“Just get in the car and drive, will you? Don't talk to me. I see through you.”
We both got in, Bell in the back, and he pointed out to the road, the direction heading away from the interstate. I started the car and drove where he wanted me to, my mind racing backward and forward. My gun was in the trunk. How could I get to the trunk? Or how could I get inside his head in a hurry?
“What's the plan, Michael?”
“The plan was for you to go back to Washington, and for everyone to go on with their pitiful lives. But that didn't work out so well, did it? You should thank me for taking out the reporter, no? He begged and sobbed for his life, by the way Great performance. I believed him. What a wimp he turned out to be.”
I was surprised he knew I was from D.C., and also about Truscott. But then, he was a watcher, a plotter. There was probably a lot that Bell knew.
“So what now?” I asked.
“What do you think? You're supposed to be the expert, right? So, what happens now?”
“It doesn't have to go like this.” I was just talking; saying anything that came into my mind.
“You gotta be kidding. What other way do you think it can go? Let me hear all of the choices. I can't wait.”
Meantime, he had burrowed the barrel of his my neck. I leaned away, but only so far. I thought if I knew exactly where his gun was. I wondered if ecuting a plan now, or if he was improvising at Mary Smith had been known to do both.
And this was Mary Smith, wasn't it? I'd finally met the real killer.
We drove for a few miles on an unlit secondary highway “This looks good here,” he said suddenly “Go that way Make a left. Do it.”
I turned off the pavement onto a bumpy dirt road. It sloped upward, winding away into the woods. Eventually, the fir trees closed around the car like a tunnel. I was running out of time, and it didn't look as if there was any way for me to escape. Mary Smith had me, just the way she'd gotten all the others and killed them without fail.
“Where are we going, Bell?”
“Somewhere they won't find you right away Or your pen pal, either.”
“You know, they're already looking for you in L.A. I made a call.”
“Yeah, well, good luck to them. I'm not exactly in L.A., am I?”
“What about your girls, Michael? What about them?”
He pushed the gun barrel harder into my neck. “Not my fucking girls. Marti was a cheap little whore before I married her. Before I made her into something. I was a good father to those ungrateful kids, all for Marti. She was a runaround when I met her, and she stayed a runaround. Okay pull over. This is good.”
pistol into it was best he was exthis point. This was definitely not good. The car headlights showed where the road dropped off to a wooded slope on the right. I had to be real careful not to go over the edge.
Then all at once, I thought the opposite. If I could force myself to do it - but I knew I had to. So I mashed the accelerator down and spun the steering wheel as sharply to the right as I could.
Bell screeched. “What the fuck are you doing? Stop the car. Stop!”
Three things happened, all at about the same time. Michael Bell's gun went off; I felt a universe of pain explode in my right shoulder; and the car started to plummet - almost straight downhill.
Mary, Mary
Chapter 118
SUDDENLY THE PAIN SEEMED TO BE EVERYWHERE in my body, and it was nothing if not extreme. I was only semiconscious of thick fir trees and underbrush giving way to the car as it rocked and rolled and caromed out of control, threatening to flip.
We probably fell for only four or five seconds. Still, the eventual impact was enough to jam my chest with incredible force against the steering wheel. The seat belt probably saved me from going through the windshield. I knew Bell hadn't been wearing his, and could only hope that he was badly hurt. If I was lucky, maybe he was unconscious, or dead, in the backseat.
I already had my hand on the door handle, and I rolled out of the car as best and fast as I could manage.
My whole body throbbed with a numbing ache that made it hard to move quickly My right arm hung useless at my side.
I saw James Truscott's body, facedown and spread-eagle in the dirt. Apparently he'd been thrown loose in the crash.
Then Michael Bell moaned in the backseat. He was alive inside. Too bad. With a great mustering of resources, I managed to get up on one knee. Suddenly my shoulder screamed with pain; I knew it had to be broken.
I took a halting step forward, expecting Hat ground - but there was an almost invisible bank of tangled brush.
I went down, landing in half a foot of water. I'd been totally unaware of the stream until now It was shallow here, but the water stretched out farther across than I could see in the dark.
The icy water sent an electric current of shock right through me.
I hadn't thought the pain could get worse, but I saw a wash of white before my sight partially returned.
Again, I started to push myself up, only to be knocked back down. This time, it was Bell.
He pushed down on my neck and head, and he was strong as hell. Then I felt his foot pressing down on my back. Water rushed up into my nose and mouth.
“Where the flick do you think -”he was yelling.
I didn't give him a chance to finish. I scissored my legs hard against his ankle, and it took most of the rest of my strength just to do that. It caught him off guard though, and he fell backward off of me. I heard two splashes, and hoped one was his gun.
Half in, half out of the water, leaning hard on my good left hand, I raised myself up enough to launch at him. I managed a ground tackle, and then a left hook before he could respond. He reached up and laid a heavy grip on my face, digging in with his fingers.
Michael Bell was about my height, but a super heavyweight; despite his weight loss in the past few weeks, he had at least thirty pounds on me.
I got a hand on his throat, dug in, and pushed as hard as I could. He gagged some, but didn't let go.
Leverage was the only thing I might be able to increase, but when I moved my foot, it hit a slick of algae.
The sudden shift of weight sent me lurching with an agonizing twist of my body, and I landed back in the freezing cold water.
God, it was cold - but I almost didn't care.
Michael Bell stood up faster than I did this time. Not a good sign. He had a second wind.
The dead weight of my aching right arm slowed me down.
I saw him in vague silhouette, picking up what looked like a flat rock about the size of an encyclopedia. He raised the rock high in both hands as he came toward me again.
“You stupid fuck!” he yelled. “I'll kill you! That's my plan, all right. That's how the story ends. This is how it ends!”
I scrabbled back and away from Bell as best I could, but I knew it wasn't enough. My hand landed on something hard in the shallow water. Not rock, at least I didn't think so.
Metal?
“You die!” Bell yelled at me. “How that for a plan? How's that for an ending?”
The metal object. I knew what it had to be. I yanked Bell's gun out of the water and fumbled with the trigger. “Bell, no!”
I screamed. He kept on coming with the enormous rock held over his head. “Die!”
So I fired.
I couldn't tell exactly what happened in the moonlit woods. I had no idea where he was hit, but he grunted noisily and stopped for a second.
Then he charged forward again. I fired a second time. And a third. Both upper-chest shots, at least I thought so.
The heavy rock he was holding fell back into the water. Suspended for a moment by some invisible force, Bell staggered away two or three drunken steps. Then he fell over face first into the water, making a loud splash.
Then nothing. Silence in the woods.
Trembling badly, uncontrollably, I kept the gun trained on Bell with my good hand. It took incredible effort just to get over the slick rocks to where he lay.