Dirty Harry 11 - Death in the Air (10 page)

Harry pulled up one of the four bar stools that were in the basement—sans bar—and sat down, pulling the food toward him. He watched as MacKenzie began pulling larger items from his grab bags.

He laid three automatic pistols down next to the Ping-Pong net, side by side.

“The Browning Hi-Power nine-millimeter,” MacKenzie narrated, pointing at what looked like a slightly sleeker version of the pusher’s Colt .45. “Weight, thirty-two ounces. Barrel length, four and one-half inches. Magazine capacity, fourteen rounds.”

The next in line looked like a gun used in a James Bond movie, except that it had a thyroid problem. Everything about it was bigger. “The Beretta Model 92 nine-millimeter,” the burgermaster identified. “The weights the same, but the barrel is a half-inch longer. And,” he said meaningfully, “it can hold one more bullet in its belly.”

That brought them to the last gun on the table. “Here’s a cutie,” MacKenzie marveled, as Harry ate. “The Heckler and Koch VP70Z nine-millimeter. Only twenty-eight ounces, but it carries eighteen rounds in its double-stack magazine. Barrel length, four inches.”

Harry swallowed a hunk of ground beef and cocked an eyebrow at his longtime associate. “That’s all?”

“You asked for three things,” MacKenzie reminded him. “Accuracy, stopping power, and surprise.”

Harry smiled grimly. He remembered, all right. He wanted to show them something when they thought he was out of bullets.

“Not many guns can deliver all three,” the gun supplier continued. “Some Smith and Wesson automatics can carry fourteen rounds, but the Browning’s got better accuracy.”

“Which do you suggest?” Harry asked, finishing off the first burger.

“You don’t have time to test?” MacKenzie asked hopefully.

“I may not have time to finish eating,” Harry said honestly.

“Okay,” said the other man, sweeping the Heckler and Koch off of the table. “Stick to the Browning. It’s the most similar in size, shape, and use to your Model 29 revolver.” MacKenzie turned from the guns and looked directly at Harry for the first time.

“What’s the matter, anyway? The Magnum fail you?”

Callahan hefted the automatic in one hand while holding the second burger in the other. “A man has to know his limitations,” he said. “There comes a time when six rounds, even with three speed loaders, aren’t enough.”

“Um-hm,” MacKenzie agreed. “And speaking of that . . .”

The man pushed the handguns aside and opened the second sack. He pulled out three even larger packages, each individually wrapped.

“All right!” Bill exclaimed, revealing a submachine gun which looked like a Browning with delusions of grandeur. It had the Browning’s handle, but that was in the middle of what looked like a metal spaghetti box with a barrel coming out of the front end.

“The Austrian Steyr MP69,” MacKenzie proclaimed proudly. “Nine-millimeter, twenty-five round magazine. Effective range: over a hundred yards. Capable of firing five hundred and fifty rounds a minute.”

The supplier quickly unwrapped the other two submachine guns. “The Uzi and Mac I’m sure you already know,” he said. “Take your pick.”

The former was an Israeli submachine gun, and the latter was a United States variation. “I’ll take your suggestion first,” Harry countered.

MacKenzie shrugged. “The Steyr has a safety catch that can be operated from either side,” he said diffidently. “But I don’t think you’re much interested in safety at the moment.” He frowned apathetically and turned away from the table. “I only wanted to give you a choice, anyway. Take the Mac. It’s the smallest and lightest of the three, with thirty-two bullets in its belly.”

Callahan nodded and started working on the third burger, while MacKenzie laid out the extra magazines of ammo Harry wanted. MacKenzie leaned back when the Ping-Pong table looked like the entire armory for a SWAT team. Then he couldn’t help looking at the calmly chewing cop out of the corner of his eye.

“So what is it, Harry? You planning to take a vacation in El Salvador?”

“Uh—uh.” The Inspector shook his head. “We made a deal. I don’t ask where you got these things, and you don’t ask what I’m going to do with them.”

“All right,” MacKenzie said reluctantly. “You’re the boss, Harry. But I’d feel a lot better if I knew what you were into.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” the cop promised.

“Be that way, then,” the supplier said with mock indifference. “You’ve got the Browning, and you’ve got the Mac—complete with enough ammunition to start your own Third-World country.”

MacKenzie turned to survey the weaponry with professional satisfaction. “That’s the ticket, Harry,” he said, as the cop finished off the third sandwich. “Stick with American goods. No one knows more about murdering its own.”

Everybody was all smiles at the office the next morning. Everybody, that is, except Harry Callahan.

He had had a miserable night. After leaving MacKenzie’s, he had sold his car. He had taken the money and bought another one from a perfect stranger. He couldn’t chance getting help from any of his police car associates, since he didn’t want this vehicle traceable to him.

He had actually gone to one of those car forests that was open twenty-four hours a day, and had caught the salesman in seven lies before he could convince the baby-eating bastard to give him a decent deal.

Then he took his new car, parked it in an alley, and did the best tune-up job he could, minus tools or lights. Afterward, he managed to sleep in the back seat for a few hours without his screaming subconscious keeping him awake.

If he was going to live through the next few days, he figured he needed the rest. That rationalization quieted one set of nerves, but stretched another to its breaking point.

His mental alarm clock woke him at the crack of dawn. He found a place to park the car and took a taxi to headquarters, fully expecting to fall down the flaming mouth of Lieutenant Bressler.

At best, he thought he’d have to make some kind of sense out of last night’s obstacle course and subway shoot-out. At worst, he thought he would be brought up on charges of recklessly endangering the public.

Instead, when he entered the Lieutenant’s office, Bressler got up from his chair, came around the desk, and shook his hand. Then he offered Harry a seat on his beaten couch and suggested that they both have a slug of his bottom-drawer whiskey to clear away the sandman’s cobwebs.

Callahan sat, refusing to be surprised by this sudden change, with a paper cup of whiskey in his hand, listening to Bressler explain to him what he had done last night and why he had done it.

“The report came in to the Commissioner last night.” The Lieutenant nearly gushed with relief. “The fingerprints of the man in the subway matched those of Corporal George Daley, an army man right in the middle of a court-martial for unbecoming conduct. He escaped off the Miramar base in San Diego and turned up here.” The Lieutenant took a swig of his booze and smacked his lips. “The Commissioner is satisfied,” he concluded.

“Satisfied of what?” Harry wanted to know.

Bressler looked over at the Inspector with surprise. “That Daley is our man,” he said, with conviction. “Look, Harry, Maggin was a mistake, we’ll admit that. He was so far gone on drugs, he probably didn’t even know what he was doing at the hospital, or why.

“But Daley was being drummed out of the military because of his antisocial behavior. He was an extremely violent man who couldn’t understand why that didn’t please his superiors.”

“That doesn’t say anything about why he would push women onto subway tracks,” Harry interrupted. “He was mad at the army, not at women.”

“I’m sorry, Harry,” Bressler said, leaning over his desk with concern. “Didn’t you know? His first victim, this Ms. Patterson, did work for the military.”

Callahan felt a slight chill across his back. He covered his feeling of approaching doom by swallowing the whiskey. He handed back the empty cup for a refill. He needed it.

Bressler reluctantly refilled Harry’s cup, and went on with the official story. “The base psychiatrist has already stated that Daley was so satisfied with the feeling of power he got from shoving Patterson onto the tracks that he continued doing it.”

“Who said that?” Callahan asked him. “Did you talk to him?”

“It’s all in the report,” Bressler replied.

“Where is it? I’d like to read it.”

“The Commissioner has it.”

Harry heard the words as if they were etched on a stone that slammed shut over a grave. He kept trying. “Where did Patterson work?”

The Lieutenant thought about: it. “The report didn’t say,” he remembered. “But it did say that Patterson has since left the military’s employ. I’m sure she’ll be happy to know that the man who pushed her is no longer at large. Do you know where she lives, Harry?”

“No.”

“Well, that’s not important.” Bressler waved the thought away. “What is important is that the department is satisfied that you were acting in the best interests of the San Francisco citizens.” The Lieutenant stood up and put out his hand. “You did a great job, Harry. Congratulations.”

Bressler kept shaking Harry’s hand as he led him out of the office. “Now, look, Harry, take it easy like I told you before, okay? I want you fit, rested, and ready to go when the Goldfarb warrants come in, all right?”

Harry nodded absently. Bressler let go of his hand, clapped him on the shoulder, and returned the nod. “Go home, Harry. I’ll call you when I need you. Go home.”

With that, the Lieutenant went back inside his office and closed the door. Harry stood in place for a few moments, digesting the Daley information, then turned toward his own office cubicle. Frank DiGeorgio was standing inside, staring with a troubled look at a piece of computer paper.

Harry stood in the doorway as the Sergeant looked up, at a loss for understanding. “It says she doesn’t exist, Harry,” he said incredulously. “Yesterday, it said that Denise Patterson lived at the Grand View Apartment House, number 4-B. Today, it says ‘No Data.’ No data, Harry. I just don’t get it.”

Callahan moved into the office and stopped just inches away from his partner. “Don’t get it, Frank,” he warned urgently, almost in a whisper. “Forget about it. I’m telling you straight. Forget about it, forget about the last few nights, and forget about me. I don’t trust you anymore, Frank, you understand? I don’t want you to be my partner anymore. If they call you for the Goldfarb bust, tell them I won’t work with you.”

“Harry,” DiGeorgio said in confusion. “You sure you know what you’re doing?”

Callahan went to the door. “You don’t want to be around me for a while, period. Get it?”

DiGeorgio nodded reluctantly.

“Say hello to your wife and kids for me,” Harry reminded him pointedly, and left his office.

He left the homicide department, left the seventh floor, and left the Justice Building. He couldn’t help wondering whether he’d ever come back.

He couldn’t keep running. In fact, he couldn’t start running. If he did, he’d be what they call a “naked runner” in the espionage trade. That’s a man with nearly no contacts, no defense, and no place to go.

If he tried running for it, his enemy could pick him off easily, making it look as if he had died in one of dozens of seemingly natural or accidental ways. But if he stayed on his own turf and met them on his own terms, his possible death would at least raise some eyebrows, create some suspicion.

That way, whoever it was he was fighting might think twice before killing him. Either that, or they’d have to wait and do an awful lot of careful planning to have Harry die in a perfectly acceptable manner.

Unfortunately, a perfectly acceptable manner for a big-city homicide cop was an explosive in the car, a bomb in the mailbox, or a sniper on the opposite roof—all of which Harry had experienced during his career.

Even so, he knew he couldn’t put it off forever. He had to go back to Russian Hill sometime. And he figured his hunters wouldn’t want to raise any commotion in his apartment building. Unlike Grand View, it wasn’t filled with military employees.

As long as he was careful, and didn’t do any unusual posturing in front of the windows, Callahan figured that, contrary to the famous saying, you
can
go home again.

That didn’t mean he was just going to waltz in, however. Harry waited until night had fallen and all of his neighbors had settled in for a long winter’s nap. Only then did he cross the street, quietly unlock the front door and go upstairs—with his Magnum held in his right hand.

He stopped only when he got to his floor. The hall light was off. A bad sign. It was a naked, pale yellow bulb, so it wouldn’t be unusual for it to be out, but tonight wasn’t a good night for coincidences.

All it would take was one man inside a dark apartment to put one silenced bullet into him as he entered, and there’d be no witnesses for one more dead cop whose murder would never be solved.

But Harry wasn’t going to turn back now. He slid forward and put his hand on the light. It flickered to life for a second. In that second, Callahan saw that there was no one else in the hall.

He twisted his hand, and the light went on. It was slightly unscrewed. The question was: how? By gravity or by hand? Callahan felt himself smiling. Suddenly, he looked forward to going in.

He found himself wanting to face whatever they were going to throw at him. They’d find out all too soon that he wasn’t some dupe they could push onto the subway tracks.

He went in fast, low, and professionally. He kicked open the door, threw himself sideways, somersaulted, and came up pointing his Magnum right into the face of Denise Patterson.

C H A P T E R
N i n e

N
ow just what the hell do you do?

It was the first thing Harry wanted to know after he closed and locked the door behind him. He was about to flick on the lights when her outstretched arm stopped him.

“Please . . . please don’t. I’m afraid.”

“It’s a little late for that,” Harry reminded her, but took his hand off the switch. “You didn’t seem paralyzed with fear when your apartment was attacked.” He remained standing by the door. She sat near the head of his bed, her legs tucked under her.