by Burl Barer
No less slippery was the diminutive Mr Alisdare who led the way upstairs with predictable reluctance and appreciable trepidation. The top of the stairs merged into a hard-wood hallway decorated by an antique floor radio and one struggling palm. The long languid plant leaned listlessly to one side, the dirt in its terracota pot caked from benign neglect.
"Really, Salvadore," commented the Saint, "your green thumb seems to have deserted you."
Alisdare stopped in his tracks, turned toward the plant and allowed his gaze to move bravely back to the Saint.
"It's supposed to look like that," snapped Salvadore acerbicly. With the remark still dripping from his lips, the little man suddenly bolted down the hall with an astonishing animated velocity. Simon, close behind, reached out one strong arm, grabbed the ferociously peddling fellow by the nape of neck, and lifted him off the ground. Despite an inability to achieve traction while suspended in space, Alisdare’s feet maintained their repetitive rapidity while his hands flailed furiously like a pair of flapping geese.
The Saint lifted and twisted Alisdare around until the agitated character faced him eye to eye. The struggling subsided and Alisdare seemed to resign himself once again to the Saint's control. Simon eased him down until his toes skimmed the floor's surface.
"Behave yourself or there will be no pickles for dessert." The Saint's tone was only moderately paternal. Alisdare, his lower lip vibrating, nodded penitently. Simon set him solidly on the ground, swiveled him around, and placed both his hands firmly on Salvadore's shoulders.
"Lead the way, partner," commanded the Saint.
There were doors on either side of the hall and one of them featured a small buzzer-like device with wires running up the outside frame and disappearing into the wall. The Saint had seen these before -- electronic door releases operational only from the outside. Both the device and the wires were painted over in the same dull peach as the wall and door frame.
Salvadore shuffled towards the entry on his left with understandable resistance.
"Can't we just leave them be while we talk this over?" asked Alisdare weakly. The Saint's expression discouraged any continuation of that particular line of reasoning. Then, with the same speed with which he had bolted at the head of the stairs, Alisdare thrust out one short pudgy finger and pressed the button with such force that the tip of his finger blanched. It did not release the door, rather it unleashed a blaring electronic wail of piercing intensity rivaled only by Grand Theft's encore at the Seattle Center. And all hell broke loose.
In retrospect, Simon acknowledged that Salvadore's mad dash down the hall made perfect sense, as did his illusory penitent attitude. Having regained control of Alisdare, the Saint mistook trickery for temerity. His captive was dashing towards that very buzzer when apprehended. His goal, although momentarily delayed, was achieved. The electronic bleating which ensued the moment Alisdare pressed the button threw the previously silent house into an uproar. Alisdare, as unlikely a Gabriel to ever blow the trumpet of ungodly summons, sent a danger signal to the men in the shed and alerted any malefactors of which Simon was unaware.
The Saint tossed the little man aside as one would a stuffed toy and kicked in the door. It was a garish bedroom accented by metallic green wallpaper and black satin sheets. It was empty. Alisdare cackled in nervous laughter. Simon spun and faced the opposite door. As Simon lunged, Alisdare threw himself at the Saint's knees. Perhaps Alisdare thought his grip and weight could abort the Saint's mission or negate the explosion of power in Simon's legs. If such were his intentions, they were ill founded. Rather, it was more as if Alisdare had locked his arms around a rocket at the moment of lift-off. The Saint was airborne, his strong right shoulder impacting the solid wood door with sufficient force to rip out the striker plate and tear the door frame asunder. Alisdare, like the tail of a cat, was along for a short but eventful ride which culminated in painful collision -- first with the floor and then with the sole of Simon's shoe. The later did not impact Alisdare's forehead entirely by accident.
The Saint was on his feet in an instant while Salvadore, disoriented as much from the chemicals in his system as from his sudden burst of stressful exercise, had difficulty scrambling as far as all fours. It took only a micro-second for Simon to realize that this room was also without guests. The Saint, as much as he hated admitting it, had been momentarily outwitted by a consummate scoundrel. Simon quickly delineated his immediate options and listed them as limited. A headfirst dive through the second floor window was the next best thing to suicide, and the Saint did not come here to die. There was no advantage in escape without the boys, nor was there success to his visit unless he could exercise significant influence over Alisdare. If the recipients of Salvadore's summons were no better blessed in physique and agility than their master, it was still possible for Simon to gain the upper hand. An immediate assault upon Alisdare's arriving reinforcements was a risky venture, but the Saint's colorful career could be characterized as a succession of such ventures, each proportionately speculative and uniformly hazardous.
The Saint swiftly sidestepped Alisdare, moving back out into the hall, and saw the first human obstacle to his situational ascendency -- a scrawny, hollow-cheeked individual, less than five foot ten inches tall, with a total estimated weight of one hundred fifty seven pounds -- taking the stairs two at a time in manifest earnestness. When the Saint burst into view, the gangly thug stumbled to a mid-stair stop and spun his right hand up to fire the sleek, silver television remote control clutched in his grip. The aforementioned spin came to an abrupt halt when he realized the impotence of his armament and blurted out an embarrassing caveat.
"I forgot my gun!"
"Tough noodles, Toodles," commented the Saint dispassionately.
Toodles was not the stringy fellow's given name, but as he and Simon were alone on the stairs, he knew it was to him that the Saint spoke. In a reflex action as absurd as it was ineffectual, Toodles' thumb desperately depressed one of the remote's buttons. The Saint did not pause, rather he pounced with the power of a compressed steel spring suddenly released.
Had a photograph been taken at the earliest moment of this eventful encounter, it would reveal only an absurdly handsome modern-day pirate conversing with a wide-eyed, slack-jawed imbecile. Even the most advanced techniques would fail to capture the emotional impact on the gunless gunsel who noticed neither the precision tailoring of the Saint's wardrobe nor the finer aspects of Simon Templar's personal grooming. Either because he was scared as hell, or perhaps because he nurtured the mistaken assumption that the personification of danger at the top of the stairs would wait for him while he went back for his revolver, the ungodly's vanguard turned his back. It was this same back, neither wide nor muscular, which immediately experienced an unpleasant impact mid-center, propelling him in a flailing arc of descent interrupted only by a momentarily painful collision with the wall. The Saint's own descent was equally rapid, and Simon was already in Alisdare's living room while his proposed opponent, a tangle of limbs on the landing, cried shamelessly over a sprained ankle.
Alisdare, having regained his two-footed stance if not his composure, began issuing abrasive orders from the second floor hall.
"Capture the Saint!" yelped Salvadore, but his disheveled accomplice was both unenthusiastic concerning the concept and decidedly unworthy of the task.
As for the Saint, he knew the henchman could only have arrived so quickly if he had been somewhere in the house to begin with. As he had not appeared during Simon's earlier boisterous conversation with Alisdare, he must have been completely distracted one floor below.
Simon's immediate survey of his surroundings revealed nothing surprising about the architecture or layout of Alisdare's home. Traditionally, American domiciles of that era featured daylight basements accessible by stairwell located near the back door and adjacent to the kitchen. Already sprinting in that direction, Simon could see through the kitchen towards the back door and predict with a fair approximation of acc
uracy the exact location of the aforementioned stairwell.
Three sets of keys gleamed on the kitchen counter and another rested atop a hall table. The math was easy -- three cars in back, one in front. It was quite possible that Dan and Ian had been hustled in via the back door and promptly ensconced underground. Alisdare, Simon noted to himself, violated the conventional thriller protocol which requires villains to hold prisoners above the first floor unless the house is situated atop a seething whirlpool, cavernous labyrinth, or boiling pit of molten lava.
The Saint scooped up the keys from the hall table, grabbed the other sets as he crossed into the kitchen, and stuffed them into his pockets. The door to the basement was ajar and Simon propelled himself down with one agile leap, landing with uninterrupted strides upon gold shag carpet in Alisdare's subterranean party room while his affronted host continued berating his semi-crippled lackey into limping, lukewarm pursuit.
Simon immediately discovered Dan and Ian gagged with duct tape and amateurishly secured by bungy cords to two black metal chairs set several feet apart in front of a console television. On screen was an inventive escape of interpersonal cross-gender indulgence never previewed by any legitimate ratings board; resting atop the TV was the object forgotten by the injured henchman in his hurried response to Alisdare's summons -- a snub-nose .38 revolver.
Thrilled at seeing their knightly hero drop into the midst of their dilemma as if descending from heaven, Dan and Ian began straining furiously against their bonds, grunting out muffled cries behind taut tape.
"So much for being a captive audience," remarked the Saint, his voice resonating with victorious promise," you're watching too much television and not getting enough exercise."
Simon grabbed the .38 in one deft move and swiftly unsnapped the absurd restraints. Dan and Ian sprung from their chairs, ripping away the tape from their lips.
Thundering footsteps and husky voices signaled that reinforcements from the shed were soon to be upon them, and the quietude of Duvall's pastoral serenity was already pierced by Alisdare's shrill commands and anguished expletives.
"Lock 'em in," ordered Salvadore breathlessly from above, "slam that damn door!"
If the Saint harbored any concerns regarding his young fans' response to the reality of being engulfed in a maelstrom of life-threatening mayhem, they were discarded with the same rapidity with which Daniel and Ian sent their chairs crashing through the basement's windows.
"They'll trap us down here!" exclaimed Daniel. His remark was more explanation and instruction than observation, but the Saint was already several mental steps ahead of him. Simon tossed a handful of keys to the wide-eyed Ian as the young men scrambled atop a teetering video cabinet to kick out the chards blocking their potential egress, grabbed a bungy cord, and headed back up the stairs.
The first human shadow cast on the stairwell wall jumped back in panic when the Saint's purloined .38 spat flame and a high-velocity slug slammed into the kitchen wall. Simon heard swearing and cries of warning echoing in the reverberation of his gunfire. He took the stairs in two leaps, slid the metal hook of the bungee cord around the thin stem of the old-fashioned brass door knob, and jumped back down to fasten the opposite end of the tightly stretched high-tension cord to the metal bracket at the bottom of the stair's railing. Keeping the basement door from closing provided more opportunity than danger. He knew Alisdare would send thugs back outside the moment he realized his captives were scrambling out into the dark, but no one in his right mind would dare risk the impact of hot lead by descending the stairs or lingering in the doorway long enough to discover the reason for the door's inexplicable reluctance to achieve closure.
No one said Salvadore Alisdare was in his right mind.
"Shut that damn door, Milo," he insisted, and Milo the Gimp reached out, grabbed the handle, and attempted slamming the basement door. The resultant increased tension on the bungy cord, amplified in its resistance at the point of near closure, was more than Milo could control.
Had Milo insisted on retaining his grip, he would have been pulled off his one good foot and sent face first into the gold shag carpet several feet below. The handle, however, jerked from his sweaty hand and the door swung back open with a bang. Aggravated, and unaware of the bungy cord, Alisdare took angry control of the effort, pulling furiously at the recalcitrant introgression at the same moment that Dan and Ian crawled out the basement window.
The Saint was directly behind them atop the unsteady cabinet when he heard Alisdare tugging and swearing, his plump shadow elongated and animated on the stairwell wall. Before Simon pulled himself through the jagged exit, he fired one well-aimed parting shot. The bullet smashed into the railing bracket exactly where the Saint intended. Although Simon couldn't see the predictable result, his imagination provided appropriate mental illustrations to accompany the cacophony created by Alisdare's rear-first crash into the accessory closet of brooms, dustpans, detergents, and an exceptionally noisy ironing board. One of Salvadore's shed-dwelling auxiliary immediately retaliated by firing two slugs from a .45 through the basement door, but they served only to alert the Saint that there was more to dodge than scrawny Ungodly and unlicensed chemists.
Outside in the dark, Dan and Ian raced towards the Volvo wagon as two shadowy forms exploded out the back door and attempted interception. Alisdare was immediately behind them, waving his arms wildly and screeching like an agitated parrot.
"Stop them, stop them all!"
Had a professional football scout been in attendance, the boys' abilities to deftly elude their pursuers would have earned them lucrative offers from several major league teams. The thugs, unimpressed by such agility, resorted to weaponry. A shotgun blast of blue fire racked the darkness and the left rear window of the Saintmobile shattered in crystalline fragments.
Ian dove in the dirt, seeking cover by crawling under the station wagon, while Daniel threw himself behind a tree. The Saint, moving at full speed, pulled the .38's trigger while his adversary's first shot was still vibrating his tympanum. The shadow behind the shotgun screamed, his right arm pierced by the invading projectile, and fell backward as his smoking weapon vanished behind him in the brush.
"Don't kill them!" screamed Alisdare, but as Simon was unsure to whom the entreaty was addressed, he ignored it. So did the second assailant who, perhaps more motivated by self-defense than a desire to halt the trio's progress, fired three wild rounds in rapid succession. Two bullets screamed into the dirt by Simon's heels, and the third sent bark splintering from the tree behind which Daniel hid. Ian, still stretched out under the Volvo, clasped his hands over his ears and prayed for deliverance.
The Saint vaulted in the brush, grabbed Daniel by the shoulder, and threw him behind the Volvo's right side before the ungodly could fire another round. With Ian under the car, and Simon and Dan behind it, they were either on the verge of entrapment or escape.
Simon thrust a strong arm beneath the auto's chassis and gripped Ian by the sleeve, dragging him hurriedly from under the vehicle.
"The keys!" insisted Simon, and Ian fumbled out an indistinguishable handful. The Saint pulled open the passenger door and the dome light splashed illumination, alerting the ungodly as to their exact location. Simon dove into the front seat as fresh round from the .45 blasted through the windshield and slammed into the Volvo's headrest.
"Damn!" exclaimed Ian, and he suddenly bolted from cover.
Intermittent lunar luminance and the yellow 100 watt bulb above Alisadare's back porch streaked through an atmosphere of gun smoke and outcries. The wounded assailant's moans merging with the oaths and expletives uttered by his unsavory compatriots convinced the local crickets and bullfrogs to keep their croaks to themselves and their hind legs immobile. A new element entered the auditory mix--an angry outburst of taunt and derision from a short young man with sheep-dog hair. It was Ian, loudly shouting crude and creative insults as he dashed out of the clearing in a daring desperate and unexpectedly heroic act of effective dis
traction. All manic movement and furious noise, he leaped stump to shrub, weaving erratically towards the stacked cord wood on the other side of the vehicles.
"Get the little bastard!" ordered Alisdare, scurrying down the back steps as if moving three feet closer to the action would somehow increase his odds of success.
Milo hobbled stupidly in Ian's general direction while the shadow with the .45 automatic instinctively swung his sloppy aim away from the Volvo.
The fuel injected pride of Sweden burst to life with a horrendous roar, a blaze of headlights, and the clamor of inadequate tread on loose gravel. The Saint was behind the wheel, in control, and ramming the accelerator to the floor.
"Hang on, kiddo," advised Simon, and Daniel's fingers dug into the brown plastic dash as the right passenger door banged back on its hinges.
The Saint rode the clutch and manipulated the shift knob with gear grinding abandon. Now, for the first time, he could clearly see every detail of the night's madness -- Alisdare yapping and scuttling like an inbred Pomeranian, Milo limping about aimlessly, a lump of humanity adorned by bedraggled beard and bib overalls clutching a blood soaked arm, and what could only be described as a generic skinhead from central casting wielding a .45 doing his best to corner the wild and wily Ian.
Simon pulled hard on the steering wheel, gunned the engine, and spun the Volvo to create more chaos and increase the dust factor. Skinhead turned from Ian and angrily let loose another burst of gunfire at the Saint. The shot blew away the black AM radio antenna, sending it ricocheting off the luggage rack.
"The radio didn't work good anyway," commented Daniel conversationally, and the Saint knew he was in good company. Simon aimed the Volvo's brights directly at the armed man who could not decide between pursuing Ian or taking another shot at the Saint. His indecision was his undoing. As he turned his eyes away from the Saintmobile's headlights, the wrong end of a ladder banged him directly across the bridge of his nose. On the other end of the ladder, swinging it like a mighty staff, was Ian.