Suddenly, he stopped running. Why chase the Beller, even if he could catch up with him? A chase would draw too much attention.
He took out the beamer disguised as a pen and set the little slide on its barrel for a very narrow flesh-piercing beam. He aimed it at the back of the Beller and, at that moment, as if the Beller realized what must happen, he dropped to the ground. His box went tumbling, he rolled away and then disappeared behind a slight ridge. Kickaha's beam passed over him, struck a tree, drilled a hole into it. Smoke poured out of the bark. Kickaha shut the beamer off. If it was kept on for more than a few seconds, it needed another powerpack.
The Beller's head popped up, and his hand came out with a slender dark object in it. He pointed it at Kickaha, who leaped into the air side-ways and at the same time threw the hatbox away. There was aflash of something white along the box, and the box and its contents, both split in half, fell to the ground. The hatbox burst into flames just before it struck.
Kickaha threw himself onto the ground and shot once. The grass on the ridge became brown. The next instant, the Beller was shooting again. Kickaha rolled away and then was up and away, zigzagging.
Anana was running toward him, her hand held up with the huge ring pointed forward. Kickaha whirled to aid her and saw that the Beller, who had retrieved the cardboard box, was running away again. Across the grass toward them, from all sides, people were running. Among them were two policemen.
Kickaha thought that his antics and those of the Beller must have seemed very peculiar to the witnesses. Here were these two youths, each with a box, pointing ballpoint pens at each other, dodging, ducking, playing cowboy and Indian. And the woman who had been screaming as if she had suddenly seen Frankenstein's monster was now in the game.
One of the policemen shouted at them.
Kickaha said, "Don't let them catch us! We'll be done for! Get the Beller!"
They began running at top speed. The cops shouted some more. He looked behind him. Neither had his gun out but it would not be long before they did.
They were overtaking the Beller, and the policemen were dropping behind. He was breathing too hard, though.
Whatever his condition, the Beller's was worse. He was slowing down fast. This meant that very shortly he would turn again, and Kickaha had better be nimble. In a few seconds, he would have the Beller within range of the beamer, and he would take both legs off. And that would be the end of possibly the greatest peril to man, other than man himself, of course.
The Beller ran up concrete steps in a spurt of frantic energy and onto the street above. Kickaha slowed down and stopped before ascending the last few steps. He expected the Beller to be waiting for his head to appear. Anana came up behind him then. Between deep gasps, she said, "Where is he?"
"If I knew, I wouldn't be standing here," he said.
He turned and left the steps to run crouching across the steep slope of the hill. When he was about forty feet away from the steps, he got down on his belly and crawled up to the top of the slope. The Beller would be wondering what he was doing. If he were intelligent, he would know that Kickaha wasn't going to charge up and over the steps. He'd be looking on both sides of the steps for his enemy to pop up.
Kickaha looked to his right. Anana had caught on and was also snaking along. She turned her head and grinned at him and waved. He signaled that they should both look over the edge at the same time. If the Beller was paralyzed for just a second by the double appearance, and couldn't make up his mind which one to shoot first, he was as good as dead.
That is, if the cops behind them didn't interfere. Their shouts were getting louder, and then a gun barked and the dirt near Kickaha flew up.
He signaled, and they both stuck their heads up. At that moment, a gun cracked in the street before them.
The Beller was down on his back in the middle of the street. There was a car beside him, a big black Lincoln, and several men were about to pick the Beller up and load him into the car. One of the men was Kleist.
Kickaha swore. He had run the Beller right into the arms of Orc's men, who were probably cruising this area and looking for a man with a big box. Or maybe somebody had-oh, irony of ironies!-seen Kickaha with his box and thought he was the Beller!
He gestured at Anana and they both jumped up and ran off toward the car. More shouts but no shots from the policemen. The men by the limousine looked up just as they hurled the limp form of the Beller into the car. They climbed in, and the car shot away with a screaming of burning rubber into the temporarily opened lane before it.
Kickaha aimed at the back of the car, hoping to pierce a tire or to set the gasoline tank on fire. Nothing happened, and the car was gone yowling around a corner. His beamer was empty.
There was nothing to do except to run once more, and now the policemen would be calling in for help. The only advantage for the runners was the very heavy rush hour traffic. The cops wouldn't be able to get here too fast in automobiles.
A half hour later, they were in a taxi, and, in another twenty minutes, they were outside a motel. The manager looked at them curiously and raised his eyebrows when he saw no luggage. Kickaha said that they were advance agents for a small rock group and their baggage was coming along later. They'd flown in on fifteen minutes' notice from San Francisco.
They took the keys to their room and went down the court and into their room. Here they lay down on the twin beds and, after locking the door and pushing the bureau against it, slept for fifteen minutes. On awakening, they took a shower and put their sweaty clothes back on. Following the manager's directions, they walked down to a shopping area and purchased some more clothes and necessary items.
"If we keep buying clothes and losing them the same day," Kickaha said, "we're going to go broke. And I'll have to turn to robbery again."
When they returned to the motel room, he eagerly opened the latest copy of the Los Angeles Times to the personals column. He read down and then, suddenly, said, "Yay!" and leaped into the air. Anana sat up from the bed and said, "What's the matter?"
"Nothing's the matter! This is the first good thing that's happened since we got here! I didn't really believe that it'd work! But he's a crafty old fox, that Wolff! He thinks like me! Look, Anana!"
He shoved the paper at her. Blinking, she moved away so she could focus and then slowly read the words:
Hrowakas Kid. You came through. Stats. Wilshire and San Vicenie. 9 p.m. C sends love.
Kickaha pulled her up off the bed and danced her around the room. "We did it! We did it! Once we're all together, nothing'll stop us!"
Anana hugged and kissed him and said, "I'm very happy. Maybe you're right, this is the turning point. My brother Jadawin! Once I would have tried to kill him. But no more. I can hardly wait."
"Well, we won't have long to wait," he said. He forced himself to be-come sober. "I better find out what's going on."
He turned the TV on. The newscaster of one station apparently was not going to mention them, so Kickaha switched channels. A minute later, he was rewarded.
He and Anana were wanted for questioning about the kidnapping of Kleist. The manager of the motel in which Kleist had been tied up had described the two alleged kidnappers. Kleist himself had made no charges at first, but then Cambring's body had been found. The police had made a connection between Cambring and Kickaha and Anana because of the ruckus at the La Brea Tar Pits. There was also an additional charge: the stealing of Cambring's car.
Kickaha did not like the news but he could not help chuckling a little because of the frustration that Red Orc must feel. The Lord would have wanted some less serious charge, such as the car stealing only, so that he could pay the bail of the two and thus nab them when they walked out of the police station. But on charges such as kidnapping, he might not be able to get them released.