Beginner's Luck (2 page)

Stevens opened the van's passenger door.

Joyce stopped. "This is yours?"

He gave her a sheepish smile. "Kind of a mess, isn't it? We use it for undercover work."

"If this is your van," she asked, "how did Rick take the thief to the station?"

"In his car. We meet here sometimes because this mall is a lot closer to Rick's apartment than the station." Stevens's smile turned bright. "What's going on inside that pretty little head of yours?"

Joyce took a deep breath. She was getting very nervous. She didn't want to seem rude, but something about all this wasn't quite right. Rubbing her sweaty hands on her skirt, she said, "Would you mind showing me some identification?"

"I
don't mind at all," he said. But it was plain from the look in his eyes that he felt insulted by Joyce's request. As he reached toward a back pocket of his trousers, his hand swept his jacket open and Joyce saw his gun. It was holstered at his left hip, its handle forward for a cross-draw. It had the flat grips of a semiautomatic, and she spotted the base of its ammo magazine before his jacket fell back to cover it.

Swinging his hand toward Joyce, he opened his wallet. She caught a glimpse of a gold star before he flipped the wallet shut. "OK?" he asked.

"Fine," Joyce said. She managed a shaky smile. "For a minute there, I was starting to wonder."

"Well, I can't blame you for being careful. You've probably been warned, all your life, about talking to strangers."

"Policemen don't count as strangers," Joyce said. She climbed into the van and sat down on the torn passenger seat.

Stevens shut the door for her. He walked around to the other side, opened his door, and got in behind the steering wheel. He turned the ignition key, and the engine started right away.

"This sure messes up my day," she said as they pulled away. "I was planning to hit about a dozen more bookstores."

"Oh?" he said, steering slowly down the lane of the parking lot.

"Yes," Joyce told him. "I have a mystery story in a magazine that just came out."

"You're a writer?" he asked.

"That's right. I've sold two stories, so far. Are you sure you haven't heard of me? Joyce Walther?"

"I don't read much," he admitted.

"Well, I helped the department a few months ago. They even gave me a special award. I helped catch a couple of guys." Stevens glanced at Joyce and raised his eyebrows. "Oh, sure I remember. Joyce Walther. You were the talk of the department.''

She nodded. "One guy held my mom and me hostage while his partner forced my dad to take him to the coin shop. He was after Dad's rare coins, you know."

"Sure, I remember now."

"I'm kind of an amateur detective. I'm really fascinated by police work."

Stevens gave her a stern look. "You should leave police work to the professionals. It can get dangerous, you know."

"I can take care of myself," Joyce told him. She hoped she was right.

In silence, she stared out the dirty windshield. She squinted against the sunlight as the van eased out of the lot and began moving up the street.

"If I
can't
take care of myself," she thought, "I'm in big trouble. Because the man behind the wheel of this van is not a police officer."

S
he had first started to wonder about him when he opened her car door. He hadn't made any attempt to 
preserve any fingerprints that the suspect might have left on the handle. It could have been carelessness, though. From her vast reading of true crime books, she knew that police officers sometimes botch up evidence.

The battered green van, however, with its broken tail light and Nevada license plate, had set off an alarm in her mind.

At that point, she had wanted to see his identification and get a look at his handgun. She knew that regulation issue for the department was a .38-caliber revolver.

This guy was carrying a semiautomatic. But plainclothes officers might be allowed to carry the weapon of their choice. She just wasn't sure about that.

She
was
sure about his badge. It looked like a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office 
star, not the shield of the Santa Monica Police Department. Stevens had claimed to be with the police department. His quick flash of the wrong badge had changed Joyce's suspicions into a dark certainty.

For a final test, she had led him into the story of her capturing the thieves. "Sure," he'd said, "now I remember." If he truly remembered the case, however, he would have known that the two men had not been after rare coins. Her father owned a jewelry store, not a coin shop. The evidence was all against him.

He wasn't a cop. More than likely, he'd been inside his van when Joyce drove into her parking place. And he'd seen her climb out. That's how he matched her up with her car. He hadn't seen any prowler. He didn't have a partner. "In fact," Joyce thought with some relief, "the camera and binoculars are probably still under the seat." She had only his word that they'd been stolen. And he was lying about everything else. That, she supposed, was the cloud's silver lining.

Not a lot to cheer about.

Not when you're riding through downtown Santa Monica with a kidnapper---or worse.

Joyce felt herself start to panic. "Calm down," she thought. "If you fall to pieces, he'll know you're onto him. So far, you've got him fooled."

"I might become a policewoman," she said, breaking the silence. "I've been taking some police science courses in college. They're research for my writing, you know, but I should probably have some kind of 
job in case I can't make a living as an author." She was pleased that her voice sounded steady.

"Good idea," Stevens said. He turned right.

"Could I have a look at your side arm?" she asked.

He looked at Joyce as if he thought she had lost her mind.

"I'll be careful," she said.

"It's against regulations," he said.

"You're good," Joyce thought. "But not good enough."

She hadn't really expected Stevens to hand the gun to her. But it had been worth a try.

After stopping at a traffic light, he picked up speed crossing the intersection. Joyce guessed he was doing 20 miles an hour in 
the curb lane when she swung up her right hand. The bag in her grip, loaded with the five magazines, whapped him solidly on the nose. Stevens yelped with surprise. Twisting in her seat, Joyce used her other hand to tug the steering wheel. The van lurched to the right and bounded over the curb. She threw herself against the door, jerked its handle, and tumbled out.

She seemed to fall for a long time. Her shoulder hit the sidewalk. She cried out in pain and clutched her head as she tumbled over the concrete. She was still rolling when she heard the loud crash of the van.

She staggered to her feet. The van had smashed right into the wall of a bank.

A security guard came running out of the bank door, a hand on his holstered pistol.

"Draw it!" Joyce yelled to the guard. "He's got a gun! He kidnapped me!" Scowling, the bank guard drew his revolver and ran toward the van.

Joyce followed, staying some distance behind him.

She watched the guard shove his weapon into the driver's window. Then, stepping back, he pulled open the door. Stevens fell to the sidewalk and didn't move.

"Y
ou're quite a young woman," said Lt. Harold Cameron at police headquarters. "The FBI has been trying to nail Morgan for months. That's his real name, Jack Morgan. He's wanted for a whole string of kidnappings. He just picked his victims at random. Then he'd hold them 
prisoner in his van until he got his hands on the ransom money."

"That doesn't seem to be any way to make a haul," Joyce said. "You want to pick wealthy victims, and...."

"He thought he was being very smart. He figured he would bring down too much heat if he tried for a huge take. So instead he settled for a lot of small ones. And the method worked just fine until you came along."

"I'm glad I could help," Joyce said. "I knew he wasn't up to any good. I mean, some guy pretending to be a police officer...."

"You said that you had your doubts about him before you got into his van. Why on earth did you go along with him?"

"I didn't think my chances would be 
very good if I tried to make a run for it inside the parking lot. Remember, I'd seen his gun. I didn't want to get shot. I figured that I'd have a better chance if I could make him crash somewhere along a busy street. I didn't buckle my seat belt when I got in the van. I thought that would make it easier for me to jump clear if we crashed. Then, when I saw that we were going past a bank...."

"You took a terrible risk," Lieutenant Cameron said.

Joyce shrugged, as if it were nothing. "I can take care of myself," she said.

"Those were probably the famous last words of a thousand victims, Miss Walther."

Her smile slipped just a bit. "Well," she said, "it turned out all right."

"This time."

"Don't worry," she said. "After this, I won't trust anyone---not even anyone wearing a uniform and sitting behind a desk at a police headquarters. By the way, do you have some identification?"

Lieutenant Cameron laughed. "Now you're talking," he said, reaching for his wallet.

RICHARD LAYMON'S
speciality is writing horror tales. He is the author of the best-selling book
The Cellar
and several other horror and suspense novels.