There was no answering sound.
“We could shoot you, Mr. Canada. We don’t want to do that. We’ve got a group of professionals here, and just so you’ll know I’m not shitting you, I want my people to make some noise.”
Pam struck her gun against the bucket. Werner, some distance away, mooed like a cow.
Downey had moved. “You remember Eddie Maye. We did that, Mr. Canada, so you’d know we’re serious people. You’re the man with the real dough. We wouldn’t hurt you for the world.”
In the silence that followed, Werner remarked in an almost conversational tone, “Watch out, he’s got a gun.”
“But so have we, don’t we? If we have to shoot him, make it a flesh wound. Plenty of flesh there to choose from.”
Suddenly the mercury lights flashed on. Downey’s masked figure stood at the foot of one of the light poles, his hand on the master switch. Werner was out in the open, in front of the Cadillac. He jumped for cover as the fat man, backed up against one of the conveyor belts, fired at him. The lights went off.
“No,” Downey called from a new place. “No, no, Mr. Canada. That was foolish, because we’re jumpy, you know? We could make a mistake. Think about it a minute. How did we know you’d be out here? We’ve been getting this ready a long time. We’ve got a good place to take you. We laid in a lot of steak and bourbon. We know you like lime pies. We got three in the freezer. What the hell, all we want is money. We’re going to weigh you, and go for about three thousand bucks a pound. Tell you what I want you to do. I’m going to roll my flashlight out in the open. Toss the gun out where we can see it. You know that’s the smart thing to do, the only thing.”
A lighted flashlight rolled across the dirt. The spill from its beam showed Werner, to Pam’s surprise, on the conveyor belt above Canada, the chloroformed cloth in one hand. Canada whirled and fired, and in two jumps was at the door of the trailer and inside.
“Use your head,” the bullhorn shouted. “There’s a phone in there, but what good’s it going to do you?”
Suddenly there was a thunderclap, a whistle, an immense sigh, and with a tremendous groaning and clanking the big mixer came alive and began to revolve. The belts ran up to the loading hatches empty, and came back empty. It didn’t change Canada’s situation inside the trailer, but it was a loud announcement that he didn’t intend to surrender.
Pam didn’t hear Downey approach. He touched her, and a spark jumped between them.
“Cover the door. Shoot him in the leg if he comes out. Keep it low-take your time.”
He ripped off his sweat shirt and wadded it into a ball. There was a gas pump several vehicles away. He felt his way to it, gave the sweat shirt a good soaking, then circled to the trailer, keeping low. He smashed a window. A match flared. When the sweat shirt caught, he scooped it up on his gun barrel and threw it in.
Inside, Canada could be seen, his back to the console. Downey yelled, “Go on being stupid. We’ll set the trailer on fire, you’ll really be cooked. We want to be nice to you. Girls, anything you want, name it.”
Nothing else in the trailer had caught, and the blaze was already beginning to die.
“We’ll give you a short count,” Downey called. “Throw your gun out first. At the count of three, I’m going to strike the Goddamn match.”
Canada shook himself and made a placating palms-out gesture. The pistol came spinning into the light. Then the huge figure loomed in the doorway, turned sideward to get down the steps. As he reached the ground, Werner moved in with the chloroform.
Chapter 9
Shayne was watching the action from the high cab of a Euclid payloader. He stepped across to the next vehicle, a bulldozer-backhoe, and turned on its radio. Moving only when the bullhorn was roaring, he went deeper into the park, turning on radios at random. On the return, he stopped to take off the brake of the scraper he had picked out earlier, and let it roll out to block the road. The hot plant began banging and clattering, and he was able to move more freely. He found the ignition key under the floor mat and checked the controls. The bullhorn was calling on Canada to surrender. Canada came out. A masked figure pounced on him from behind, and a second masked man ran up and helped hold him until he slumped to the ground.
The Cadillac’s headlights came up. A third figure appeared. Together they struggled to get their heavy captive into the back seat of the car. Shayne waited. When the job was nearly complete, he picked the transmitter off the dashboard. He looked at the highway for an instant before committing himself, but there was still no sign of reinforcements.
“Hold it,” he called harshly. “Right there.”
The sudden command traveled from the payloader to all the live radios in a great circle around the Cadillac and came back, echoing from one metallic surface to the next. He had the volume all the way up everywhere, and it produced a pretty effect. One of the figures wheeled back, his gun raised. The words had come from everywhere at once, and there was nobody to shoot.
“Drop your guns,” Shayne commanded. “Hands on the hood of the car. All of you.”
The man with the gun continued to wheel.
“You told Canada not to be stupid,” Shayne said. “Don’t be stupid yourself. One wrong move, and you’re dead. Drop the guns. Now.”
One warning shot might have tipped the balance. The figure in the open lowered his gun without dropping it and dived for the car. The headlights winked off.
All the radios clamored: “Open up when the car moves.”
Shayne pressed the starter switch, and the powerful engine came to life as the Cadillac jerked forward. He turned on his headlights. They were oversize, like everything else about the enormous machine. Caught in a blaze of light, the Cadillac came back. It went forward again, heading not for the road Shayne had blocked, but deeper into the site. Shayne had once spent a day in a payloader, checking on a time-sheet swindle, with a driver who could pick up a cigarette butt with a flick of his huge bucket. He had learned the principal moves, but he had to fumble. The bucket lifted and dropped as he got the wrong lever. The machine, he knew, had a top speed of forty miles an hour, but it was slow building up. He couldn’t hope to overtake a Detroit car on a straight, smooth road. This track, however, was anything but that. He was in third with two more to go, coming up fast. The Cadillac went slithering far out on a turn. Shayne, with his tight turning radius, came up behind it before it could recover.
He lifted the bucket and threw the wheel over sharply.
The big bucket slammed into the Cadillac’s fender, spun the car around, and banged it hard into a parked truck. Shayne was braking and sliding. The bucket’s momentum whipped him around. He reversed and came back, bucket down. He turned and set. He lifted the bucket and brought it down with crushing force on the car’s front end, sending the rear wheels high in the air. One tire blew.
The nearby radios all shouted at once, “Stay in the car. I want to see three guns.”
He saw one at once, thrust out the nearest window. The bullet went through his windshield. He cut the lights and dropped to the ground. He didn’t need to capture all three. One would be enough.
He faded back through the parked equipment and began to work toward the Cadillac’s taillights, which continued to burn in spite of what had happened to the rest of the car. Almost there, he reached into a truck cab, snapped the headlight knob, and pushed it back in at once, having seen one of the masked figures on top of a bulldozer blade. Shayne ran straight at him in the darkness, colliding with him as he came down. Shayne had the advantage. He knew it was an enemy, but before the other could shoot, he had to be sure that Shayne wasn’t one of his colleagues.
Shayne chopped hard at a forearm and heard the gun land some distance away. Getting the man around the chest, Shayne ran him backward. They had to collide with something soon, and they did-the side of a truck. The curve of the fender caught his opponent at the base of his spine. He gave a high squeal of pain or dismay. As his head came forward, Shayne clubbed him with a hard rising left. The heavy mask took the force out of the blow. The tight cap came off in Shayne’s hand, and he had an impression of an abundance of hair. He went to the body, getting in two punishing punches before he was caught on the back of the head with something hard swung with considerable force.