Back on the Autobahn, Padillo said: “Something’s gone sour.”
I let the car slow down to seventy and then to sixty. “How’s that?”
“There should have been something at Frankfurt. I’m not sure what, but something was missing.”
“The reception not warm enough for you?” I asked, and moved the speedometer back up to eighty-five.
“Somebody must have tumbled to us by the time we got there.”
I pressed the accelerator, and the Impala moved quickly up to ninety-five. “If you’ll take a look behind you, I think somebody did. They’ve got a big green Cadillac, and it’s been pacing us since we picked up the booze.”
Padillo turned and looked. So did Symmes and Burchwood.
“Three of them,” Padillo said. “As long as they keep that far behind, keep it around eighty. If they start to move up, then see how fast this thing will go. What’s our best bet?”
I glanced in the rearview mirror at the green Cadillac, which had fixed itself a measured hundred yards behind us. “It depends on what they want to do,” I said. “If they want to crowd us off, they’re going to have to get alongside, and I don’t think they’ve got the speed or the driver for that. If they just want to follow, they can probably keep up pretty well, considering the traffic. If it’s tuned right, that Cadillac can hit a hundred and ten — maybe a hundred and twenty if it’s blown; but I don’t know of many that are.
“Our best chance is when we turn off to Bonn. That’s up and down hill and they haven’t got the springs for the curves. This thing does. We can probably gain on them there, run up the river to the bridge instead of taking the ferry, and then cut back through Bonn. Any place in mind?”
“We’ll figure that out later. Let’s see if they’ve got the steam to keep up.”
“He’s got seat belts in this thing,” I said. “We may as well use them.”
“They can cut you in two or make you feel like it,” Padillo said. But he buckled his anyway. He turned to Symmes and Burchwood. “Put yours on. We’re taking another ride.” The two men remained silent but snapped on their belts.
“Shall we?” I said.
“Let’s.”
I pressed the accelerator almost to the floor board and the Chevrolet spurted past a couple of Volkswagens. The traffic was medium-heavy and I kept to the left-hand lane, flicking the passing-lights switch as we zipped by the slower-moving trucks and cars. The Cadillac moved out into the same lane and its driver began working his lights. He kept the hundred yards between us as if we were linked by a chain.
“What’s it say?” I asked Padillo.
“It’s bouncing off a hundred and twenty.”
I snatched a glance at the special tachometer. Its needle was hovering around red-line. I pressed the accelerator down the last quarter of an inch and held it hard against the floor board. A big blue Mercedes convertible took my passing as a personal challenge and swung out into the left lane to give chase. The Cadillac blew him back over with horn and lights.
The wind noise was almost a scream and, despite its tough springing, the Chevrolet was jumping around. On a hill an Opel moved out two hundred yards in front of us to pass a Volkswagen. It barely got its front fender up to the VW’s rear bumper when I leaned on the horn and flashed the lights. It was too late for the Opel to drop back and it didn’t have the juice to move ahead. It took the only course available and headed for the dividing strip. The VW made for the shoulder. We roared through, and I still think that my front left fender nicked the Opel. The Cadillac sliced through behind us.
“I haven’t done that since I was sixteen,” I yelled at Padillo.
Padillo reached into his raincoat pocket and took out his revolver and checked its rounds. I got mine out and handed it to him and he reloaded it from a box of shells and gave it back. I glanced in the mirror and saw that the Cadillac was maintaining its distance. Symmes and Burchwood sat in the back seat, stiffly upright, their eyes buttoned tight, their mouths making little straight lines of fear and disapproval. I supposed that they were holding hands. It was none of my business.
It took us a little under fifty minutes to make the sixty miles from the place where we bought the brandy to the cutoff to Bonn. I double-clutched the Chevrolet and threw it down into third, not using the brake. I did it again and got it down into second. The engine braked the car and, without the rear brake light to warn him, the Cadillac’s driver was almost on our bumper before he could figure out what I was doing.
I went into the curve too fast, but the engine was still braking and the Cadillac didn’t have a chance. It overshot. I kept the Chevrolet in second and made the curve and shifted up into third again.
“They’re going to back up,” Padillo said.
“That’s a hell of a risk on that road.”
We sped through the Autobahn underpass and hit the blacktopped road that led to Venusberg and down to the ferry that crossed the Rhine to Bonn. I kept the car in third, shifting down into second as we scattered a few small children and ducks in a village and started to climb the twisting road to the top of the hill.
“I don’t see them,” Padillo said.
“We may have picked up a few minutes. We should gain another five or ten on these curves.”
The Chevrolet took them on rails, its hard tough springing reminiscent of an old MG-TC I had once owned. I shifted down into second to drift the first bend in an S-shaped curve. The engine was responding nicely on the short straight and I was estimating the rpm’s needed for the next bend when we went into it, came out of it, and hit the roadblock.
They had the two junkers parked across the road: a couple of battered but still solid Mercedes of the early-1950 vintage. I was still in second, so I hit the brakes with my left foot and jammed the accelerator down with my right, trying to spin the car into a tight U-turn, but it was too late and the Chevrolet crashed into one of the Mercedes and I was slammed forward against the steering wheel.
There seemed to be dozens of them. They got the Chevrolet doors open and dragged us out. I was stunned, and my stomach ached where the seat belt had cut into it. I felt them lift the gun out of my pocket. I slid down on the ground and vomited. It was mostly wine. I lay there for what seemed a long time, and then I looked up and Padillo was still standing, held by two men in gray felt hats and belted coats whose colors kept changing in the light that filtered through the trees. One of them reached into Padillo’s pocket and took out his revolver. They patted some more pockets and found the knife and got that too. I was sick again.
Two of them grabbed me under the arms and helped me to stagger over to a car and then tumbled me into the back on the floor. I lay there panting and trying not to be sick again. I managed to grab the back of the front seat and haul myself to my knees. It took all day. Padillo was sprawled across the backseat, his mouth slightly ajar. His eyes opened and they blinked at me a couple of times and closed again. I knelt on the back floor and looked out the rear window. They had moved the two Mercedes and the Chevrolet over to one side of the road. They were dragging one of the Mercedes off into a clump of trees. It was being pulled by a Ford Taunus. At least it looked like a Ford Taunus, but the light was getting bad. A man climbed into the front seat and aimed a gun at me. He had a sallow ugly face and his long nose was spotted with ripe blackheads.
“Pick up your friend and make him sit up,” he said. He spoke German, but it was heavily accented. I couldn’t place the accent. I turned and picked up Padillo’s feet and swung them down to the floor. Then I pushed and shoved him into a sitting position, but he slumped forward and I had to push him back again. He had vomited over his uniform and there was an ugly dark spot under his right ear that oozed blood. I sat in the back seat beside him and looked at the man with the gun and the blackheads on his nose.