The Captain had seemed surprised, had stared coldly at him, through him, before swiveling around to the district map. “If you think you’d be able to remember this Medini’s description for more than five minutes” — his pencil had touched the intersection of US 9 and NY 46 on the big scale roadmap — “you might be of some use here. If this murderer slips through the net at Whitehall, that’d be the only place we could pin him in, between here and the border. North of there, there’d be a dozen routes he could take.
“But I haven’t anyone to send with you. And I can’t order you to take your cyke out on a night like this. If you go, you’re strictly on your own.”
Naturally, under the circumstances, there had been only one thing for the Demon to say. He’d saluted smartly and said it. Had slithered his Indian sweetheart over nineteen slush-greasy miles to set out his solitary road-block. A gesture, to show his willingness to be a good trooper. And what would he get out of it? The sniffles.
The headlights of the approaching car slowed, a couple hundred yards down the road. The Demon switched on his blinker and his headlight, kicked down the rest-bar, dismounted. He grabbed his flash, moved into the thin wedge of white light so the driver could see his puttees, and made a “Come Ahead” gesture with the flashlight.
The car moved up, slowed, stopped a dozen yards from the row of flares. A girl cranked down the window beside the wheel, leaned out anxiously. The Demon pushed up his ear flaps to hear her.
“What is it, officer? Road under repair?”
It was a two-tone green ’47 Buick four-door she was driving. Even under its coating of ice it was glossy, shiny with bright chrome. Maryland pads VR 21-744. The Demon couldn’t recall any such car on the Hot List at the moment. But he didn’t have time to take out his mimeo sheet and check, now. There was something more important. He walked over; the girl seemed to be alone.
“Just checking licenses, Miss. See yours, please?”
She frowned, irritated. She would have been right pretty, he thought, if it wasn’t for the scowl. Curly blond hair, sort of a pert, snub nose and a mouth that was certainly intended for better things than being turned down petulantly at the corners. He couldn’t tell, about her figure under the beaver coat, but she looked like the sort of cutie somebody’d buy this kind of car for.
“Here.” She fumbled in her bag, produced a celluloid case, handed it through the window.
It was a blue Maryland license. One of those lifetime issuances. Kathryn F. Caudle, it read. #938363, 21 McCormick Ave., Baltimore. Underneath were cryptic symbols: W. F. 5/4122-1923. It seemed to check. She was white and female, all right — that Nuit de Passion or whatever she used on her hair was very, very, feminine, the Demon decided. She would weigh around a hundred twenty or so, yeah. And she didn’t appear to be more than twenty-five.
He gave the license back. “Which way you going, Miss?” He opened the rear door casually, peered in.
“Lake Placid. Where do 1 turn for Ausable?”
“Westport. Ten miles beyond Port Henry.” He felt beneath the plaid blanket on the floor behind the front seat. Something lumpy was hidden under the blanket. It was a suitcase and a duffel bag.
“My ski stuff,” she said crossly. “If I ever get to Placid without skiing off the road.”
“I’ll help you put your chains on, if you want.”
“No thanks!” Was he imagining it, or was there a sudden panic in her voice? “They make such a horrible racket when the highway is clear of snow.”
“Yeah. Car skidding into a telegraph pole doesn’t sound very sweet, either.” He guessed he’d been wrong. He was looking for trouble and expected to find it even where there wasn’t any.
He grinned and it made his homely, wide-mouthed face attractive in a weather-reddened fashion. She smiled back at him, amiably. He closed the rear door, vaguely uneasy about something — annoyed with himself that he couldn’t put a name to it.
What was there about this dame and her shiny new bus that bothered him?! “They’ll have chains at Hoffman’s Garage at Westport, if you change your mind.”
“I might.” She blinked long lashes provocatively. “I do, sometimes. Play it safe, that’s my motto.”
“Good motto. Good night.” He waved her on, watched the Buick’s purplish tail lights dwindle into the darkness up US 9, slow momentarily at the curve an eighth of a mile ahead, disappear. He splashed back to his machine with a disturbed feeling that all was not according to Hoyle in that setup.
“I’m getting gidgety as an ole woman, Minnie. Just because the Cap bawls me out.” Suppose he’d made that girl get out and unlock the trunk compartment for inspection. She’d have had a right to raise a smell that would really get him a bawling— Wait!
Smell! That was it! He’d caught a good, strong whiff of garlic when he’d opened that rear door.
And the girl had been wearing perfume, so it couldn’t have come from her or he’d never have noticed the garlic.
Garlic. Italian cooking. Medini. The Demon wondered. Of course a lot of people besides Italians did like garlic. To be sure the odor of those powerful little cloves could hang around clothing or, say a blanket, for quite a while. And the Demon had no certain knowledge that they ever cooked with the onion’s little brother down at the Comstock penitentiary.
“Urgent! All patrols!... Urgent, Urgent!! All patrols!!” Minnie was sputtering a warning. He tuned up her one-way. “Special to Units Seven, Fourteen and Twenty-two...!” The Demon’s heart hammered. Twenty-two was Trooper Damon Ames!! “Special to Units Seven, Fourteen, Twenty-two. Fatal shooting on US 9 two miles south Crown Point at Wistor’s Grocery about fifteen minutes ago. Proprietor killed. No details except murderer escaped in car.”
Brad Wistor, the Demon muttered. The roly-poly little guy who would never take a nickel from a trooper for sodas or an apple. A harmless ole Humpty Dumpty with a heart as big as his fat stomach. Chopped down in cold blood.
“No identification of attacker. Halt all cars moving away from area, bring to Crown Point for questioning.”
He kicked up the rest-stand, slewed out in the highway. He’d stop the one car that was moving away from the area past his block, or bust a few of Minnie’s spokes.
Fifteen minutes ago? He was four miles north of Crown Point. Four and two made six miles. Just about right for a Buick traveling thirty-five.
She didn’t look like a kid who might have gunned out a friendly ole geek like Brad. But she might not have been alone in that car. There might have been someone hidden in that trunk compartment. Someone who liked garlic.
It was only the merest breath of suspicion, but it was all he had to go on.
He gave Minnie the spurs, got up to seventy on the straightaway. Then he saw the swinging red light at the grade crossing.
A wild wail of approaching danger shrilled from the locomotive — another.
He twisted Minnie’s tail into fourth speed; the pickup nearly left him sitting flat in the slush. His Indian baby could do a hundred and ten on dry ground. He kept his eyes off the speedometer as he roared into the crossing.
It was one of those long freights clattering toward Schenectady and the west. He could beat it to the grade crossing.
Fifty feet from the oscillating red glare he saw the headlight coming from the opposite direction. The Montreal express coming like a bat.
He could slide Minnie through a lot of tight places where a car wouldn’t be able to squeeze by — but he couldn’t ride the cinders between two trains. He wrenched the handlebars blindly, rocketed off the road onto the side of the railroad embankment.