The Knave of Hearts (28 page)

Hackett got out and went after him, pounding across
this anonymous dark street. "What the hell—here, you get off—"

The patrolman was trying to manhandle Mendoza, and
Mendoza, sprawled half into the squad car, was reaching desperately
for the hand radio. Hackett hauled the patrolman off him.

"All right, we’re headquarters, let him
go—here’s identification—"

He clawed for his wallet.

"Code nine! Code nine! Request
assistance!—Mendoza, headquarters! I’m taking this car out of
action—what’s your number for God’s sake?—car
nine-four—three, out of action—I want another car
immediatamente
,
pronto
—along Sunset,
heading west from Edgemont—repeat, heading west from Edgemont—a
car to join me—Code three, full siren—repeat, Code nine, Mendoza,
Homicide, request—immediate priority—a car to join me—"

"What the hell!" said the driver of the
squad car. "Sergeant—well, 0.K., but I don’t—" And
Mendoza had him by the shoulders, a big fellow six inches over
Mendoza, shaking him ruthless and hard.

"Clear the way for me, clear the way—full
siren— Christ damn you, if you lose me I’ll cut your heart out—"

Hackett just made the righthand bucket seat as the
Facel-Vega took off like a rocket. The siren started behind them.
Dark flashing past, and then the tortured screech of brakes, the skid
around a turn, and Sunset Boulevard-kaleidoscope of neon lights, the
siren howling behind, and the lines of traffic ahead skittering over
to the curb, out of the way. And Mendoza said over the snarl of the
engine, quite calm and certain, "The beach place. The beach
place. Nice and lonely.
Maria madre, Maria
madre
, the beach place. Please God. Yes.
Alison.
Dios te salve, Maria, llena eres
—"

Sunset Boulevard, but he’d never seen it like this
before, a long joined line of pink-green-scarlet-green-blue light,
sliding past. Speed of light. Speed of— Look out! Desperate
screeching swerve, no crash, safe—time being—

"For God’s sake, Luis," he said numbly.
"For God’s sake."

The faithful siren screaming behind. Two sirens. The
second squad car. Thank God—for what? Pick up the pieces afterward.
They said a Facel-Vega could do—

"Alison," said Mendoza, "Alison.”

Hackett didn’t know where they were now, lost
track. Sunset, wherever. Lights and no lights and lights again, the
sirens behind—Luis, for God’s sake—

He saw there ahead (time slowed down again, they
seemed to approach it with infinite leisure) a lighted side street
and a yellow-and-black taxi nosing out into the intersection. Nosing
out too far, not hearing the sirens in time. Too far—going to hit
it, going to—

Hackett shut his eyes and thought, Angel darling. He
felt a slight blow in his right side, heard a rending crash. They
were still traveling, and apparently in one piece. He opened his
eyes. There was peculiar noise: it was, he saw (taking it in slowly)
the fender of the taxi, part of the bumper too, suspended on the
right fender of the Facel-Vega, crashing and banging there, a great
extraneous length of metal, incongruous— His hand explored, found a
deep dent in the door at his side where the swerve hadn’t quite
saved them a collision, at this speed. This car was built like a tank
and tonight that was a damned good thing.

The wind force dislodged the fender, it fell off
awkward and sudden, another crash. Spare a thought for the squad—car
drivers behind, faithful, sirens screaming like lost souls— Luis,
Luis, easy, don’t kill me just when I’ve got Angel, my darling—
The long sloping lazy curves, around what had been the big polo
field, now was a big tract of jerry-built new houses—and no car
could take these curves at such a speed—

"
Santa Maria, madre de
Dios
," said Mendoza very distinctly, "I
pray you, I pray you."

Hackett looked at the speedometer and looked away,
trying to forget the three figures it registered. The siren was a
little way behind now, the first siren. The driver of that squad car,
no wonder, didn’t want to commit suicide.

"I am a very great fool," said Mendoza. "I
am the greatest fool in the world." If Hackett had had breath
he’d have agreed.

Luis, for God’s sake
—
But he had not said it aloud, he hadn’t breath or strength to say
it aloud.

The siren, both the sirens, had caught up a little. A
thought, a prayer, for the blindly obedient squad-car drivers. And
damn good drivers. Yes.

And another curve. And Mendoza uttered a sound of
purely animal rage; the tortured brakes screamed—they slewed around
in a half circle: the speedometer needle arched away left toward
zero. The Facel-Vega skidded around halfway, brakes shrieking,
caromed off the rear of the T-bird last in the line of traffic,
hitting it side on, and stopped facing the curb. The leading squad
car, braking frantically, sideslipped to a tire-screeching stop
against the curb a foot away. The second one, at five-m.p.h. less
speed, managed to skid to a violent stop facing the opposite
direction. .

That place it was, end of Chautauqua, where the road
narrowed down to the Malibu road— God, didn’t seem like ten
minutes from Hollywood, thirty miles, thirty miles—and the
three-way signal at the bottom of the hill— The traffic, thick
there, had heard the sirens, but it hadn’t anywhere to go, out of
the way. It huddled there helpless, trapped in the narrow roads and
the one wide road, nowhere to go—here, crowded close in to the
curb, bumper to bumper both lanes—stationary, frightened, impotent.

The sirens behind moaning on a low note now. God—

Mendoza swung the wheel, sobbing in fury and
desperation. Hackett crouched away instinctively—there was the long
rending screech of metal on metal, as the Facel-Vega was jammed
through where no car could go, scraping between the cars there to the
left, climbing the curb, smashing past the light pole, knocking it
half over drunkenly-ramming down the sidewalk past the shabby
store-fronts- And a crash and another crash and they were somehow
through, past, swerving around right in a great sweeping turn— The
sirens, no, only one behind—other driver not so crazy, take that
incredible chance after them—and straightened to the new road, the
coast road. New sound, not just the wind of their passing—

He looked out and saw. The collision with the T-bird,
or the desperate scraping past that solid post there-the whole side
of the car was stove in, and now that right fender was jammed solid
against the tire, screeching loud—wear it through in five miles,
and a blowout at this pace—

Angel, my darling
.

But the siren clearing the way again now, and now the
brakes screaming again, the further long skidding turn, don’t look
at the speedometer—

The Malibu road curving inland now, along where that
cabin was, if— And over there to the left, in lonely dark, the tail
lights of a car. God, could it be—were they in time? He’d had
fifty minutes’ start—but no sirens clearing the way.

A violent swerve left, to a rougher road. No tail
lights now.

"Mary, Mother of God," whispered Mendoza,
"be kind—"

Stationary. Stopped.

Hackett sat for ten seconds, realizing it. The simple
fact. Stationary, and alive. He thought he was still alive.

Siren moaning to the lowest note behind: more brakes
squealing. He got out of the car—painfully, entangling himself in
the gearshift. He blundered after a slim, dark figure that must be
Mendoza, far up ahead, silhouetted just a minute against sky—

Night, dark, sea smell. The beach place. Sure, of
course. He ran through hampering sand; he heard Mendoza running
ahead, the patrolmen, heavy, behind. Heard his own hard breath. He
raised a groping hand, feeling for his gun.

Wooden steps: he nearly fell, caught himself. And
Mendoza was there, snarling at him, seizing his hand—"
¡N0
fuego, imbécil!
" God, God, of course
couldn’t use the gun: who was on the other side of the door, the
window? Small place—

A door. He ran at it heavily, hard as he could, one
shoulder forward. Mendoza was gone. Car-door slam: the second squad
car. A man, two men, joining him. He heard loud running on wooden
flooring, round the other side of the house—he heard Mendoza
shouting, a distance away, somewhere at the back—"Michael
Markham! Gideon Wise! We’re coming in—surrender yourself!—we’re
coming—"

He shoved and struggled at the door—too solid, too
thick—panting, listening to his labored breath and that of the men
beside him. He heard glass smash in, back there. Heard an animal howl
inside the house, beyond this door. And a little gleam beside him as
one of the men— Hackett caught the wrist quickly. "Don’t
fire! God knows who—" Sounds inside there now. God, God. He
heard himself sob furiously at the door. Luis—He jerked out his gun
again, jammed it below the doorknob at an acute downward angle, the
sharpest he could manage, and shot out the lock.

He fell through the door, from dark to dark, the
other two men behind him.

Noises, animal noises of men fighting, somewhere
near. "Luis—"

Damn fool Mendoza, never would carry a gun— He fell
against a wall, feeling frantically for a light switch, clutching the
gun ready for when he could see—

No reckoning time. Five seconds, five minutes since
Mendoza had left him, got in? He felt frantically along the
wall—noises quite near now, men struggling there— And there was
the little lever under his hand, and suddenly there was light.

And God said, Let there be light.
 

TWENTY

Hackett stood there in the sudden blazing light,
leaning on the wall, because there wasn’t anything for him to do.
The three patrolmen, one over there in another doorway, two beside
him, just stood too. Looking. But after a minute Hackett moved. It
was a reflex action, and curiously enough at least some of what made
him move was the thought of what Brad Fitzpatrick might say in the
Telegraph.

"Luis, stop it—get off him. You can’t bring
him in like that—” No telling how long Markham-Wise had been out:
Mendoza didn’t care, hadn’t noticed. He had him down on the
floor, there was blood all over him—the knife dropped a little way
off, Mendoza hadn’t needed a knife, but blood on it—

"Luis!" said Hackett, and he reached down
and hauled Mendoza up, off the long limp body under him. The other
men moving now, going through the house. "He’s out, let him
be, you don’t want to kill him—" And he thought what a
foolish thing that was to say.

Mendoza swung on him, blind, berserk, struggling
away; and then one of the men called, "Sergeant—there’s a
woman here, I just—" and Mendoza left him. Just as blindly he
stumbled past Hackett into the little bare-furnished bedroom there,
and knocked the uniformed man aside.

Hackett looked down at their Romeo. His last mistake
had been king-size all right: interfering with something that
belonged to Luis Mendoza. That arm looked broken, way it—and his
face would never look the same again, and there was a surprising
amount of blood, when no weapon had—

He said to the other man in the room, "Keep an
eye on him,” which was foolish too, because that one wasn’t going
to wake up in a hurry or be going anywhere when he did; and he went
into the bedroom. He said to the man there, "Go and put in a
call for an ambulance."

"Alison, Alison,
mi
novia, mi hermosita, amada, querida— Madre Maria, te
suplico
—A1ison—
Dios
te salve, Maria, llemz ores de gracia, el Sefror es contigo—es con—
God, I can’t remember the words—Mary—salute you—of grace,
of—help me remember—
Santa Maria, madre de
Dios, ruega, Seriora, por nosotros ahora y en la
—no,
no, not hour of death—"

Hackett pulled him upright away from her there—she
lay crumpled, sprawled half on bed, half on floor, bruise visible on
one cheek, unconscious, but no blood, thank God no blood. But blood
on him—a long deep gash down one cheek, maybe getting in the
window—and on his shirt, and a sleeve ripped half out of his
coat—blood on that arm.

"There’s an ambulance on the way. Stand still,
damn it, let me— Don’t move her, Luis, if it’s a head injury
she—"

"
Padre nuestro
,
God, help me remember the right words, I can’t—
que
estés en el cielo, santifacado—santifacado—venga a nos tu
reino
—will be done, Thy will—I
can’t—Alison my darling,
querida, mi
vida
—"

Hackett heard the ambulance coming. Time had ceased
to mean anything tonight. He went out to meet it. But he wouldn’t
let the interns take Markham—Wise; dead or unconscious or whatever,
Markham-Wise they’d hang onto close. He helped one of the men load
him into the back of a squad car. "Take him downtown, fast. For
the moment, booked for common assault—tell them I’ll call in,
give them chapter and verse. No, I know they won’t keep him, he’ll
end up in the hospital, but it won’t be the Santa Monica emergency,
it’ll be the guarded wing at the General, and a uniformed sergeant
right beside him when he wakes up. Get going, report all this to the
headquarters desk, and don’t let him out of your sight until he’s
between two Homicide officers."