Dirty Harry 11 - Death in the Air (2 page)

He looked down the length of the sleek metal BART snake to see if it could have been possible for the victim to have accidentally danced across the platform and onto the sunken tracks. From where he stood, it appeared that, with all the safety devices the Transportation Board had installed, the victim would have had to impersonate Peter Pan to fly that far.

The stationmaster looked away from the shredded corpse, his skin ashen, with tinges of green around his eyes, nose, and mouth. Martha Murray had been torn open like a package of Poppin’ Fresh dough. Her guts were splashed around like spilled taco filling, and spread around beneath the car.

The stationmaster was surprised to see the inspector, but there was recognition in his eyes as Harry stared unflinchingly at the girl’s remains.

“Callahan,” the stationmaster croaked, “don’t you ever sleep?”

The man’s attempt at levity fell, bruised, to the crimson-streaked tracks. Harry finally removed his eyes from the rent body and clamped them on the nauseated trainman.

“Not on the subway,” he said. “Not when things like this are happening.”

C H A P T E R
T w o

H
arry didn’t like the new San Francisco subway. He didn’t like any subways. Where there were subways, he figured, there would be crime. Even if those subways were well appointed, sumptuously carpeted, and slickly designed. When you put a hole in the ground, and stuck people in it where no one could see them, it wouldn’t be long before the rats came out.

And it wasn’t. BART had opened in the early seventies, and, as the decade crept toward its middle, the usual problems arose: graffiti, at best, and mugging murders, at worst.

Graffiti the TB could handle. That wasn’t a disease—that was a problem for the Transportation Board. The mugging problem was Callahan’s job. As a cop, even when he was in disguise, undercover, Harry still carried his badge. And one or two other things that made this assignment easier.

No, Harry didn’t like the subway, but he was used to it. He had to be, since that was where he had spent most of his evenings for the last week and a half. Originally, the BART system had closed at midnight, but the pressure from club patrons and theatergoers pushed closing time first to one and then to two in the morning.

If the Transportation Board had its way, that closing time would be pushed back as soon as possible, but the workings of city government were laborious. The state representatives argued that the needs of the people must be met, while the Board contended that the few people out at two in the morning could take a taxi.

Sandy Richards learned the truth of the Board’s argument the hard way. In the middle of November, she had stayed late at a downtown office finishing up some transcriptions for a well-paying, high-powered client. The temperature was brisk, and rain was coming down in cold, slicing sheets. The second-to-last BART run was practically empty except for Sandy, a town drunk, and five fairly well-dressed young men.

The secretary had cast a leery eye at the inebriated man who sat slumped in the train seat, but she remained in the car because of the other group. She felt safe with the five reputable-looking, college-age kids. After all, she knew she was a young, attractive woman dressed in a smart suit, riding alone at night. She was aware of the possibility that she might be robbed, accosted, or even worse.

She was. Her body was found at the base of Telegraph Hill, in the shadow of the Coit Memorial Tower. Her pocketbook and most of her smart suit were missing. She lay among some overturned garbage cans, where two curious kids had found her. She had been raped and beaten to death.

At her place of business, her boss had spoken glowingly of her to Harry. According to the boss, she had been the model of efficiency. Why, she had even completed some very important paper work the night of her death. The man had been so impressed, he held up the stack of transcriptions for Harry to see.

On the basis of his own experience in putting together a report, Callahan figured she couldn’t have gotten all of that done on a nine-to-five shift. As far as he was concerned, that placed her at large in the city after working hours. And, since he knew her office was in Garfield Square, across the city from where she had been found, Harry traced the various ways she could have gotten from one place to another.

The bus and cab driver interviews turned up nothing, so Callahan turned his attention to the BART workers. It was just this kind of tedious, futile investigation that turned police officers into jaded, pessimistic people. Callahan had had his share of dangerous thrills during his career, but most of his time was occupied with just this sort of garbage collecting.

Only this time, the bull-shitting paid off. One BART driver remembered a woman matching Sandy Richards’s description riding the train on the day in question. From there, Harry decided to find that run’s regular riders for further elaboration. With Ted Huxley, the BART drunk, he hit pay dirt.

Ted was a good old boy who came west to find his fortune. But so did a lot of good old boys, and while some of them had the right stuff to make a success of it, Huxley wasn’t able to make the grade. The drop was steep and long, and Ted ended up right where Harry found him.

He was tall and gaunt, but extremely observant for a souse. He remembered the girl, he remembered the five young men, and he remembered that the half-dozen people got off together at the Washington Square stop. Unfortunately, the drunk’s words wouldn’t hold up in a court of law, so Harry made the man a deal.

Callahan gave him enough stool-pigeon money for booze and a decent place to hole up in, so Huxley wouldn’t have to hang out in the subway. Then Harry took over his spot. The inspector visited the Salvation Army, selected the worst-looking and worst-smelling clothes he could handle, and, for the next ten days, became a sloshed fixture on the last BART morning runs.

His timing was impeccable. For, while Huxley remembered the five youths well, the five youths remembered him only vaguely. It wasn’t surprising that the young men mistook the staked-out Harry for the bombed-out Ted, given their similarities.

In mid-December, Harry was slumped in a seat on the late-night BART train, his worn leather collar covering most of his face, and a ratty slouch hat covering his head. Through the crack between the top of the collar and the bottom of the hat rim, he saw five well-dressed young men get on the nearly empty train at the Market Street stop.

As the smoothly running transport picked up speed on its way to Oakland, the bunch of guys checked out the surrounding cars with a few furtive glances, and then came over to where Harry was sitting. Callahan saw that they were the only ones in the section.

“Say, old man,” said the first youth, a slender, brown-haired fellow in designer jeans and a V-necked sweater. “How you doing tonight, huh?”

From the way he stood, right in front of the supposed drunk, and the way his friends spread out to block the entry and exit doors on either end of the car, Harry figured his well-being was not their first concern—contrary to the lead’s words.

One kid, a short, broad guy with dirty blond hair, leaned against the door to the next car, which was on Harry’s right. Another—a guy who looked like a front end for a college football team, complete with a crew cut—went to the other end of the car and stood before the opposite door, which led to the next section.

With those portals covered, another pair of young men sandwiched Harry between them. One stood to his left, and the other sat next to him on his right. The standee was a handsome, rugged sort, who looked incomplete without an ascot and pipe. He wore a casual, fashionable suit with thin lapels, a thin collar, and a tie. His black hair was cut and styled short, and he had the sultry, pouty look of an overgrown preppie. The sittee was a thin, nervous, ferret-eyed type in a baseball jacket and sneakers, who had patches of acne scars across both cheeks.

Harry heard the swooping sound of the train dipping into the entrance to the tunnel which linked San Francisco with Oakland across the Bay. It was the longest underwater transit tube in the world, which made this part of the ride lengthy, and uninterrupted by stops.

It was what the five had been waiting for. With no more pedestrians coming on or getting off, they had the drunk all to themselves. The various stationmasters had been informed by the SFPD about Harry’s assignment, so they wouldn’t roust him, but the trainmen wouldn’t be able to help Harry now. As usual, the cop was on his own.

With the city lights cut off by the BART’s entry into the submerged tunnel, the train’s recessed lighting cast an eerie, pale, blue and beige glow over everything. The five young men shifted about in the weird illumination like skittish fish.

“Hey, you remember us, old man?” the lead, brown-haired youth asked, trying to peer through Harry’s sartorial obstructions.

“It makes no difference,” the nervous one next to Harry said abruptly. “You know that.”

“We can’t take the chance,” the good-looking one said slowly. “I thought we all decided that before we came back here.”

That was enough for Callahan. His hunch had been correct. Worried that the drunk might remember and finger them, they had returned to check it out. But, also worried that the drunk knew, but was playing dumb, they had decided to play it safe and get rid of him. They figured that no one would think twice about the murder of an old drunk.

“All right, all right,” the lead man complained. “I just wanted to make sure, that’s all.”

Actually, the kid had cold feet, Harry figured. That put Callahan’s benefit of doubt on the brunette’s side. He wouldn’t kill him unless he absolutely had to. But, from the way the others were approaching it, their exit from the human race might be reason to celebrate. Not surprisingly, they were all talking as if the old drunk wasn’t even there.

“Don’t worry about it,” the football player called from the other end of the car.

“Nobody’s going to miss him,” the blond at the nearest door hissed. “Get it over with.”

The hesitant brunette looked to the handsome standee. He, in turn, looked to the nervous ferret and nodded. The sitting one nodded back, his eyes glowing, and he removed a switchblade from his baseball jacket pocket.

What they were planning was simplicity itself. A long, thin blade shoved up between the drunk’s ribs and the old man would be quietly, almost cleanly dead within seconds. Then the five would simply wander off to other cars. The corpse would remain sitting. By the time the run ended, and his death was discovered, no one would have the slightest idea who might have killed him, or why.

But Harry had some ideas of his own.

He heard the knife open rather than saw it. He didn’t have time to see it if he was to get to the end of the line alive. He had to use the fact that the five thought he was a bleary-brained, near-paralytic. He also had to use all of his props.

Harry gripped the top of the booze bottle in the paper bag on his lap with his left hand. He jerked his right hand forward as he swung the glass container up while kicking out.

His sweeping right fist collided with the kid’s knife hand, driving the blade away from his side and into the kid’s thigh. At the same time, the thick, green sour mash bottle slipped out of the rumpled brown paper bag and smashed across the good-looking guy’s face. Finally, his foot hit the lead brunette’s family jewels.

In one move, Harry had evened the odds considerably. Like most young, middle-class sadists, the nervous kid with the knife really didn’t know what pain was, so when his nerve endings started sending hysterical messages of anguish from his thigh to his brain, he completely overreacted. Grabbing his thigh, he slipped from the seat to the carpeted floor, howling.

The sour mash bottle all but ruined the handsome one’s possible modeling career, the heavy glass spinning across his ripped skin like termites going to work on a wooden foundation. His arms went up, useless to prevent the shredding, and he slammed solidly against the sealed sliding doors behind him.

The brunette did what almost anyone kicked in the balls would do. He doubled over, his hands covering the damage, his face purple, and his mouth frozen in a high-pressured round O. His eyes moved wildly, trying to take in his friend’s plight before his pupils teared. Harry waited until the youth closed his eyes before standing and driving his fist into the unprotected face.

The brunette snapped to attention like a recruit on his first day at boot camp. His tortured expression became blandly peaceful, and then he fell swiftly back, his hands at his sides. He collided with some seats across the aisle, thus interrupting his perfect backward plank drop.

“Police,” Harry managed to say. “You’re all under arrest.” He had his hands full with the blond who came charging to his associates’ aid as soon as the supposed drunk showed teeth.

The blond tried to tackle the cop, but Callahan utilized a classic shoulder throw, dumping the kid onto the floor in front of him. He looked over the flipped kid to the last man. Much to his shock, the football player had produced a snubnosed revolver from his waistband.

Harry did what any red-blooded American cop would do in such a circumstance: he ducked behind the dazed blond kid. He heard the nasty little gun fire with a sizzling crack, and heard the bullet thud into flesh behind him. He glanced up to see that the switchblade kid had managed to stand, pull the knife out of his leg, and stumble within striking distance.

The thirty-eight-calibre bullet put an end to the kid’s pained attempt. When Harry ducked, the lead dug into the youth’s chest, scrambling everything just below his sternum. The bleeding hole in his thigh was joined by a fountain of drooling, crimson liquid pumping out from between his stomach and his chest.

The kid’s mouth opened in surprise, he blinked, all expression of suffering left his face for a second, and then he died in anguish. Amazed by the sudden death of his friend, the football player wrenched open the connecting door behind him and ran for it.

Harry pulled out his gun as he rose. The blue steel Smith and Wesson model twenty-nine .44 Magnum gleamed in the BART light. The flipped blond started to get up in front of it just as the glass-torn, black-haired man tried jumping Callahan from the side.