Dirty Harry 01 - Duel For Cannons (7 page)

“There’s no way Heald could think he wouldn’t be recognized. If he’s here at all, he’ll be waiting for us. Just in case he wants to do it the hard way, I’ll be waiting for him around back.”

Shannon, true to Harry’s estimation of him, nodded and drove on. After the cop car had turned out of sight, Harry had to admit to himself that he’d rather work with bland Shannon than Sergeant Baker of Fullerton. But whether Shannon had the sense of DiGeorgio was yet to be determined. Harry started walking along the blue line.

About fifty feet around the next corner, Harry passed a sign pointing out the messenger office as being only a trailer on the other side of the back lot. Harry left the blue line and started across a parking lot located in between a row of dressing rooms and a three-story office building.

Just as he was moving around the right side of the latter structure, dozens of men dressed in cowboy outfits emerged from the former locale, shepherded by a small, bespectacled, mustached man with a megaphone and a clipboard.

“Don’t walk on the grass, OK?” the man called through the amplifier; “OK, guys, you know your places from yesterday, right? They’re all ready on location with the same scene as yesterday, all right? Just a little more energy and a little more action and we can get it in the can today. All right, OK?”

The extras didn’t deem to answer. They just trooped toward Harry, walking on anything they wanted. Harry slowed his pace so that he blended in with the buckskin. It was a good camouflage. Heald wouldn’t spot him even if he were looking at this crowd.

“Hey, you!” Harry heard the megaphone man call. “Hey! Why aren’t you in costume? Hey, the guy in brown. The tall guy. Hey!”

It wasn’t until the third “hey” that Harry realized the man was talking to him. Not wanting to leave the cover of the crowd, he simply raised his hand in an “A-OK” sign, hoping the man would take for granted that Harry knew what he was doing. But he had underestimated the superiority complexes of assistant directors. He had just made it to the edge of the Western set when the megaphone man caught up with him.

“Listen, Stilt,” the short, intense man said, “I’m talking to you. Where’s your costume?”

Without slowing his stride, Harry answered. “You’re only the second person who’s ever called me ‘Stilt.’ I didn’t slug the first one because he was carrying a gun. You’re only carrying a megaphone.”

The man slowed and put his hands up in supplication. “I’m only asking a question, for Chrissake.” he said to no one in particular. “I’m only doing my job. Hey, are you on the list?” he called after Harry, flipping through the pages on his clipboard. “Hey, what’s your number?”

Not having a number and not being on the list, Harry took the moment to break off from the sea of extras, moving into an alley between two Western mock-ups. Trotting down the worn path, he noticed that only the front of the buildings were wild Western. They were just façades stuck onto what looked like inner-city brownstones.

Harry reached the rear of the set and spotted the messenger trailer across the way. There were only a group of trees, a small forest, separating him from his quarry. As he watched, Shannon’s car pulled into the trailer parking area. Harry looked back toward the Western street. The megaphone man was framed in the alley opening, still checking his list and scanning the crowd of cowboys. Harry smiled, turned back toward the trailer, and set off for the woods.

Just as he reached the first tree, a tiny, thin man burst out the rear door of the trailer, a veritable tornado of swirling papers in his wake. Harry remained motionless until the harried figure of Lester Shannon appeared in the back door opening, his hair disheveled, his face red, and his feet kicking at a few boxes in his way.

“Goddamn it, Heald!” the L.A. detective shouted. “Halt, would ya?”

The stoolie didn’t look like he intended to even slow down. The little guy was tearing up the dirt toward the back lot. Harry momentarily considered bringing him down with a Magnum bullet, but after a second’s thought, left his weapon where it was. A damaged Heald wouldn’t help at all come interrogation time. Instead, Harry ambled back the way he had come.

The stoolie and the San Francisco cop both arrived on the Western set at the same time. It was the time when the director called “action!”

In order to save time, the crew was shooting simultaneously inside the bar and out on the street. Inside the bar, stuntmen dressed as cowboys were struggling on a two-story interior set. Outside, more men were fake fighting on the bar’s balcony and on the street proper. Crawling around the floor, seated behind the bar, and set up behind the camera were special-effects people, ready to detonate various blood bags, exploding glass, and bullet holes on cue.

Not one of them noticed as Heald raced into the bar through the back way with Harry close behind.

The scene was well choreographed. The bar was packed wall to wall with swinging men. They were swinging their fists, swinging their bodies over bannisters, into chairs, onto tables, and down stairs. One man was even swinging from the chandelier.

Little Brian Heald burst into the scene from the rear, bumping into a stuntman. That stuntman was about to dodge a roundhouse right. Heald knocked him right into the swing.

Both actors were rocked by the connection. Heald slipped by just as the man on the receiving end flew back into Harry Callahan’s arms. Quickly recovering, the punched man found his feet, whirled around, and slugged the cop in the jaw.

Harry’s head snapped back, but the rest of his body remained motionless. He heard his brain hum and his eyes clouded, but only for a second. Blinking his momentarily misty eyes, Harry looked at the stuntman. He could see real anger in the fighting man’s face, so he straight-armed the actor in the neck.

The stuntman choked, stumbled back a step, then fell to his knees. Directly behind him another actor was supposed to run toward the stairs. Instead he fell over the choking man. The man behind him was supposed to fake a punch toward another directly in front of him. But because of the falling man’s kicking feet pushing him forward, the punch became real. The man’s fist just glanced off the target’s shoulder, but it was enough to throw his practiced response off. Instead of falling across the bar itself, the stuntman collided into two other fighters.

Heald saw which way the fake fight was going. He took advantage of the situation by pushing as many stuntmen as he could into each other and slithering away just as Harry got close to him. Invariably the enraged stuntmen would whirl to see who pushed them and invariably Harry would be standing there.

The first attacker tried to knee Callahan in the balls. Harry threw the bottom of his body back and threw the flat of his hand into the man’s nose. The first attacker fell backward, a column of blood marking his fall.

The second attacker complicated matters by taking a swing at Harry while an off-set technician set off a “squib” on the man’s chest by remote control. Callahan ducked under the swing just as the small explosive attached to a steel plate on the man’s chest blew out, ripping open a fake blood bag. The stuntman’s fist missed the cop, but the crimson gore caught Harry full in the face.

The cop straightened with his face dripping red. Harry put both hands on the second attackers shoulder and pushed. Off balance because of his missed punch, the stuntman fell on his side.

The third and fourth attackers came from two sides. The third was another Heald-primed stuntman. The fourth was a guy who had witnessed Harry’s retaliation against the first and second. The third swung his right arm back, trying to hit whoever pushed him without turning around. The fourth hopped over the downed second man, his fists clenched for the kill.

Harry reached in between the clenched fists to grab the latter attacker by the shirt front. With an abrupt jerk, he pulled the fourth guy’s head into the third’s backward trajectory. One man’s knuckles collided with the other’s lips. Harry dropped the latter and sidestepped the former just in time to see Heald crawling toward the front door. Unfortunately, there were still about a dozen guys between him and the stoolie.

With an angry shout, Harry started hauling actors out of his way. When the third cameraman suddenly saw a bloody man in modern dress plowing through its line of sight, it reported it by radio to the assistant director. After the assistant told the director, an abrupt halt was called to the proceedings. But no matter how many “cuts” were called, the stuntmen were too far gone to stop. By that time the fight was real for them.

Even Heald was getting caught up in the brawl. When he saw Harry barreling toward him, he scrambled to his feet and pulled a six gun out of a struggling stuntman’s holster. Still backing toward the door, he opened up on the rampaging Harry. The stoolie was wondering why the “bullets” weren’t having any effect when two more stuntmen ran in to join the fray. They smacked right into Heald, sending the blank-filled gun spinning to the floor and the stoolie spinning under a table.

At that juncture, the assistant director came roaring in, screaming at the top of his lungs.

“Cut! Cut, goddamn it! Didn’t you hear the director? Cut, for Chrissake!”

Finally the huge bunch of stuntmen started to respond, but there were still too many milling and rolling about for Harry to get to Heald. The assistant director was having no trouble getting to Harry, however. He plowed straight through until he was screaming up into Callahan’s still-wet face.

“I told you to get a costume, Stilt! What the hell are you trying to do? Do you know how much money you’ve cost this production? It’s coming out of your pay, you hear me, Stilt? You’re getting no money, all right? What’s your number, Stilt? What’s your fucking number?” The man pulled up his clipboard for a renewed search for Harry’s name.

Harry looked at Heald. The stoolie was sneaking out from under the table. With a few steps he’d be out. Harry looked at the man rifling through his clipboard. Then he put his left hand around the assistant director’s neck and his right hand around the man’s belt.

With a mighty tug and a subsequent swing, Harry threw the assistant director across the room and onto the tabletop. The man with the clipboard landed back first, scattering the drinks, cards, and poker chip props. The table’s legs collapsed, leaving the full weight of the surprised man and wooden circle on Little Brian Heald.

Harry took his time making his way across the room. Then he casually reached down and pulled Heald to his feet. Holding the stoolie tightly by the collar, Harry stared down at the dazed assistant director.

“I told you about the ‘Stilt’ thing before,” he said.

“I didn’t do anything, I don’t know anything, I don’t understand what yer askin’ me!” Little Brian Heald plaintively asserted.

“Oh, you did something all right,” Lester Shannon retorted, leaning against the back of the chair the stoolie was sitting on. “You picked up the key and signed your own name for a bridal suite.”

“Yeah? So? I needed someplace to stay.”

“You didn’t stay there, Brian, me boy,” Shannon retorted.

“Sure. Sure I did. It was my name on the register, right?”

“So you killed Candice McCarthy,” Harry Callahan said quietly, sitting opposite his captured quarry.

Little Brian swallowed. “What?” he choked. “What?”

“Candy McCarthy,” Shannon repeated, leaning over Heald’s head, a broad smile on his handsome face. “A pretty girl. Young. Blond. Had a hole in her chest about this big.” He made a circle with his left thumb and forefinger. Heald turned a shallow green.

“Hey, I don’t know nothin’ about that!” he yelled, getting up.

“Sure you do,” Shannon answered easily, pushing him down into his seat again. “You know who paid you to get the key and sign your name, don’t you Brian boy?”

“I swear I don’t,” Heald babbled. “On me mother’s grave! He called me. He called me on the phone. He made me leave the key in me mailbox. He told me to go to work. When—when I got home the key was gone and the money was there. I swear!”

“You do a lot of swearing,” Shannon said, circling back to where Harry was sitting. “Give me reason to believe you.”

Heald poured the whole story out of his brain. He had gotten a call at his home one night. For a goodly sum, he was to reserve, sign, and collect the key from the hotel the next morning. He was to leave the key in his own mailbox. He was to spend the money. He was to ask no questions. He didn’t think of any to ask until Shannon came looking for him. He ran because he was a natural runner. It was an instinct the Healds had held in good stead for many, many years.

“That’s all he said?” Harry slowly inqured.

“Yeah . . . yeah. That’s all.”

Shannon shook his head just as slowly. “Bri, Bri, Bri. You still haven’t said anything worth saying. My sense of disbelief is still intact. Think harder.”

“Good God, Shannon, you can’t do this to me! I’m one of yer own brother Irishmen . . .”

“Yer no brother o’mine,” Shannon spat with an exaggerated accent.
“I
said think harder. Is that all
he
said?”

“Mother of God, Shannon, I swear . . . wait a minute. Wait just a minute . . .”

Outwardly, the cops’ expressions didn’t change. Shannon still leaned on the back of Harry’s chair. He stared at the fingers of his right hand. Callahan grew very still. If the room got any quieter, they might have heard his insides boiling.

“That’s right,” Heald continued, a smile of relief breaking across his face, “I was impressed with what he was paying. I remember now. I asked him if he wanted anything else done while he was in town. He said, ‘No, I’ve got to get back to John Wayne’s graveyard.’ That’s what he said. ‘I’ve got to get back to John Wayne’s graveyard.’ ”

Shannon kept staring at his fingernails. Harry didn’t move.

“That’s it!” Heald cried in desperation. “I swear!”

“Man,” Shannon finally said. “You talk about your disappointments. I haven’t felt this letdown since I went to
The Shining.
With all your drunken imagination, you can’t come up with anything better than that?”

“On me mother’s grave, Shannon, it’s the truth!” Heald nearly screamed. “You can’t pin this killin’ on me! You can’t!”