Читать книгу Revenge of The Dog Team - William W. Johnstone - Страница 7

Not more than ten minutes drive north of The Booby Hatch, Quentin’s Cadillac quit the avenue, turning right on to a street running east-west. It was far enough removed from the main flow that the traffic lights at the intersections flashed only amber caution lights.

Steve Ireland had to lay back even more to avoid tipping the tail man in the Crown Vic that he was being tailed. Out on the avenue he’d just left, there was a lot of traffic to provide cover; here, not so much.

That was a funny thing about roaming late at night in the city. Especially in a city like Washington, D.C., basically a company town whose main industry was government. At quitting time, the office buildings emptied out, their occupants making a mass exodus to their homes outside the city. Of course, there were plenty of eager beavers to be found toiling, putting in extra hours, but usually by ten P.M., even the diehards had packed it up and called it a night.

One might assume that after midnight the streets, except for the main thoroughfares, would be more or less deserted, but that wasn’t the case. There was always a lively hum of activity from folks abroad in the wee hours—not just the obvious ones like party people, police, firefighters, EMTs, hospital caregivers, night shift workers in general, and road crews doing repairs that would have tied up traffic during the daylight hours. There were plenty of citizens to be found out and about, going to or coming from whatever mysterious assignations and rendezvous had called them out when most folks were at home tucked safely in their beds.

It was a phenomenon that had served Steve well in the past, not only in Washington, but other cities as well. It was good to have other fish swimming around in the pool to provide the cover of relative anonymity.

Now, out here off the main drag, his caution would have to be doubled. This was a quieter part of town, the quiet of abandonment and neglect. One thing he had working for him was the stink-o state of the economy. Like everybody else, the city was hurting for money. That meant fewer police cars to be deployed, with more of them being assigned to the obvious trouble spots and fewer for routine patrol along the routes less traveled.

This street was quiet but not dead; a scattering of vehicles traversed it in both directions. Steve hung back a good distance from the Crown Vic, so far back that sometimes he couldn’t get as good a look at the Cadillac as he’d like. That was okay. The tail man would keep it in sight, and he’d do the same for the Crown Vic.

He still couldn’t figure where the tail man came into this. The guy wasn’t federal, that was for sure. He could have been an undercover cop or a crook; going strictly on appearances, it was sometimes hard to tell the two apart. The Crown Victoria was a car model in use by a lot of police departments, both as marked and unmarked vehicles; on the other hand, its automotive muscle recommended it as a good getaway car, too…

As he went eastbound, the north side of Claghorn Park came into sight on the right. The left side of the street was fronted by several blocks of long-abandoned brick factory buildings. The city didn’t want to spend the money to tear them down, so they’d been boarded up, padlocked, and forgotten. Somehow, they’d survived the best efforts of the local vandals and arsonists.

Named after a skirt-chasing, bourbon-swilling Southern senator of yore, the park was a lop-sized oval the size of several football fields lumped together; its long axis ran north-south. Its west side was parallel to the avenue where the strip club was located. On the east, it was bordered by a narrow street that ran alongside a highway, beyond which lay the river.

It was quartered by two roads, one running through its long axis, the other crossing it at right angles at its midpoint; shortcuts for those not wanting to detour the long way around the park. Access and service roads also wormed through it, eating up more land.

The grounds featured a broad open flat dotted by several paved courts, some outbuildings, and a duck pond, all ringed and streaked by lumpy patches of scrub brush and skinny, sickly-looking trees. It was the kind of park that savvy parents warned their kids to steer clear of even in broad daylight.

The Cadillac slowed to a speed of a few miles an hour, causing the Crown Vic and Steve’s car to do the same. The lead car poked along as if it was looking for something. Farther back, the Crown Vic pulled in to the curb, halting at the corner of a street that bordered the park’s west side.

Steve kept rolling, passing the Crown Vic, not giving it so much as a sidelong glance. Continuing east, he passed the Cadillac. It stood facing the mouth of a gravel service road that ran through a park field into some brush.

About 150 feet ahead lay the public entrance to the park. Before reaching half that distance, Steve looked in his rearview mirror and saw the Cadillac enter the service road and head south along it.

Behind it, the Crown Vic was in motion, its headlights swinging right as it entered the street on the west side of the park.

Steve drove to the park entrance, the head of a two-lane road that cut the park in half lengthwise. A sign warned that the park proper was closed for use after ten P.M. That prohibition didn’t hold for the road, which was a through route.

Steve turned into the park road, a straightaway lit at intervals by lampposts whose globes looked like a string of shiny pearl onions. The road was empty of vehicles in both directions. Trees and brush banded the western rim of the park; through them, he saw occasional glints of light that might have been from Quentin’s car making its way toward the south end of the park.

Acting on a hunch, Steve wheeled the sedan around in a U-turn, exiting the park and turning left, going back the way he came. Approaching the street bordering the west side of the park, he glimpsed red dot taillights off in the distance. The Crown Vic, he assumed. Hoped.

He turned left, into the street. Its east side bordered the park, its west side was lined with two-and three-family wooden houses separated by driveways. Most of the homes were dark save for lamps burning above the front doors and backyard garages. The curb was lined with parked cars.

Steve couldn’t see the Crown Vic’s taillights, but to be on the safe side, he switched off his headlights and cruised south down the street, creeping along at a snail’s pace. Street lamps provided enough light to see by. No other moving vehicles were in view, no pedestrians, not even a stray dog walker or drunk.

The trees edging the park formed one wall; the houses lining the opposite side of the street formed another. He could smell foliage and earth smells. The street was several hundred yards long; nearing the midpoint, he saw the mouth of a road on his left.

Steve paused at the entrance, looking in: a two-lane road that crossed the park east-west. It was bordered on both sides by a knee-high metal-strip guard rail, and lit at intervals by those pearl onion-globed street lamps. About a hundred feet in, the roadway rose up, cresting a low humped hill whose top was twenty-five feet above the fields that made up most of the park.

On the flat, a gravel service road emerged from a clump of trees, meeting the hillside at right angles. A tunnel underpass ran through the hill, allowing the service road to go through it and continue its course on the opposite side. The paved road ran over the top of the underpass.

The Crown Vic stood idling in a narrow shoulder of the eastbound lane at the bottom of the near side of the slope, its emergency flashers blinking.

Street lamps nicely lit the scene. The driver got out, walked around the back of the car, and stepped over the guard rail on the south side of the road, onto the grassy field. He rounded the base of the hill and vanished from sight.

Steve put his car into park, got out, and crossed to the roadway mouth, standing behind the cover of a clump of bushes. It was very quiet. He could hear the whoosh of unseen vehicles driving somewhere in the distance.

After a pause, a couple of pops sounded from the direction of the underpass. They sounded like firecrackers going off. They were accompanied by several flashes that looked like flashbulbs going off.

A minute passed, two. A figure came into view, rounding the base of the hill: the Crown Vic’s driver. Not running, not even jogging, he walked briskly to the guard rail, stepped over it, and got in his car. The emergency flashers were switched off. The car drove up the slope, went down the other side, and continued at a moderate pace eastward across the park.

Steve hopped back in his car and drove deeper into the park, not bothering to put on his lights. Zooming to the foot of the hill, he skidded to a stop on the shoulder, threw the car into park, and hopped out, hurdling the guard rail and scrambling around the hillside.

The service road had been built for the use of maintenance vehicles doing their park cleanup chores. The underpass was designed for their convenience. Its rounded archway and shaft were large enough to accommodate the passage of a two-and-a-half-ton truck.

Only, it wasn’t a truck that stood in the tunnel, it was a Cadillac. Its headlights were dark, its motor was off. The driver’s side door was ajar, causing the dome light to glow.

Durwood Quentin III and Ginger were tumbled in the backseat, dead. She’d been shot twice in the left breast, both heart shots, either one of which would have been fatal. Quentin’s pants and underpants were pulled down around his knees. A bullet hole punctured the center of his forehead. Clutched in his hand was a small-caliber pistol, all shiny and with mother-of-pearl handles. A .32 probably.

In a glance, Steve could see how it was supposed to read: Quentin hooks up with a hooker. Instead of giving up the booty, she tries to rob him. The pistol was the kind of piece a street hustler might pack. They struggle; during the fight, he shoots her dead. Overcome with shock and remorse, he kills himself.

Except that guys who commit suicide by gun usually don’t shoot themselves in the middle of the forehead. But the cops wouldn’t let a little detail like that stop them from closing the case.

Steve didn’t just stand there scratching his head, puzzling it out. As soon as he saw that Quentin and Ginger were both dead, he was in motion, making himself scarce from the scene.

Outside the tunnel, he saw the lights of the Crown Vic, nearing the far side of the park. Running back to his car, he threw it into gear, switched on the lights, and drove off, taking off after the Crown Vic.

He didn’t peel out of there like a bat out of hell. He wasn’t a damned fool. That was all he needed, to look like he was fleeing the scene of a crime and attract the attention of some passing police car. That would be all he needed, to get tagged for a double kill he was innocent of!

He drove at a brisk pace, ten miles or so above the limit, but not like some frantic getaway car. The Crown Vic was behaving in the same fashion, proceeding at a moderate clip as he exited the east end of the park. He turned right, southbound.

Not seeing any other cars in the park, Steve took a chance and punched some more speed out of the sedan, zooming it up to sixty to cut the distance, slowing as he neared the east exit.

It opened on to a street that met it at right angles. He was in luck. The street ran parallel to a highway that was elevated about twenty feet above ground level, supported on sets of stone pillars. Between the pillars could be seen the river, all tarry black smeared and spangled with rainbows of reflected light. The pillars were fenced in by a waist-high concrete median, an impassable barrier. Opposite it, on the other side of the street, was the park. The street was a trough hemmed in at both sides. Vehicles could progress only two ways on it, north or south.

The Crown Vic had turned south out of the park. Steve went the same way. About fifty yards ahead in his lane was a set of taillights. One set of taillights looks pretty much the same as another, but Steve reckoned that it was the Crown Vic. There was no other place for it to turn off.

Steve took off after it, hoping it was his quarry. He had to tread a fine line between going fast enough to overhaul it, yet not so fast that he’d alert the driver to his presence. If it was the Crown Vic, that is. He also had to watch out for police cars looking for speeders.

The vehicle ahead reached the end of the park, where the first cross street opened on the right. The traffic light blinked amber at the intersection. The vehicle slowed at the cross street, but kept on going southbound.

Steve got a good look at it. It was the Crown Vic, all right. He let out the breath he’d been unaware he’d been holding.

He slowed going through a traffic square, letting some space open between him and the Crown Vic. The other, in no particular hurry, traveled a few miles below the legal speed limit. Steve did the same. He was still in the game. But what game was it?

The Crown Vic’s driver was no mere tail man; he was a killer. A double killer, since he’d killed Ginger along with Quentin.

In hindsight now, Steve could see how his opposite number had worked the play. This was no cowboy job; it was a carefully planned setup. The killer knew about Quentin, knew that he was a compulsive horndog with a risky kink for down-and-dirty street hustlers, knew that The Booby Hatch was one of his regular spots.

Steve had been dogging Quentin for the last two nights, picking up the target’s pattern to work out his best angle of approach. He’d seen no sign of the man in the Crown Vic on either night, and no other suspicious persons either. If they’d have been there, he’d have known it. He had the hunter’s instinct for such things. He’d been out of action for over six months and had only recently resumed field operations, but he wasn’t that rusty. The medics had certified him as fit for duty and dammit, he knew he was fit.

Which meant that some other interested party had also been planning to X out Quentin. Who? Some fellow accomplices, afraid that he’d put the finger on them? Or maybe some other government agency had its own reasons for wanting Quentin out of the way?

Whoever it was played rough. Ginger was the bait, the decoy. The killer must have had her lined up in advance. In his mind’s eye, Steve visualized how it all went down:

The killer meets with Ginger outside The Booby Hatch to finalize arrangements—she having no idea of just how final those arrangements are going to be. Most likely, he sold it to her as a simple blackmail operation. Lure some rich jerk into a compromising situation and put the squeeze on him for hush money.

The killer’s careful not to be seen with her at the club. She’s not the type to be easily forgotten, and any guy escorting her would have been noticed by envious gawkers. She goes in first, he following later. Somehow, he puts the finger on Quentin, giving her the high sign that here’s the mark. She moves in on Quentin, doing what comes naturally. Satisfied that contact has been made and the acquaintanceship is progressing, the killer exits, going back to his car.

Ginger leaves the club with Quentin; they get in his car and drive away, the killer following. Ginger steers Quentin to nearby Claghorn Park, probably by telling him she knows a nice private spot where they can trick without fear of interruption. Quentin, more than half drunk, doesn’t need much persuasion; he’s a novelty-seeker, so that aspect would appeal to him, too.

Of course the locale had been chosen by the killer, who’d made sure in advance that Ginger would know the site. Once he sees the Cadillac enter the park service road and disappear into the brush, he drives to the park’s west side entrance. Ginger has Quentin pull into the tunnel underpass; they climb into the backseat and start getting it on.

She’s waiting for her hidden partner to show up; he’ll flash a phony badge and play cop, or maybe he’ll play the outraged husband or some similar version of the old badger game, throw a big scare into Quentin and shake him down for some big dough—

Only, the shakedown artist is really a killer and puts the blast on Quentin and Ginger both.

Some of the details were subject to change, but Steve figured that’s pretty much how it was worked. The killer was an artist in his way, too; he’d framed it so that it’d look like an open-and-shut case to the police. A hooker’s botched holdup, a struggle for the gun, she’s shot, in a fit of remorse Quentin kills himself.

That closes the file. Neat, no loose ends.

Except that the killer was unaware that another killer was dogging Quentin and knew the real deal about how the scene had gone down.

After going south for a quarter mile, the Crown Vic changed lanes, entering a ramp that sloped up to the highway. Steve yielded long enough to let another car enter the ramp before him, then followed.

The highway was split by a median, leaving two southbound lanes and two northbound lanes. There was a fair amount of traffic in both directions; light to moderate, and zipping along.

No matter the lateness of the hour, there was always plenty of movement in the city. Once again, Steve was struck by how many people did their errands by night. It all worked in his favor, however, supplying him with plenty of cover while he kept on tailing the Crown Vic.

He was reminded of that corny old gag about the guy who had mixed feelings: His mother-in-law drove his new car off a cliff. Steve had mixed feelings, too. His mission was to neutralize Durwood Quentin III, but some stranger had beaten him to the punch. Now Quentin was dead, but Steve was left holding the loose ends.

The higher-ups in the Dog Team disliked loose ends. Quentin had been duly marked for demolition and then suddenly, from out of nowhere, some unknown third party horns in and does the job. The higher-ups would want to know more about this unknown.

Dog Team members are granted a good deal of freedom of movement when out in the field. The peculiar nature of their service and assignments demands it. The higher-ups tend to view with disfavor operatives who have to continually check back with headquarters for instructions. Initiative is prized. Steve Ireland was determined to find out all he could about the Crown Vic killer.

Traffic was moving along at a nice, brisk clip of about fifty-five miles per hour. The breeze from the open window felt good; Steve hadn’t realized how much he’d been sweating. It was a muggy night.

The highway stretched southward into a funky part of town, a slum district. The ribbon of road was elevated so travelers could zip along their way, above the hazardous inner city.

The Crown Vic, several car lengths ahead, signalled a right turn, making for the Tyburn Street exit. Thanks, chum, very considerate of you, Steve said to himself. The Crown Vic killer was a cautious driver, obedient to the rules of the road. Of course if he was really cautious, he’d have stayed the hell away from Tyburn Street; that was a rough neighborhood night or day. Plenty of drug dealing, prostitution, and gang activity.

Steve would have liked to have had another car between him and the Crown Vic, but nobody else seemed minded to take that exit. Slowing, he hung back until the other had dropped out of sight on the exit ramp before sliding into the approach lane.

Headlights flashed in his rearview mirror as another vehicle swung in behind him toward the exit. Typical, Steve thought, a cynical twist on his tight-lipped mouth; if the guy behind him had been in front of him, he could have used him for cover to tail the Crown Vic.

Steve eased into the exit ramp, slowing as he started the descent toward street level.

Harsh, blazing glare filled the sedan’s interior. The car behind him had its high beams on. Only it wasn’t a car at all, it was some kind of truck. A tow truck, looked like—

Down below at the bottom of the ramp, the Crown Vic was halted, standing diagonally so that it blocked access to the street. The driver got out of the car and started shooting at Steve. A bullet starred the windshield on the passenger side, frosting the glass as it tore through the car, burying itself somewhere in a right rear support for the roof.

A tremendous impact struck the car as the tow truck butted it from behind. Glass shattered, metal crumpled.

Steve had his seat belt on, but even so, he received a hell of a jolt, a real bone-jarring thud. For an instant, he saw the world in triple images before his eyesight came back into focus.

Another slug from the gun wielded by the Crown Vic’s driver tagged the sedan’s windshield, disintegrating it. A hail of crystal cubes of safety glass pelted Steve, as if a couple of shovelfuls of rock salt had been flung into the front seat.

He was bent forward, almost doubled over from the force of the rear-end collision, so most of the glass hit the back of his neck, shoulders, and upper back, stabbbing them with dozens of needles of stinging pain.

His car was moving now, sliding forward as the tow truck pushed it, shoving it with its massive oversized reinforced-steel front bumper. The tow truck driver must have been stomping the gas pedal because Steve could hear the engine whining higher and louder in a steady, rhythmic rise and fall.

More bullets tore through the sedan, this time coming from behind, from the tow truck.

The tow truck’s front met the sedan’s rear at an angle. Instead of pushing the car straight forward, it pushed it at an angle. Tortured metal yowled as the sedan’s right front fender ground against the ramp’s outer stone retaining wall. It caught in place, arresting its forward motion.

Steve hit the seat belt release. For an awful, heart-stopping instant, nothing happened, and he was seized by the fear that it had locked up; then there was a click and the belt came undone and he was shucking it open and off himself as he rose, springing up from his seat.

The Crown Vic killer had done him a favor by shooting out the windshield, because there was nothing in Steve’s way to stop him as he scrambled over the top of the steering wheel and dashboard and through the big gaping slot where the windshield had been. Slithering like a snake across a hot rock, he lunged across the buckling car hood, dropping down on the driver’s side of the pavement.

The rib of a vertical abutment stood out from the inner side of the ramp wall a few feet away. Steve rolled toward it. Oil and gas were leaking from the underside of his wounded car. A fusillade of bullets from the tow truck ripped harmlessly overhead.

More rounds came came his way from the Crown Vic’s driver. Steve caught a glimpse of him standing with his gun hand braced against the car roof, muzzle flashes spearing from the tip of the weapon.

Bullets thunked into the driver’s side of the sedan as the killer tried to get a bead on Steve. One tore out a palm-sized chunk of pavement near Steve’s head, spraying his neck and shoulder with rock chips.

Then Steve reached the shelter of the abutment, crouching, getting his back against the square-edged side of the pillar. Taking him out of the Crown Vic driver’s line of fire. He reached for his hip, and the gun was out of his waistband and in his hand fast. He was facing the tow truck. It was white and painted on the front in big red letters was the legend BELTWAY TOWING.

It held a two-man crew, a driver and a shooter. The shooter was hanging out of the passenger side of the cab, way out, holding on with his left hand and wielding a big-caliber gun in his right. A skinny ferret face showed beneath a flat, narrow-brimmed forager’s cap. He was angling for a shot at Steve, but the sedan was in his way. He kept leaning further and further out, trying to find the range.

The sedan worked both ways, blocking Steve from getting a clear shot at the gunman. He had a nice clean firing line on the driver, though. He squeezed off a couple of rounds, putting them in a tight group through the windshield and into the silhouetted outline of the figure hunched above the top of the steering wheel.

The driver slumped forward. His foot must have come down hard on the gas pedal because the tow truck gave a sudden lurch forward into the side of the sedan. The frame snapped and the car folded into a V-shape, arresting the tow truck’s forward motion so that it jerked to a halt, stalling out.

The shooter lost his grip and, with a cry, fell out of the cab to the pavement. He fell hard, dropping his gun. It skittered across the asphalt, sliding under the sedan. He crouched on hands and knees beside the tow truck. Steve could see him beneath the vehicle’s undercarriage; at least, his hands and arms, and his folded legs.

Steve shot him in the leg. The shooter flopped facedown, writhing on the pavement. Steve put another shot into his side, under his arm. He stopped thrashing and lay still. His forager’s cap was still jammed tight on his head.

Smoke rose from the crumpled sedan; unseen flames crackled. Steve turned his attention to the Crown Vic’s driver and threw some slugs his way. The guy jumped behind the wheel and sped off.

Steve fired a few more rounds at the vehicle’s rear, but scored no hits. The Crown Vic rounded a corner, out of sight.

Steve now knew that there’d been a flaw in his calculations. Apparently, the killer had been aware that Steve was tailing him after all. No doubt he’d used his cell phone to contact his buddies in the tow truck to help prepare a surprise party for Steve. Turned out the surprise was on them, though.

Steve ejected the empty clip and slammed home a full one. On foot in this neighborhood, he’d need it.

He wanted to put some distance between himself and the sedan before the fire really got going. He reached the bottom of the ramp and was a half block away before the gas tank blew up.