“God how I hate that woman,” shouted Marv. “You drive us to that cabin right now, little lady. Make one false move and I’ll put a hole in Slim here.”
Beth started the station wagon.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Tom was skeptical that Dani could taunt Tony into another run at the cabin. He told her, “Tony may be out of his head mad at you, but it doesn’t suddenly make him stupid. I don’t think your teasing him is going to work.”
“Oh yeah, well, look at those headlights headed straight for the place.”
“I am. They’re coming from the wrong direction to be Tony, and too slowly.”
“Then it must be Harold, the guy who hired Wyatt. I gave him Beth’s car to park up on the hill so we could run over Tony. But I never counted on him. I expected him to take her car and bug out.”
“We need any help we can get. Let’s meet up with him.”
“What makes you think he’ll help us now if he’s done nothing so far? We have the tape. All we need is to find Beth and get out of here.”
“We have to find her
and
Wyatt, possibly even Gary, Mildred or anyone who is around.”
Dani groaned. “Never leave a man behind, huh?”
“That’s right, and if this Harold guy is on our side we can’t leave him alone with Tony and Marv, either. We’ll drive down with our lights off and meet him.” He started the Chrysler toward the cabin. They reached the front yard seconds after Beth’s wagon, but now there was enough light from the porch to see that she, not Harold, was driving. She had Wyatt next to her and someone was seated behind her. Not good. Alarmed, Tom stopped some forty feet from Beth’s vehicle.
Dani saw them too. “Finally we can all get out of here. I’ll run and tell them to follow us out.”
“Wait!” said Tom. But she jumped out and ran toward the station wagon. As he fumbled to find his ball bat, Dani reached the wagon. Marv Sartorelli got out of the back of and pointed a
gun
at her. He had one after all. He made her sit down on the gravel in front of the wagon with her hands on her head.
Damn it
.
Marv shouted and motioned and Beth and Wyatt climbed out of her car and sat behind Dani in the same surrender position. They both moved slowly, in obvious pain. The fog was clearing. If only he hadn’t given Gary the little German gun, he could pop Marv right now and this would be over. For the seventh time that evening, he cursed himself. Marv had his back to him apparently searching Dani for the cassette tape. Tom took the opportunity to slip out of the car and crouch behind a fender.
****
Harold had his hands free behind his back. The rope Marv had used was half rotted, probably something he’d found outside that derelict cabin. But what now? He unlatched his seat belt. As he stared at the back of Tony’s head, he knew Tony’s knife would mess him up real bad if he made an escape attempt and got caught. And he would get caught, because the fog was finally lifting.
Car lights. That stupid little station wagon drove to the cabin and stopped. Its headlamps illuminated the face of the cabin and the light reflected back on the vehicle. Dani appeared and ran to it and Marv jumped out with a gun and waved her to her knees. He ushered Wyatt and Beth out of the car as well. Tony saw all this too. He shifted into drive and accelerated with a whoop of joy. “Hah! Hang on, Harold. Marv’s got a gun on her and she’s just sitting there. I got her this time.”
“No, stop, there are two others sitting there, you’ll run over all of them!”
“Good, there’re fewer loose ends that way. You’ve always been so frigging squeamish.”
Harold recalled that he too was a loose end. The truck started downhill toward the cabin. It was stuck in first gear after the last collision but still fast enough to make a whole pile of dead bodies. “This is crazy, Tony. We’ll die too.”
“Well, I taped
my
posterity. And I don’t care about you, I’ve always hated you. My own mother always liked you better than me or the twins.”
Harold knew that was true. He braced himself for the next crash.
****
Tom could clearly hear Marv speaking to Dani, and it wasn’t nice. “I want Tony’s tape recording, or I start putting slugs in these other two. I’m ready to kill any of you if I don’t get that tape. Where is it?”
Tell him it’s here, Tom willed her to say.
“It’s in the front seat of that Chrysler, Marv.”
Tom thought, Good girl.
Marv started backing toward Tom, gun still on his captives when a pair of headlights spotlighted him and Tom heard the familiar roar of the big Chevy engine. Tony was bearing down on the captives and the cabin. Marv yelled, “Nobody moves or I shoot you all.”
But if they didn’t move, Tony was going to run over all three of them. Tom had to give the others chance to escape. “Hey, asshole,” he screamed, running toward Marv. Marv whirled and Tom heard three quick shots and yet he was still running. How bad a shot was this guy? Before he could finish that thought he was on top of Marv and the gun, now pushed right into his midsection, barked again.
His right fist found Marv’s jaw. Bones cracked and they both screamed in pain. He wondered if he’d broken a thumb to go with the nose. Marv’s weapon lay beside him. The thing was just a noisemaker. It wasn’t real.
****
Harold watched in fascination as Tom yelled out and charged Marv, drawing him away from his captives, who raced into the shelter of the cabin. There were gunshots but neither man fell until they collided. Tony crowed, “That tall guy dropped Marv! We’re going in!” As he gained speed Harold lunged over the back of the front seat and seized the steering wheel, overcoming Tony’s surprised resistance long enough to turn it violently right. He felt the truck start to rise and then roll over. Oh Lord, Harold was going to die after all. He should have let Tony run his play.
The Suburban rolled on its left side, then the roof and then the right side like the cage of a wild carnival ride. With slowing rotation, the big truck finished its 360 degree excursion and sat on the wheels again. They were alive. Harold was somehow sideways in the shotgun seat. He tried his door handle, then his power window switch. Nothing worked.
But the roll-over had sprung the driver’s door full open. Tony, looking dazed but otherwise none the worse for wear, unbuckled and stepped out. This was sick and wrong. What good was trying to stay on the One True Path if the bad guys kept getting all the breaks? As he dusted himself off, Tony told him, “Screw it, I give up. If I had the time for it I’d kill you, but there’s one good car left here, and if there’s keys in that Chrysler, I’m taking it and I’m leaving all you nutcases.”
“Works for me,” Harold muttered under his breath.
****
Tom raised himself on one elbow and peer over Marv’s unconscious bulk. He’d watched, fascinated, as at the last moment the Suburban approaching the cabin, turned sharply right, and rolled. Dani sprinted to him, followed by a hobbling Beth and a lurching Wyatt. Dani spat out, “Frigging Tony, I hope that roll-over killed him. My God, Tom, Marv shot you four times. What happened?”
Tom showed her the starter’s pistol. “It’s a prop gun. It fires blanks.” She nodded knowingly.
Beth was, with difficulty, lowering herself to kneel beside him. Wyatt, clutching his chest, knelt behind her, shaking his head. “Wow. They didn’t drive into us.” It sounded like every word he spoke was paining him.
“It’s only thanks to Tom,” Dani assured her.
Beth said, “Tom, that was incredibly brave. Are you all right?”
“Yeah, I guess. What’s that?”
“That” was the sound of the Chrysler starter. “Tony has Mildred’s car,” Wyatt yelled. Sure enough, it was making its way from the scene, speed limited by brush and boulders. Instinctively Tom and Dani gave hopeless chase.
****
Harold watched Tony race to the old woman’s Chrysler and drive away. The fog was gone, he realized, as he saw Hawk and Dani run after Tony, she waving her fists and screaming. The other two, the crippled Keystone Cops Wyatt and the Kessler woman, were following. He stepped out of the Suburban, nearly getting scalded by the steam coming from under its hood. He could hear police sirens in the distance as he sprinted away from the cabin. It was dark, and he would soon be in the trees.
At the tree line he heard still another sickening rending of steel, glass, and chrome. What now? Finding the energy somewhere deep down, he trotted to the second turn in the drive. There he could see the Chrysler in intimate body-buckling frontal embrace with an ancient Plymouth. Renada’s feckless suitor, Robert Matthews, was standing over Tony with a baseball bat. Dani and Tom Hawk were coming to his assistance.
Was the tape player in the Chrysler? So what? He couldn’t possibly get it. Beth and Wyatt were hobbling into sight to help apprehend Tony. They’d look for Harold next. He threaded his way through the trees as the siren noise came close. He would find his way to town, from there to a place of refuge where he couldn’t be extradited back to the States and later, when it was safe, he’d go to Renada.
****
Watching the Caribbean sunset ninety-six hours later, Harold Olson realized that he kind of missed Stinky’s pink telephone. He held a powder blue one tentatively. He had been using it a lot.
Something had gone horribly wrong in Calumet and Renada had fled back to Germany, so desperate that she hadn’t had time to contact him. The German police had arrested her at the Frankfort airport with some trumped-up espionage charges the crooked cop, Horst, had concocted before he died. Lester had found Harold the name of an English-speaking Frankfurt detective who knew an English-speaking Frankfurt attorney. Harold had hired them both. Now he was talking to Lester.
“Are you dead certain I’m not mentioned on Tony’s tape? I was on the copy he gave me.”
“You’re not on it. Neither am I. Wyatt says there’s some blank areas, some deletions, but they’re not near the juicy stuff. You were only the bookkeeper and I was only a contractor so we got left on the cutting room floor. I’ll have Wyatt call you there on
Santo Gringo Dollar
or whatever that island is called, and you can hear it direct from him if you want.”
“No, I believe you. Man, am I relieved. I’m flying to Germany. You know anything about their legal system?”
“Only how Hitler ran it, and that was from history books. Did Renada explain why she left without telling you?”
“She couldn’t reach me, poor girl. And she was afraid to tell me she had no choice but to start the fire that killed Horst in self-defense. Oh, you didn’t hear that part.”
“What did you say? The connection got bad for a moment.”
“Exactly,” agreed Harold. “It’s a relief to have Tony and Marvin locked down, hopefully forever. Did Harvey ever turn up?”
“No, there’s no word on him yet,” Lester assured him.
“Maybe he’s on some Caribbean island too. How’s young Wyatt doing?”
“Pretty good; he’s back on his meds.”
“Me too. I needed them after one a couple days with all those loons in Michigan. So you’ve got your nephew working full-time then?”
“Oh yeah. Everyone wants Wyatt on their case since he was credited with nabbing Tony and Marv. He’s got a Hollywood guy talking to him about a movie deal. It’s about how a rookie private detective engineers the capture of two desperate gangsters. They’ll sweeten it a bit. Hawk becomes a senior military intelligence operative, Dani an FBI supervisor, and Beth Kessler a girl who thwarts a plot to sabotage President Nixon’s helicopter.”
“And they’re all going along with the story that the credit goes to Wyatt?”
“Yep. They’re a tad nervous about the cops worrying too much what all or who all contributed to Angelo Conti dying and what became of Harv. What about that rental Cadillac Dani flipped with an explosive charge? Will that cause you some trouble?”
“I doubt it. I rented it in Tony’s name. That all worked out well.”
“Sweet. I gotta go, Harold. You fly first class to Frankfurt, you hear? It’s too long a ride to be all cramped up in some coach seat.”
“I’ll decide after I see
your
bill.”
****
The day after Thanksgiving Tom sold Beth on an informal wedding after the New Year when everyone could finally relax a little. Things had been hectic.
Gary was saddled with enough civil penalties to bankrupt him and a lengthy probation, but after Mildred and the Chief pulled all stops, he avoided jail beyond the ten weeks’ time already served. A complete airing of his affairs would have embarrassed an unacceptable number of folks, including the New Range City Council, a draft board or two, local officials, and several university faculty members.
Gary remained upbeat, confident the re-election of President Nixon would lead to a speedy and successful conclusion to the war and a long period of tranquility and prosperity with untold opportunities for him to prosper.
Robert was fined but not imprisoned, perhaps because of his remarkable heroism in chasing a communist spy back into the hands of the West German police and assisting Wyatt Stone in apprehending Tony and Marvin Sartorelli. However, he too was broke and on probation. He was living at home with his mother and studying to be a CPA.
Mildred and the Chief were gone to Myrtle Beach for the winter, but they would return for the wedding. They could charge the air fare off to business, as that was the week that the tribal council would hold its first planning meeting with the renowned casino consultant from Las Vegas, Stinky Swanson.
Dani was already married, to the redhead army vet from the airport confrontation. It was becoming a bit difficult to believe she was not pregnant. Her husband still openly hated Tom’s guts, so Tom and Beth didn’t socialize with them.
Tom, Robert, Gary, and Dani had their previous car insurance cancelled and were paying an exorbitant group rate for high-risk clients.
Tom was taking to Michigan. He’d always favored the north-most part of California anyway, and he couldn’t find a winter sport he didn’t like. Officially, where he and Beth would live after he finished his master’s degree was open to debate, but he was spending nearly all his spare time helping her renovate the B&B. He expected to fulfill her dream of him joining the Tech faculty and getting his doctorate.