Dirty Harry 03 - The Long Death (18 page)

“Hey!” the driver yelled after him. “Who’s going to pay for my tire?”

“Who the hell do you think?” Harry spat. “Call the SFPD. Call Captain Avery. Tell him to put it on my tab.” Harry closed his car door with a slam. He felt a void in his mind of the purest black ice. He already knew what he had to do, but he didn’t know if he already wasn’t too late. He had miscalculated in his attempt to correct a mistake. When it had happened before, lives had been lost. Never his, always someone close to him.

He had no more emotion. All he had was his body, his mind, and his gun. Before the night was out, he was sure one of them would be empty.

Harry savagely turned his car on, and into gear. He tore around the crippled truck and sped back to the Berkeley campus. At the same time Lynne McConnell sped away. She wanted to get away. She was willing to risk injury, even death, to escape, but there was nothing she could do. Her hands were cruelly pinned in front of her; her thumbs tied together with wire and thin strips of leather around the driver’s waist. Under their jackets were thin belts that further attached them to each other.

Her legs were in leather pants that were laced to the motorcycle itself. And her mouth was filled with a dry sponge which her own saliva was making more sodden all the time. Keeping her from spitting that out was an Ace bandage, wound round and round her head and in between her teeth, secured with several clips. All she could see was the black opaque plastic of the helmet completely covering her head. She did not know what was happening or what had gone wrong.

Harry knew what had gone wrong as he stalked Hinkle down the hall of the Audio Visual Building. Mohamid’s ward was not the first room the black man and Tony had visited that morning. It made sense that the slavers had wanted to know how much the cops knew about their operation. The pair of killers had taken a little time, been a little devious, and found out all about the homicide-vice operation to snare The Professor. And the black man, Fish, had probably told them. And Harry had let him go. He wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.

As he approached the cellar classroom 27B, he knew he was alone in this thing. He had no solid proof. He was still waiting for a search warrant on Madame’s. He couldn’t call in the cavalry legally. He knew some would come anyway, but he wouldn’t risk their lives as well. One dead and one missing was enough.

Harry pushed open the classroom door. He had seen the flickering light from the otherwise dark classroom at the end of the hall. He heard the same strange soundtrack of heavy breathing, female grunts, and tinkling glass. Harry moved into the room and walked directly in front of the screen, his gun out.

The class moaned as one and started shouting for him to get out of the way. He fired the Magnum once into the ceiling. It was enough to restore order.

“Roy Hinkle,” he called simply, the movie playing across his body. “Police business.”

“I’m sorry,” said a different voice behind the projector. “Mr. Hinkle isn’t here tonight. He called in sick. I’m the substitute teacher. Can I . . . uh . . . help you?”

Harry moved away from the screen. The film continued. The substitute teacher was a Mr. Goodwin who didn’t know where Hinkle was, didn’t know where he lived and hadn’t even met the man. Harry moved back to the door.

They were showing
The Bird with the Crystal Plumage
tonight. The last image Harry saw before he left was a man sitting in a chair with a knife in his back and a bloody-faced girl bound and gagged on the floor in front of him.

C H A P T E R
S e v e n

T
hey needed a good one tonight. They had lost the Steinbrunner girl, depleting their shipment by one blond. And, as attractive and expensive as the policewoman was, she was still, a brunette. The order specifically called for a natural American blond. The slavers had to get her tonight. They would be forgiven if her background and family ties were not thoroughly checked out this time. After all, it would be their last shipment from San Francisco.

Whatever the final cause for Steinbrunner’s escape turned out to be—faulty drugs, inadequate security, or just bad luck—it showed the sign of an eroding organization. The policewoman making the scene was the signing of the group’s death certificate. It wasn’t wise anyway to take too many women from one area. The organization’s success came with relative moderation. Moderation and discerning taste.

Madame’s was jumping fairly well for a Monday night. It was a good sign. The scouts on the floor had already spotted three possibilities. It was up to the gentleman to make the final decision. He moved around the crowded dance floor, maintaining the look of a seasoned Lothario. How the girls reacted to his obvious, appraising stare was one of the first barometers of how suitable they would be and how much work it would take to prepare them.

The first blond he came into contact with was of medium height but with huge, thick high heels that could be considered stilts. She whirled around the floor, flinging her long, straight blond hair every which way but loose. She wore a beige leather outfit which hung on her narrow frame. It was slit up the side and cut down to between her tiny breasts. When she twirled, her chest was often exposed, a fact she seemed to acknowledge and revel in. When she caught the gentleman looking at her, she flirted with him unabashedly, putting her arms up like a flamenco dancer, twirling like a maniac, and shouting, “Whoo, whoo, whoo!”

She was an egocentric slut, the gentleman decided. He was glad when he saw strands and roots of black in her lifeless hair. He would have been happy to beat her senseless, but he wouldn’t have sold her to anyone.

The second girl was a vast improvement. At least five feet eight inches tall, she was a solid hunk of femininity. She seemed aware of her beauty and did little to call attention to it. It spoke for itself. Through her elegant simplicity, she enhanced her attractiveness twenty fold. She wore an outfit consisting of a maroon leotard, matching wrap skirt, and plain red pumps. Her hair was a flaxen blond, which rolled down the sides of her head in waves, crashing on her shoulders. She returned the gentleman’s gaze with demureness. Not looking away immediately, but not inviting anything either. If anything, she was acknowledging. But her eyes were light brown, and that was a bad sign.

The gentleman moved closer. He saw the light brown hair on her arms. It was a dead giveaway. Her yellow head of hair was not natural. The gentleman was disappointed, but he promised himself to find her name at the entry desk in case he ever came back this way again.

He moved on to the last of the early evening choices. He wasn’t disgusted as he had been with the first or unduly impressed as he had been with the second, but he smiled to himself. She was pleasing and would be impressive to their buyers. Her golden hair twisted just to the back of her neck. It was cut very well so the disco lights made the ends shine white. She too was fairly tall. At least five-seven, but her body and face were stronger, more muscle than curving adipose tissue. She was, in a word, statuesque.

She wore a handsome black silk-like dress with a deep red floral print across it. It fit her perfectly, from the spaghetti strands over her shoulder to the short slits in the skirt from the top of her calf to the bottom of her thigh. She wore ankle-strap high heels on her feet. She returned the gentleman’s gaze intriguingly, then smiled. She was open for suggestion.

The gentleman smiled after she looked away from him. Her eyes had been a clear, light aqua, and her arms were covered with a clear peach fuzz. They had found their blond. Slowly, enjoying the floor show of writhing, disconcerned bodies, the gentleman returned to the disc jockey’s booth. The woman and Roy Hinkle were waiting. The gentleman only returned the look of the woman. He nodded at her, holding up three fingers.

The woman checked a chart next to her. “Elizabeth Cook,” she read. “Real estate broker.”

“Good,” said the gentleman. “A career woman. Did you get a readout on her yet?”

“All three reports were made up,” replied the woman. “Just in case. Born in November. A Sagittarius. Twenty-two years old. No history of serious ailments. Parents in Nova Scotia.”

“That’s far enough away,” the gentleman commented. “The Canadian environment probably accounts for her health and sturdy build.”

“Hmmm,” the woman made a positive sound, still pouring over the computer readout. “She seems fine,” she finally expressed. “But then we don’t have much choice, do we?” She looked pointedly over at Hinkle.

“Is that it?” the teacher asked after a short silence. “What about my suggestions? What about me?”

“Your targets are all on campus,” the woman patiently explained. “After all our trouble there we can only hope to take this Miss Cook and get out before it is too late.”

“As for you, Professor,” the gentleman continued, “you like your women too young. We can use a well-developed prize of fifteen or sixteen . . . it gives the purchases more miles . . . but eleven-year-olds in garbage cans . . . ?”

“I brought you Barbara Steinbrunner,” Hinkle pleaded. “Please, I need to get out of the country.”

The gentleman and the woman exchanged glances.

“Barbara was an excellent item,” he reminded her. “It wasn’t The Professor’s fault she escaped.”

The woman pursed her lips in thought. “Very well,” she agreed. “It is easier and cleaner than killing you.”

Hinkle breathed an audible and obvious sigh of relief. As nonchalant and unthreatening as the conversation seemed. Hinkle knew his life hung on every word the woman said. She had incredible wealth and power. He had seen her kill people as an afterthought. He knew that she herself had killed men.

“What can I do?” he asked immediately, wanting to show his good intentions.

“Stay here,” the woman answered. “Take care of the music. You just have to load each reel as they finish. The two recorders go on and off automatically.”

“When should I meet you?” The Professor asked, “and where?”

The woman rose and walked out of the booth without replying. The gentleman followed her, but stopped at the door.

“We’ll come for you,” he promised, then closed the door behind him.

The pair of slavers strode across the edge of the dance floor toward the office. “What about her date?” the gentleman checked with her, already assuming the answer.

“We can’t take chances he’ll start an extensive search for her. Now or later. He’ll have to die.”

The gentleman smiled and nodded. Then they went in the office. It was a simple room with a desk, a file cabinet, and a telephone. The woman sat behind the desk and picked up the phone. The gentleman leaned against the filing cabinet.

The woman called the bartender who was one of the four men who had kidnapped Rose Ray. The bartender listened to his orders, then pressed two buttons under the bar three times, then two times more. Beepers on the belts of the disco’s two bouncers—the others beside the bald man who had abducted the black girl—acknowledged the signal with a return beep.

The girl and the plan had been chosen. Elizabeth Cook had been drinking with her boyfriend already. The bartender had already refilled their glasses once. He knew what they were drinking. He waited until one of the three waiters—all of whom were in the Cadillac to disguise Ray’s abduction—took another order from them.

He called the office back, then pulled two different pouches from two different slots under the bar. He mixed the couples’ drinks then tore open the pouches and poured the contents into their respective glasses. The knowing waiter took the drinks to the couple, who were sitting this dance out.

The gentleman and the woman had moved out of the office. They walked behind the disc jockey booth to a stairway leading to the rest rooms downstairs. The setup was not unusual. The hallway was narrow at the bottom of the steps. One had to take a left to get to the ladies’ room on the right wall. Directly across the lavatory door was another door without a knob. Down the hall and to the right was the men’s room. The only major difference between this and thousands of other establishments was that the stairs and the men’s room hall could be automatically blocked with soundproof partitions. That precaution had never been used.

The gentlemen unlocked the door across from the ladies’ room with three keys. He pushed the door open and slipped inside. Seconds later he handed a black rubber face clamp to the woman. She took it by its round, serrated metal grip and went inside the woman’s john. The gentleman took up his position on the other side of the metal door. From pegs on the wall behind the portal, he took three pairs of handcuffs, some leather thongs already tied into loose circles and slipknotted, a large red rubber ball attached to a strap that buckled, and a wide leather pad with a sponge covering one side and three thin buckling straps.

He laid the equipment on either side of a padded mat just inside the door opening. Then he stood behind the metal partition, looked through its spy hole, and waited.

Outside, the place was getting busy. The parking attendant had his hands full with cars coming every few seconds. Since it was early in the week, no second man had been hired. The young man was rushing from one auto to another, grabbing keys, taking tips, parking the cars, and rushing back to his post.

It didn’t help when the scraped, dark car pulled right by him and parked almost right next to the side of the building. The parking attendant ran over.

“Hey, mister,” he told the tall, coarse-faced driver inside. “You can’t park there. Come on, let me take your car and put it where it belongs.”

The driver looked over and smiled. “Why, thanks,” he said, reaching into his tweed jacket. “Here, let me give you a tip.”

The parking attendant leaned over. The driver buried his fist in the young man’s face.

Inside, Elizabeth Cook had to go to the bathroom. Suddenly the call of nature became overwhelming. She excused herself and went in search of the ladies’ room. Her boyfriend just smiled and smiled. She wondered about him. She had only gone out with him once before, but he certainly seemed to be able to hold his liquor then. But tonight, strangely, he had gotten somewhat tipsy on his third glass. Maybe he hadn’t eaten. Elizabeth shrugged it off. She had her own pressure to relieve.