Chapter Thirteen
At the top of the steps Shaw drew in big gulps of fresh air, exhaling away the stinks of the morgue. Flame seemed to have started living again; just to feel she wasn’t after all going to be sealed up in a lead container with a couple of corpses had given her the nice idea everything was wonderful. Any reprieve was worth having; but Shaw wasn’t fooled as to the ultimate intentions of the Dead Line operators.
Yet, while a man lived, he hoped.
Nobody would give them any information; it was a case of sealed lips now.
It was dark outside and the light was on in the office while Spice gave his orders to his staff, which included the four mutes who had carried the Osterman bodies down into the morgue earlier. “You four,” he said, indicating the mutes, “go with Shaw an’ de girl. Get dem to headquarters intact an’ breathin’—which ain’t to say you don’ use your guns if dey tries a getaway. If you has to, if dey looks like gettin’ away, you shoots an’ you shoots to kill, and you don’ miss. Dat’s orders from de top. If dose two gets away, all four of you will be on your knees prayin’ for mercy before you’re allowed to check out for Kingdom Come. On de odder hand, like Ah said, dey’re wanted alive… so you don’ aim to kill unless it’s necessary. Understood?”
All four Negroes nodded in unison. They had a well-trained look about them, almost militarily so, and, like Spice and Vilera, they were tough. Two of them had small but deadly automatics, very lethal at close range, say in a car, without attracting too much attention, while the other two had the long-range armament for shooting down running escapers with wide, spreading bursts of sub-machine-gun fire.
Spice moved to the door leading to the raised platform and jerked it open. “Get goin’,” he said briefly.
Shaw and Flame were marched ahead of the guns along the platform, where once again the Cadillac was drawn up ready. As before they got in the back and the automatics in their sides dug deep — just as a warning. The sub-machine-gunners got in the front and stowed their weapons out of sight. One of the men slid behind the wheel.
They went down the slope and turned left at the bottom and then the blinds operated as on the inward journey. They still weren’t to know where they were heading. They swung round a number of corners, going slow in the dock area. When they hit the straight and open road, the Cadillac gathered speed. Shaw heard the roar of fast-moving traffic, and lights from oncoming vehicles showed up behind the blinds. By the general feel of things they were travelling along a fast highway and were already out of town. When Shaw asked for confirmation of this, the automatic nudged harder and no one bothered to answer. After that he didn’t waste his breath.
Hours passed.
Shaw grew stiff and restless. Beside him Flame fell into a troubled sleep, her ash-blonde head drooping to his shoulder. The Negro escorts maintained their rigid silence right through and seemed to need no sleep; at intervals, they slid tablets into their mouths: pep pills. Shaw estimated their speed as being around ninety and possibly more. They drove right through that night and mainly at high speeds, stopping only twice and very briefly for the passenger in front to change over with the driver. At last dawn, and later a climbing sun, lightened the blinds. Soon after that the speed dropped sharply and they began taking corners again and this, together with the altered traffic sounds, and stops at what would be intersections, told Shaw they were back in a town.
Ten minutes later the car took a sharp right turn, drove slowly on for a few more yards, then stopped. The day vanished from the blinds. There was a sound from behind like an articulated door being pulled shut. The Negro on Shaw’s left jerked a blind fractionally aside and peered through. He let the blind roll and then spoke for the first time. He said, “Out. And watch it. You heard Mr Spice’s remarks back at de warehouse.”
Shaw and Flame climbed stiffly out into a garage.
There was an electric light burning and they were met by another gunman, a slim man, yellow-skinned — a Chinese. This man jerked his gun towards the front of the car. “Go round there and through the door, please,” he said. “I shall be behind you.”
Shaw walked around the front and through the door. He went into a house. He and Flame were ordered along a passage and into a small room opening off a kitchen, a room with a couple of mattresses in it and with the look of a larder that had been cleared out to take them. The Chinese said, “Go in, and remain quiet, please. If there is noise, much trouble will follow. You will not be there long. Long enough only for our friends to sleep.”
So that’s it, Shaw thought — just a wayside halt for rest. He had no idea where they were, not even in which state this house might be. They went in and lay down on the mattresses. The door was locked behind them and Flame was asleep by the time the Chinese opened up again and shoved in a tray of food and drink. Shaw woke her. He said, “Eat up, Flame. We have to keep going.”
She was shivering from sheer weariness and strain, but she looked better when she had had some hot, strong coffee. It wasn’t until they started eating that they realized just how ravenous they were after the recent prolonged diet of bread and washed-out coffee provided by Walley. Now, within the limits of Chinese hospitality, they made up for it.
Once more it was night; they had slept the daylight hours away and again they were on the highway. No doubt the Negroes felt more inconspicuous on night drives, less liable to interference from Highway Patrols or state troopers. Also, the highways themselves would be clearer of traffic and the Cadillac would be able to have its head.…
Only — this time it wasn’t the Cadillac they were travelling in.
As well as being a rest halt, the daytime stopover was evidently intended to provide the extra cover of switched vehicles; when Shaw and the girl had been ordered out into the garage the Cadillac had gone and they found a magnificently appointed glass-sided hearse waiting for them with a couple of coffins lying side by side on the polished wood runners. The Negroes were done up in style now, looking their part as genuine mutes. They manhandled the coffins out of the hearse and on to the floor of the garage and then, with the guns on them, Shaw and Flame had their hands and feet tied and their mouths gagged.
One of the Negroes said, “Now listen good, both of you. No reason why we should be stopped on de highway, but if we are, you keep quiet and you don’ try anything… like banging de lid wid your knees. If you do, whoever’s stopped us don’ live to pass on what he sees… even if we have to shoot up a whole Highway Patrol. An’ after dat we carry on — so it don’ help you any.” He paused. “If you’re worried about breathin’, you c’n forget it. De caskets don’ have bottoms, and you’ll get all de air you need coming up from underneath.” He gestured to his three companions and the Chinese, and Shaw and Flame were lifted in, and placed on the runners, heads towards the back. It was excruciatingly uncomfortable; Shaw’s shoulder-blades rested across two sets of the wooden runners. As soon as they were in, the faked-up, bottomless coffins were lifted and settled in position over them, then secured in their places by the Negroes. Two minutes later the hearse was backing out of the garage.
The hearse kept up nearly the same high speed as the Cadillac had the night before and the same silence was of necessity kept up too. The runners bit into Shaw’s aching back, reopening the nearly healed claw-marks given him by Josephson’s panther. Every slight shift of the wheel was agony, as was every change in speed. Sweat poured off him; just enough air to sustain life was coming up from below, but breathing was difficult through the gag and every time he filled his lungs it was a conscious effort to do so.