Dirty Harry 03 - The Long Death (20 page)

By then, The Professor was close enough. He jumped back into the disc jockey’s booth pulling the girl with him. He slammed the door behind him and turned the music all the way up.

The noise on the dance floor was nearly unbearable. Everyone slapped their hands over their ears and crawled away from the blaring speakers. Harry used his last bullet to smash the amplifier nearest him. He was about to empty the shells and shove in an auto-loader when a .45 bullet bore through the booth’s one-way glass and nicked Harry’s ear.

Harry dropped behind the couch, his revolver still open. That miserable son of a bitch was shooting at him from behind the safety of both one-way glass and a hostage. He knew Harry couldn’t shoot back blindly for fear of hitting the girl. And now The Professor knew that his weapon, kept on single fire, would only put a hole in the glass, not shatter it. He could see Harry, but Harry couldn’t see him.

The cop quickly reloaded his gun. He looked in every direction. People were painfully groveling away from the cacophony of the thundering disco music. The bass beat alone seemed to be shaking the entire building. He located another speaker above him and shot it out. There was one by the bar. He rolled over and shot that too. Now the noise was just about bearable. He looked around at the cowering patrons inside the disco.

“Get out!” he shouted. “He doesn’t want you! Go on, get out of here!”

Needing only that permission, the revelers moved back toward the exits. While they slowly filed out, Harry grabbed the bottom of the sofa and tipped it over. As it fell forward, another bullethole appeared in the booth’s glass and plunked deep into the couch seat. Harry moved forward a bit more. Then he repeated the action. The sofa fell a bit closer to the booth. Another bullethole appeared. The slug blew off the bottom of an upturned wooden leg on the furniture.

With one more push, Harry got the sofa all the way to the dance floor. Any farther and Hinkle could hit him from his perspective. Harry lay behind the couch and found the remaining four speakers. He shot out two of them. The music was still playing, but it continued only in regular stereo. Without the din, Harry could think again.

To compensate for the lack of disco beat, Hinkle started dotting the sofa with bullets in a regular rhythm. Every other second another hole would appear somewhere on the glass and another slug would rip through the couch. It was just a matter of time before they found a human target.

Harry saw one tear up a hunk of wood from the dance floor right between his legs. He knew it was time to move on to other cover. He quickly looked to the side. There was an overturned table not three yards from him. But those three yards looked a lot longer from where he was lying.

Another bullet whined off an innerspring and shot out of the upholstery not a inch from his head. It was time to move. Harry was steeling to cover himself when he remembered the blond in the maroon bodysuit. He couldn’t shoot back into the booth, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t shoot at all.

Harry turned over onto his stomach and got up in the start position for a race. He held his Magnum pointed toward the booth. He leaped forward and shot at the same time. It just barely worked. His bullets whacked into the ceiling over the booth, but that didn’t keep Hinkle from returning the fire. The edge of the couch ripped open and then the bullets trailed Harry’s movements like a faithful dog. The cop stopped behind the table, but the bullets kept going.

They smashed into the tabletop in a wavy line, some embedding deep in the thick wood, others ramming through. But since Harry was flat on his back, they went over his head. Even the hostage situation had its positive aspects, Harry realized. At least holding the girl as a shield screwed up Hinkle’s aim .

Harry exhaled mightily while emptying his second set of shells. He placed his third auto-loader in and he looked up at the ceiling to see what damage he’d done. His bullets had blown out a light and nicked the tube that was holding the mirror ball steady above the dance floor. Harry smirked in spite of his predicament. Every disco had to have its mirror ball. The bigger the disco, the bigger the mirror ball. Madame’s had a huge one.

Harry halted his derision. He spun over onto his side and hazarded a glance at the booth. Another bullet hole appeared as he watched. He snapped his head back. But it was enough. He saw that the one-way glass was thoroughly dotted with holes. And off of most of these holes were tiny cracks. They weren’t enough to shatter the cover, but one large push might be enough to do it. A .44 bullet couldn’t do the job, but a reflecting wrecking ball could.

Callahan studied the mirror ball above him. There was the rod in the top which turned it around. And there were four wires holding the rod steady. One wire going in each direction. Harry had six shots. He had to do it with five and he couldn’t do it from directly under the ball.

Clamping his jaw together and grinding his teeth, Harry grabbed onto the table’s one thick center leg with his left arm. He tightened his grip on the Magnum in his right hand. He pulled his feet under him.

Harry stood up, took two steps back, and started firing.

He held the table in front of him like a medieval shield as he kept all his attention on the mirror ball’s wires. He heard and felt Hinkle’s shots flying around him. One shot, the west wire snapped. Two shots, the south wire broke. Three shots, the east wire was cut. A .45 bullet smashed against the side of his shoe. His foot went numb, his leg shifted, and the fourth shot went wild.

Harry almost fell. He almost dropped the table. He yanked his body straight again and with his lips pulling off his teeth, he aimed the gun at the already nicked tube. The mirror ball was already spinning wildly in every direction, throwing thousands of rectangular light beams across the walls and floors. Every time Harry thought he had the tube lined up, a light beam would flash in his eyes and the aim was off again.

Inside the booth, Hinkle hurled the girl away from him in frustration. Weak from fear, the blond hit the side wall and slipped to the floor. The Professor took the MAC 10 in both hands and tried to level Harry where he stood. The .45 bullets drilled out the glass into the very edge of the table shield.

Harry felt the table buck in his hands and actually saw the bullets ricochet over his head. Then he fired the fifth shot.

The tube broke. The north wire held, swinging the big, glittering ball right at the disc jockey’s booth.

The destruction of the glass was extraordinary. The mirrored ball broke open like a shattering water balloon sending hundreds of spinning little squares off like the rays from the sun. Even more of the mirror powdered, spreading a sparkling gray cloud across the disc jockey booth’s protection.

At first it didn’t seem as if the one-way pane would give, but as the gray cloud dissipated, hunks of light broke through. The booth’s glass fell in like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle falling from the ceiling. They all shattered on the burnished wood and lighted glass dance floor with a crackling roar.

Harry dropped the table as The Professor was forced back. He stumbled toward the girl. Harry shot him in the back. Hinkle was thrown forward, his arms limp behind him. His face hit the wall above the girl. Harry didn’t wait for him to crumble. He charged right by the booth and pounded downstairs, reloading his Magnum as he went.

He nearly slammed face first into a steel curtain that blocked the bottom of the staircase. A sign on it read, “We are sorry, but the rest rooms are out of service at this time.”

Harry cursed and ran back to the bar. Reaching over the edge, he pressed down all the buttons. As he ran back, he saw the captive blond carefully making her way out of the booth. He wanted to help her, but he had more pressing matters to attend to.

This time the stairway was clear. Harry kicked open the ladies’ room door. Empty. He kicked at the door across the hall. It wouldn’t budge. He blasted away at the lock with his .44 until it fell completely out of the metal partition and clattered on the floor. Harry hurled it inward.

The room wasn’t empty, but there were no people inside. Instead there was equipment. There were four tables lined with the most incredible array of restraining devices Harry had ever seen. The tables themselves had straps to hold the entire body still. There was rope, leather cord, wire and tape of all shapes and sizes. There were handcuffs, padlocks, and chains. And that was just in the middle of the floor.

To his left was a complete makeup center with wigs, every type of cosmetic imaginable, and a full paint set. On the back wall was a lab stocked with drugs. And to his right was a large computer. The information section of the unit was as big as a casket. The readout and keyboard were the same sort one would find in any modern newsroom. Harry turned on the power. A flashing green star immediately appeared in the upper left hand corner of the screen. Harry typed in Lynne McConnell’s name. He hit the “Enter” button.

Her name flashed on the screen twice, then records began to march up the screen like the cast and credits of a TV show. The machine displayed her birth certificate, some school report cards, her driver’s license, her bank statements, her college diploma, her tax form, hospital records, her life insurance policy, and even the lease on her apartment.

Harry switched off the computer without emotion. He ran back upstairs and hopped into the disc jockey’s booth. Hinkle was where he had shot him. Harry gingerly turned him over. The Professor was leaking blood from his nose and mouth as well as his back.

“Get ’em?” Hinkle asked softly.

“Long gone,” said Harry.

Hinkle chuckled and a renewed stream of crimson drooled out of the corners of his mouth.

“Figures,” he finally said, grimacing with the pain.

“Save the death scene,” Harry stated. “If you know where they went, say so.”

The Professor thought about all the ironies of life. He thought about how there was no honor among thieves. He thought about his life and felt no remorse for the things he did. He felt no regret that he had ended this way either. But all he said was, “Angel Island. House on the Northern face. Call it the Cave.”

Harry didn’t thank him. He just got up and started to walk away.

“Hey,” Hinkle said.

Harry turned.

The Professor smiled a death smile. The blood had stained his teeth. It was a smile that said Harry didn’t have a chance. “Do you feel lucky, Callahan?” he asked. Then he lowered his head to the floor and died.

Harry looked at the corpse in the devastated disco for a few seconds.

“That’s my line,” he told the body. “Punk.”

C H A P T E R
E i g h t

I
t was nearly midnight when Harry arrived on Angel Island. He had had to drive all the way to Fisherman’s Wharf to find a cruiser captain still up and about. The tour boats were supposed to stop running at four o’clock in the afternoon, but a police badge and a loaded Magnum went a long way in loosening the moorings. Fifty bucks started the engine and raised the anchor.

Harry jumped off the salt-eaten deck onto a crumbling cement jetty on the north side of the island.

“There it is,” said Orville, the crusty little seahorse who had brought him this far. “The Cave.”

Harry looked up at the dark, foreboding mansion overlooking the Raccoon Strait.

“People call it that because they figger a whole system of caves runs underneath it,” Orville explained. “People figger a whole horde of gold was hidden in ’em after the rush of 1849.” The old man squinted up at the house himself. “Great earthquake probably destroyed ’em, though.” He shook his head. “Want me to wait?” he asked Harry.

“No,” Callahan answered. “Thanks.”

“Okie-doke,” Orville said, figuring the cop knew what he was doing.

Harry was already marching through the brush toward the mansion by the time the captain had cast off. He pulled out his weapon when the shadow of the place blotted out the moon.

It was another world here. A world of gothic horror, of dark despair, where the worst nightmares of a society trying to become liberated came true. Harry still had no proof. He had a disco full of terrified dancers and dead bodies but no real, prosecutable proof. He had a cellar that would set a sadist’s heart aflame, but he had no corroborating witnesses. Just a well-programmed computer and a lot of
corpus delecti.

There were two more in the cellar with the girl, the bartender had said. Two more in the cellar, Harry thought, and how many more here? He soon got his answer. He heard a sound behind him and to his right. He spun around, his gun cocked.

It was Orville, the boat man, coming up to him and holding out a flashlight. “Here,” he said, flicking it on, “I thought you might need this . . .”

As soon as the light went on the night was torn open by the rasping growl of a submachine gun. Harry saw the captain’s middle get torn open by the bullets. He threw himself back and down as the poor old man and the flashlight dropped.

The only noise for seconds after that was the sound of the flashlight rolling down the hill toward the jetty. Harry watched the dot of white light get smaller and smaller until it smashed against a rock. The noise continued but the light went out. Finally the noise stopped too.

“I think I got him,” a voice said.

“Yeah, me too,” said another. “Come on.”

Harry kept perfectly still as two men, armed with G3 assault rifles, sidled up to the dead man.

“That’s him, huh?” the first one said, prodding the corpse with his toe. “He doesn’t look like much.”

The other shrugged. “Ours is not to reason why . . .” he quoted.

Harry couldn’t resist. “Yours is just to do and die,” he said. Callahan really wasn’t taking too much of a chance finishing the sentence because as he spoke, he blew both men away so fast his Magnum reports sounded as one.

The men spun and flew back, their rifles following the flashlight down the hill.

Harry had no time to mourn the old sea salt’s meaningless murder. He ran up the remainder of the hill to the mansion, flattening against the nearest windowless wall he saw. Up close, the place wasn’t much different than it was from far away. The night hadn’t masked any windows, he noted, because there were no windows to mask. The whole side of the building had no opening. Harry walked around to the back of the house, away from the side that faced the strait.