“Eddie,” she said.
“Not now, for God’s sake!” he yelled, one hand cupped over the microphone.
“Eddie, let’s get out of this. Please. Please.”
“No!” he said. “Where are you now, King?” he asked into the microphone.
“Approaching Exit Fifteen,” Carella answered.
“Let me know when you pass Sixteen,” Eddie said.
“All right.” Carella covered the mouthpiece of the telephone.
“Where do you suppose he’s leading us?” King asked.
“I don’t know. Somewhere out on the peninsula.” He shook his head. “If we knew that, Mr. King…”
* * * *
Sy Barnard looked at his watch again.
It shouldn’t be long now. Come on, Eddie, he thought. Hurry them up. Get them over here with the gold. Let them make the drop, and let me pick it up, and let me get back to that farmhouse safely.
Come on. Please. Hurry up.
Sy didn’t realize it, but he was praying.
* * * *
What do you make of this, Harry?” the uniformed cop asked.
The cop in the adjoining toll booth handed a motorist his change and said, “What?”
“Lower that radio a minute, will you?”
“Sure.” He turned down the volume. “What is it?”
“Guy just handed me this. What do you make of it?”
Harry studied the shield and the note. “What do I make of it? You damn fool, this guy’s a bull! Get on the phone right away!”
“How do you know he’s legit?”
“Mister, you can’t buy shields like that in the five and ten!”
“Headquarters, Detective Snyder.”
“Listen, this is Patrolman Umberson, shield number 63-457, I’m in a toll booth on the Black Rock Span.”
“Yeah, what is it, Umberson?”
“A black Caddy just went through the toll stop. Guy handed me a badge and a note asking me to call Headquarters.”
“What kind of a badge?”
“Detective.”
“What’s the number on it?”
“Just a second.” There was a pause on the line. “Number 8712,” Umberson said.
“So what about it?”
“The note said to tell Headquarters that King was contacted by radio transmission to the car telephone. It said to try to get a fix. Does that make any sense to you?”
“King contacted by…” Detective Snyder shrugged. “I just came on duty.” he said. “It don’t mean nothing to me. I’ll check on that badge number, see if it’s legitimate tin. What was the guy’s name again?”
“King.”
“King, huh? Like the guy in that kidnaping over in Smoke—” Snyder started and then suddenly said, “Oh, my God!”
* * * *
“Call it off, Eddie,” Kathy said. “End it. We’ll take the boy and…”
“I’m not calling anything off!” Eddie snapped. “I have to do this, Kathy! I have to!”
“Please. If you love me, I’m asking you to…”
“All right, we just passed Exit Sixteen,” Carella said.
“Fine. Turn off at Seventeen and drive four blocks north. Then double back until you hit the parkway entrance below this one. You’ll be heading in the opposite direction,” Eddie said. “Drive down one exit to Exit Fifteen. Let me know when you—”
“The boy is in a farmhouse on Fairlane Road, a half mile from Stanberry!” Kathy suddenly shouted into the open microphone.
“What the hell—” Eddie started, and he turned to face her, but he was too late, the lid had blown, the words were spouting from her mouth.
* * * *
“Sy Barnard is waiting in a car…”
“Kathy, stop it, are you crazy?”
“…on Tantamount Road, around the curve in 127.”
“Did you hear that?” Carella shouted.
“I heard it,” King said.
Carella slammed the receiver down onto the hook. “Head for Tantamount Road Route 127,” he said to King. “Straight ahead, turn off at Exit Twenty-two. Step on it. Never mind the speed limit.” He lifted the receiver from the hook again and waited for the operator.
“Your call, please?”
“This is a police officer,” Carella said “Get me Headquarters immediately.”
“Yes, sir!” the operator said.
Sy Barnard was sitting in the automobile smoking his fifteenth cigarette when the black Cadillac rounded the bend in the road.
This is it, he thought. This is it.
The car slowed to a stop. The window on the right-hand side of the car was open. Sy watched, expecting to see a pair of hands appear at the window, expecting to see a carton of money drop into the bushes. Instead, the door opened and a man with a gun in his hand leaped out.
What the…? Sy thought, and then he cursed Eddie for not having warned him somehow, and then stopped cursing because he realized it had been impossible to warn him, and then wondered what had gone wrong, and then turned the ignition key and started the car, and then ducked because that son of a bitch with the gun had opened fire. He drove straight for the man with the gun. The man kept firing. Two bullets shattered the windshield, but Sy drove past, seeing another man jump out of the Cadillac. The car had no sooner hit the macadam highway than Sy heard a fusillade of shots and felt the car give a sudden lurch, and knew at once that a tire had been hit. The back window shattered and Sy figured he’d be better off on foot from here on in. He drove the limping car for another few yards, hopped out before it had stopped rolling, and began running into the woods.
The guy with the gun was reloading.
The other guy, a tall man with graying temples, began running after Sy.
Sy instantly drew his own pistol, turned, and fired twice, missing.
He thrashed into the woods.
“Give it up!” the man behind him yelled. “We know where your partner is!”
“Go to hell!” Sy shouted, and he turned and fired again but the big man behind him did not slow his pace. He stamped into the woods after Sy and again Sy fired, and again, and suddenly the gun was empty. He threw away the useless pistol. He reached into his pocket, and the switch knife flashed into view, and suddenly the big man came around an outcropping of rocks, and Sy said softly, “Hold it!”
“Hold crap!” Douglas King said, and he lunged.
The knife ripped upward, cutting a swath across King’s overcoat. Again it slashed, digging deeper this time, tearing into King’s jacket and running a thin line of blood across his flesh. King’s hands tightened on Sy’s throat.
“You son of a bitch! You lousy son of a bitch!” King muttered, his hands tightening, tightening, as he backed Sy against a tree. The knife flashed erratically now, searching for flesh. King’s grip on Sy’s throat would not loosen. A powerful man with hands that once had cut leather, he battered Sy’s head against the tree, never relaxing his grip, silently, coldly, viciously pounding the other man until the knife dropped quietly from his lax fingers.