A Ticket to Hell

by Harry Whittington

“Couldn’t have made it, Eve. Not by myself. Couldn’t have made it.”

  “The baby is alive. Oh, Ric. Thank God. It’s alive.”

  “Yeah. Fine.”

  They were at the ridge above the sandslide and for a second Ric wavered. Eve removed her hand from his arm to smooth the baby’s forehead and he almost fell.

  She caught his arm, staring at him. Then her distended eyes saw the patch of blood on his shirt.

  “Ric. You’ve been shot.”

  Her arm around him, she propelled him toward the car.

  “It’s all right,” he said.

  “I’ll drive.”

  “I’m all right. Let me drive, Eve. I got to keep doing something. I’d pass out if I stopped. Let me drive.”

  Gently, Eve took the baby from his arms, laid it down on the Porsche seat. “You’re all right, darling,” she whispered to it, “you’re going to be all right. Ric will take care of you. Long as you’ve got Ric to take care of you, you’re all right. You’re fine.” All this time she was scratching through Ric’s suitcase on the rear deck. She came up with undershirts.

  Ric had toppled into the seat behind the steering wheel. Eve ran around the car, tore away his shirt. She chewed at her underlip. “I can’t do anything about the bullet, Ric. Maybe we can stop the bleeding.”

  He laid his head back, did not protest.

  She tied the bandage securely against the torn place in his side. She stepped away from him.

  Ric lifted his arm, stared at his watch. “We got to get out of here.”

  She went around the car, took the child in her arms. She held its head against her shoulder, smoothed its soft hair, crooning to it.

  Ric was thankful the engine was started; anything he didn’t have to do put him that far ahead. He shifted into reverse on the narrow ledge, let the back wheels climb the incline and turned the steering wheel as far as it would go.

  Eve closed her eyes. He let the clutch out slowly and the car inched forward, turning, its right front wheel touching the brink of the ledge.

  Then they were rolling down the hill. Ric drove with the car in second gear. His hands were clenched on the steering wheel.

  “You all right, Ric?”

  “Yeah. The pain’s not too bad now. There’s only one road now and I’m on it. We got it made.”

  “The baby’s asleep, Ric. Poor ragged little thing.”

  Ric said nothing, watching the road. He had stepped harder on the gas and they were winding downhill, wind whistling at the windows.

  Eve stared downward at the lower levels of the road. At first she thought she saw a dust devil, then she realized it was a car climbing toward them. It disappeared around a rum and then showed again.

  “It’s my Cadillac,” she said aloud.

  “What?”

  Ric slowed down and stared across the descending ridges to the far curve toward which Eve pointed. The Cadillac was racing upward, dust billowing.

  “Martin,” Eve said.

  “What the hell does he want up here?”

  “He’s going over the side,” Eve cried out. “He’s driving like he’s insane.”

  Ric watched the big car careening around the sharp curves in the mountain road.

  “He’s looking for us.” Eve’s voice was dead.

  Ric nodded. “Sure. It figures. He was with the State Police. If Peggy told them I was back in town, or if they got with the FBI men when Rehan came out here looking for the agent, they must have trailed us out of town.”

  “There are no police with him.”

  “No. Probably they stopped down there where the agent was killed.”

  “How would Martin know we were up here?”

  “Why not? If he was with the State Police as far as where they found the dead agent, he could sure as hell recognize the Porsche tire tracks in that sand.”

  “He came looking for us—alone.”

  “Sure as hell he did. By now he has had time to realize his story isn’t going to stand up. He wants to find us— before the police do.”

  She gripped his arm, fingers taut.

  “Ric. He’s seen us.”

  Ric nodded. He set his jaw, holding the wheel. He rounded a curve and on the long stretch of straightaway he saw the Cadillac speeding toward him, hugging the inside of the narrow road. There was no doubt about it now in Ric’s mind, if there ever had been. Martin was coming up that mountain looking for them. Martin had had time to think, and Martin was desperate. His plans for riches didn’t include a stretch in jail, and as long as Ric and Eve lived, Martin stood a chance of losing. It was his word against theirs, and it would be a good idea if they never got to speak their pieces.

  “He’s going to force us off, Ric.”

  Ric stared at the sheer drop to his right, at the oncoming Cadillac, at the incline to his left, sheer and rock strewn. Almost any car would overturn attempting to go up it. And Kimball would never let him over there if he guessed his intent.

  Ric hesitated, holding the Porsche at even speed and straight on the narrow roadway. The Cadillac was almost upon them, sun glittering in the windshield, the hood ornament growing large as a battering ram.

  Ric swerved the Porsche hard to the left and at the last possible minute straightened the wheels. The little car had been climbing upward and when it was jerked back to the right it shivered, rocking.

  For an interminable time the Porsche seemed to be standing on two wheels, teetering on its side.

  Ric thrust the accelerator to the floor. He heard the screeching scream as metal grazed against metal, the little car scraping along the side of the Cadillac.

  “Oh, God,” Eve said.

  Kimball had jerked the wheel of the Cadillac at the last moment, pulling to his right. In that second his face was turned toward them, eyes distended, mouth pulled down. Hatred and rage seemed to boil from the windows of his car, and then he had hurtled past them.

  The Cadillac’s left front tire crushed away the brink of the roadway. The big car shook as Kimball whipped the wheel trying to pull away from the edge. The back end whipped around but the front wheel had slipped too far down the steep roadside. The Caddy quivered for a moment, motor roaring as Kimball gunned it. Then abruptly it spun outward and went hurtling off the ledge.

  Eve buried her face against the baby’s head. But they could not escape the loud jolting crashes as the car struck below them, spun outward, struck again.

  Ric slowed down. His hands were sweated, knuckles white where he gripped the steering wheel.

  He looked back and saw the flames lunging upward. The car was still slowly sliding down an incline.

  “Damn it,” Ric said in agony. “Oh, God damn it.”

  “Ric. I’m sick. I don’t know. I—”

  “Hang on. For God’s sake, just hang on.”

  “Can we help him, Ric?” “The car’s on fire. There’s nothing we can do.” She moaned. He did not try to think what was going on inside her mind. Martin had tried to kill her at the motel, he had trailed them into the hills and had tried to kill them. But you couldn’t know what she would be remembering. She did not look back. She was staring, but she was seeing something in her memory, in her life as it had been. She did not speak. They drove swiftly, going down the mountain.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The nearer they came to the flatlands the hotter it became. The air was dry and thin. Ric did not speak to Eve. Whatever was inside her, she needed to be left alone. He heard her muffled moans. Once she sobbed. She did not say anything. She held the baby tightly, rocking it in her arms.

  Ric felt a strange sense of loneliness that he could not define or even understand. She was rid of Martin Kimball, well rid of him, and she would have a better life somewhere, no matter what she thought at the moment. Martin had tried twice to kill her. He had died trying. A man with one thing on his mind. But she’d meet a decent man. Time was going to help Eve.

  Time. It was never on your side when you needed it. And time stretched ahead of h
im was a lonely empty space. He felt as if Eve were already gone from him, as though he were alone in the car, driving nowhere, no longer of any value to a living soul. What life and what time he had was leaking out the hole in his side.

  Before they left the foothills, he could see the cluster of cars out there on the dirt road. State Police and Rehan’s car, parked around the black auto. He saw the men standing around the agent’s body. It was clear now. Martin had followed the State Police this far, seen the Porsche tire tracks and traced them upward into the mountains, driven frantic with the knowledge that he was about to lose everything.

  He slowed. He could not get near those police cars. He had to take a chance on crossing that wasteland to the side road as far as possible from these men.

  He removed his foot from the accelerator as they rolled down the last turn from the hills, searching. When he saw the sand trail leading to his left, he grinned. Perriquey and his men were smart rats, too smart ever to be bottled in anywhere with only one open exit.

  He stepped on the gas. The Porsche sprang forward and he turned the wheel, sending it off to the left on the hard packed trail. He looked across his shoulder. The police cars were already moving in pursuit.

  “The hell with you,” he said aloud.

  He looked back at them one more time—State Police cruisers and FBI cars racing after him. He felt a wave of dizziness, but shook it off and stepped harder on the accelerator.

  Ric turned the Porsche off Highway 58 and entered the parking area of the Los Solanos Airport. He drove the car slowly, parked as near the administration building as possible.

  It was breathlessly hot here on the treeless plain. Men sweated on the runways. Everyone who could be was in the air-conditioned administration building.

  He got out of the car, walked around it. He tried to keep his gaze from those double glass doors of the building, could not do it. He was overdue, but they had said they would wait for him. They were in there.

  He opened the door, lifted the sleeping child from Eve’s arms.

  She looked at him, worried. “You all right, Ric?”

  He stared at her through the rising mist across his eyes. It was as though he had never seen her before, didn’t know her. That was the way it had to be. Her father’s lawyer ought to be around here somewhere. He’d take Eve back to her kind of life. That was the way it ought to be. He did not answer her.

  “Ric!” Her voice was hollow, almost pleading.

  He straightened up. The baby was heavier than ever. He stared toward the administration building, an impossible distance through the deepening haze.

  He inhaled deeply, turned from the car and moved along the wide walk. It was as it had been on the Indian sandslide. You put one foot in front of the other. You bit down on your lip. You ignored the fire-hot pain in your side.

  Suddenly the glass doors were thrust open. A woman ran through them, moving toward Ric and the baby, arms extended. Tears were streaming down her face. She was pallid, looked as though she’d been crying for a long time, but these tears were not the same.

  Anne.

  Her heels clicked on the pavement. Ric paused, watching her come toward him. The sun blazed against the back of his neck. A plane motor was revved up on the runway.

  She was not looking at him. Her gaze was fixed on the baby in his arms.

  The child stirred, wriggling. He cried out. “Mama.”

  Ric felt the sense of good well up in him. The pain in his side didn’t matter, the loss was nothing. Whatever had happened, this moment was worth it.

  Ric watched Anne’s face. She was the loveliest woman in the world. He’d always said that, and it was no different now. The way she looked at her baby made her more lovely than ever. It was not a matter of physical beauty—it was everything about her. She was everything a man could want in one lifetime.

  She lifted her face to Ric’s, extending her arms and clutching the baby to her. For one instant, for the last time in this life, Ric knew, she stared into his eyes. In her eyes he saw everything, all the things they would never say, but the things that had always been between them, always and forever.

  “Anne,” he said.

  “Ric. Oh, Ric.”

  “I brought your baby.”

  “Yes. Oh, yes.” She was crushing the baby in her arms, crying over it, running her trembling hands through its hair. “Oh, Ric. I never doubted. I knew you would.”

  “Hello, Durazo.”

  Ric pulled his gaze from Anne’s face. He looked at Senator Gifford Ironfield, hating him with a hatred that ripped at his insides, that burned far worse than the bullet in him. In that moment it was three years ago and he looked up at judge Ironfield, a man without human mercies, a man who believed you guilty even when he couldn’t prove your guilt.

  Ric shook the angry memory from his mind. Ironfield had been through hell himself in these past weeks. They belonged to the same club now.

  The senator had his arm about Anne. Ric tried not to see it. Hell, it’s almost over now. It won’t be long, not much longer.

  “You did it for me, Ric,” Anne whispered.

  “Yes.”

  Ironfield’s voice was very low. “I won’t try to say anything, Ric. There’s nothing I can say.” He extended his hand, clasped Ric’s. “Better get the baby inside, Anne. The doctors are waiting.”

  Ric dropped the senator’s hand. There were doctors inside. No. He would find his own doctor. He met Anne’s gaze and then she turned, hurrying away.

  “I’ve something for you, Ironfield,” Ric said. “I’ll get it out of the car.”

  He nodded curtly, watching Anne go through the door. He turned on his heel. The sun reflected from the Porsche was painful in his eyes.

  When he got to the Porsche, Eve was gone.

  He heard the swish of tires, the scream of brakes. Three police cars shivered to a stop near the Porsche. Ric ignored them. From the rear compartment he removed the suitcase containing the senator’s ransom money.

  When he got out of the car and straightened up, State troopers and Saul Rehan awaited him. He looked at them, moved along the walk. They fell in step beside him. None spoke.

  Senator Ironfield awaited them just inside the glass doors. Ric saw Eve talking with some man near the reservation counter. His gaze lingered on her a moment.

  “This is yours,” he said to the senator. “I didn’t have to use it.”

  He set the suitcase at the senator’s feet.

  “You better come along with me now, Durazo,” Rehan said. “We got a lot of talking to do.”

  “Wait a minute, Rehan,” Ironfield said. “If you’ve got to talk with someone, why not talk to me?”

  Ric stood a moment, looking about the air-conditioned lobby. There seemed no place to go. At the reservation desk Eve was talking with the man, probably her father’s lawyer. He didn’t want to be near her, the sooner he got her out of his mind, the better. Across the room, two doctors and a trained nurse were huddled over Anne and her baby.

  There was a Coca-Cola vending machine in what looked like neutral territory. Ric walked slowly toward it. Nothing was entirely clear, the room was shrouded in a misty red. He glanced toward the place where the senator was in deep conversation with the troopers and Saul Rehan.

  He sat down in a waiting room chair beside the vending machine. He tried to sit straight. He let his head sink against the cool metal of the machine.

  “Ric.”

  He straightened up, guiltily. When he saw it was Anne, he buttoned his coat, pulled his hand away from the agony in his side.

  “Ric. I’ve never forgotten you.”

  “No.”

  “He was good to me, Ric. I was alone and afraid.”

  Suddenly he stared at her. She was alone and afraid. What a ball he’d had. Had he been out on somebody’s yacht yakking it up? No sense being bitter. Not any more. He saw that Anne was what she was, and that she had what she needed. She could lie with him and sleep with him, but she needed the sec
urity the senator gave her. She had just what she had to have.

  He smiled, feeling his mouth pull. He had thought it would hurt a hell of a lot more. But then he’d been living with the loss of her for almost three years. Time had helped him. He could look at her now and see her as she had become, see Mrs. Gifford Ironfield, and know that’s what he wanted for her.

  “Nobody could ever do for me, Ric, what you did.”

  “Sure.”

  She reached out to touch him. At that moment, her baby whimpered. She heeled half around, biting her lip. She looked up at him, in agony. “Ric. The baby. I must go.”

  “Sure.”

  She hesitated one more moment. “God bless you, Ric.”

  He sat down again, feeling the room spin. He saw Gifford Ironfield come toward him. Beyond he saw Saul Rehan pause at the glass doors and then go out of them, walking away in the sun.

  He hated the thought of having to stand up again. He was so tired.

  “Don’t get up, Ric,” Ironfield said. He slid into the chair beside Ric’s. “I know you’ve been hurt. I know you’re trying to keep it from Anne. I agree it’s best. She’s had shock enough.”

  “I’m all right.”

  Ironfield nodded. “You truly are, Ric. Whatever charges there were against you, with the State Police and with Rehan, they’ve been dropped.”

  “Thanks.”

  “My God, don’t make me more in your debt by thanking me, Ric. I’ll spend the rest of my life regretting the wrong I did you. But believe me, Ric, I believed I was right. I am what I am. Even, Ric, when we needed you so badly, when Anne was hysterically pleading with me to get in touch with you because you—you alone—would get her baby back for her, I had to know you were innocent of those old charges first. Forgive me, Ric. I know what I am. It’s not for myself I ask you to forgive me, but for you. Don’t poison the rest of your life with bitterness against me. I deserve it, but, God help me, I’m not worth it.”

  “I’m all right,” Ric said again. He would have said more, but he was too tired. And it was true. He wasn’t bitter any more. He just wanted to get away while he could still walk.

  He got up, leaving Ironfield sitting there. His gaze raked across the room. Eve and the lawyer were gone from the reservation desk. Hell with it. He walked across the lobby, pushed open thedoors, went through them.