, scattered lights. Silent lines of boxcars and flatcars were inanimate—lifeless without their switch engines.

  “I knew,” she repeated. “But I just went downtown, went in one door of Macy’s and out the other, through the women’s fitting rooms. It was so simple. Because you’re all so goddam stupid. You’re like small, nasty little boys playing with toy guns. Cops and robbers. Christ, you’ll never know how ridiculous you look—how easy it is to make you look like fools. All of you. Every goddam one of you.” She swung the car viciously to the left, taking a small access road that led to one of the docks marked for demolition and reconstruction. As she twisted the steering wheel, the shotgun wavered—then steadied. The Chevrolet bounced to a stop close beside the huge cargo shed that covered most of the pier. The shed was as large as a football field. Its ridge line was a spiny skeleton against the night sky, already half-demolished. We were parked facing the switchyard. From this vantage point, she could see everything that moved.

  The Masked Man had chosen this spot with deadly care.

  The shed was on my side of the car, less than five feet away. With the Chevrolet’s engine still running, she turned to face me. Now she held the shotgun with both hands. Still braced with my hands against the dashboard, I twisted my head, looking down at the gun. Her knuckles were white.

  “Dave’s inside,” she breathed. “He’s under a pile of junk. He’s been there since Friday.”

  So she was going to kill me, too—then run with the money. She would order me out of the car and kill me where I stood, backed against the wall of the storage shed. It was all she could do. I could identify her. Within minutes after she left, I’d have her description on the air.

  “Get out of the car, Frank.” Her voice was low, coldly controlled. Already she saw me dead. I could hear the icy decision in her voice.

  At that moment, a car turned into the same access road we’d taken. I glanced at the car, then over my shoulder at Laura. She was watching the approaching headlights, rhythmically bouncing in the darkness.

  “It’s a Volkswagen,” she breathed.

  Therefore not an undercover car.

  In silence she watched the small car turn to its right and run parallel to a railroad siding, finally disappearing behind a long line of boxcars, its headlights flashing intermittently. With Laura’s attention divided, I made a slow, cautious movement toward the door. I must begin a pattern of diversion. Somehow I must bring my hand close to my shirt collar. Then I must open the door, draw the derringer, fire, drop to the ground—all in one motion. Because if I failed, she would kill me. At point-blank range, a shotgun blast could dismember an arm or leg. Death by bleeding would follow, within minutes. If she hit me anywhere, I would die.

  “I want you to get out, Frank. Slowly. Very, very slowly. First open the door. Swing it open, but keep your feet under the dashboard.”

  As the door swung open, I watched it almost touch the side of the storage shed. She’d planned this, too—boxed me against the building.

  “Put your hands back on the dashboard.”

  Obeying, I felt my arms trembling. My fingers were twitching—like a dying man’s fingers sometimes twitched.

  “Now swing your legs out of the car. Slowly.”

  She’d order me against the wall, then shoot me. She didn’t want the blood in the car—couldn’t afford the incriminating stain. A shotgun blast would blotch the seat beside her
with blood and flesh and bits of shattered bone. The windows would be blood-smeared—both the side window and the windshield.

  Could she risk blood-speckled clothing, a blood-smeared car?

  “Move your legs, Frank,” she whispered. “Get out.”

  “No,” I answered. It was a terror-strangled monosyllable. “No.”

  “Get out.” The muzzle of the shotgun drove into my rib cage.

  “You’ll kill me when I get out.”

  “Get out.” Again pain tore at my side. “Get out, goddam you.” Now she was screaming. Her plan—her careful, brilliant plan—was going wrong.

  I had my edge—a small, desperate advantage. The fury in her voice and the savage blows from the shotgun were the first hint. She was frightened. She’d strike me again—one last time. And when she did, I would—

  The blow came quickly: a savage stab of pain beneath my lowest rib. Instantly I threw myself to my right, through the open door. The shotgun roared; shed-wood splintered close above me. I was on my knees beside the car, scrabbling to face her. The derringer was in my hand; my thumb was dragging at the hammer, drawing it slowly, awkwardly to firing position. Thrown up by the recoil of the first blast, the twin barrels of the shotgun were lowering. The derringer fired. The hammer spur tore at my hand. Her head crashed back against the window; her body bucked. The shotgun exploded again. Shreds of plastic showered down from the car’s head-liner. I tried to cock the derringer again, fumbled, finally drew back the hammer, flicked the selector button. My knees were trembling as I tried to rise, staggering as I braced myself against the Chevrolet’s door frame. Over the stubby chrome barrel of the derringer, I saw her slowly slumping aside until her head rested against the seat. The incongruous tweed hat had slipped askew. Her neck was gracefully arched; all the fury was gone from her face, peaceful now as consciousness faded. Her eyes were half-closed. I watched her lips begin to quiver.

  “You bastard,” she whispered. “I hate you all.” As she spoke, blood spilled from each corner of her mouth.

  I carefully eased off the derringer’s hammer and placed the toy gun on the car seat. Then I moved backward until I felt the rough wood of the shed against my shoulders. Slowly, I slid down against the wall, sitting splay-legged on the pier. In my lightweight shirt, without a jacket, I was suddenly very cold.