The Black Hearts Murder (21 page)

And he lay there, heaving for air.

“I said I wasn't going to box you,” McCall said. “But I didn't promise not to defend myself. Are you all right?”

“Put up your hands, McCall,” said the voice of Benjamin Cordes behind him. “Slow and easy.”

McCall thought it the better part of valor to obey implicitly; Cordes sounded cold, bitter, and convincing. He turned with his arms raised. The station manager-candidate must have had a gun in his desk drawer. It was a very businesslike-looking .38 revolver, and it was directed at McCall's belly.

“Do you really think this is going to get you anywhere, Cordes? The police know everything I've told you.”

“I doubt it,” the little man said. “I think you came here to kind of feel me and Andy out first We're finished if you did tell them, anyway, so we may as well operate on the hope that you didn't. Lean against the edge of that table with both hands. No, McCall, you know better than that. Feet spread and well back.”

Cordes stepped over behind McCall, ran his left hand down and around McCall's body. He did a professional job; McCall wondered where he had learned.

“I don't carry a hand gun,” McCall said. “I could have saved you the trouble and me the undignified stance, if you'd only asked.”

“You can straighten up and turn around now.” There was no relaxation in Cordes's tone.

When McCall turned around, Cordes was standing six feet away, beyond arm's length. McCall's respect for Cordes's know-how increased. And for the .38 trained on his middle. He even knows that, McCall thought. A man could survive a chest or a head shot; many did. But a gut shot at close range with a big caliber gave you pause, for the most part permanently. In between times it was very painful.

Andy Whalen sat up on the floor. He seemed dazed. Or was it disbelief? He got laboriously to his feet, massaging his left arm.

“It'll be all right in a minute or two,” McCall said.

“Your cool sickens me,” Ben Cordes said. “Shut up! Andy, is your right arm okay?”

Whalen mumbled something. He was glaring at McCall with mayhem in his eyes.

“Then take this revolver.” The little man gave it to Whalen. “Guns make me nervous.”

McCall doubted it. The shy Milquetoast was of course an act. Too bad, he thought, I didn't spot that when I could have done something about it.

Cordes cracked the door open, glanced up and down the hall. He pulled it wide. “I don't think anyone else is in the building but Banner and his sound man. You keep McCall covered every second, Andy; he's tricky. I'll lead the way.”

They took the back stairs down. The stairway ended at a door with an upper pane of glass. Cordes took a long, careful look at the parking lot.

“Wait here with him,” the candidate for mayor instructed his muscle man. “I'll back the panel truck right up to the door in case somebody comes out onto the lot from the back of the furniture or clothing stores. Leave this door shut, Andy, till I get the back door of the truck open. Then load him in fast.”

TWENTY-FOUR

Through the glass pane McCall saw Cordes climb into the driver's seat of the panel truck. The lettering on its side,
RADIO STATION BOKO
—
1410 On Your Dial
, did not reassure him.

Cordes backed the truck to the building. He got out and strolled over and opened one of the truck's rear doors. He took a casual glance about. Then he yanked the building door open and said urgently, “Move!”

McCall had hoped for a break here. The ramming muzzle of the .38 between his fifth and sixth vertebrae dissuaded him; any break at this point would be enjoyed by his captors, not by him. He moved.

Cordes slammed the door behind them.

The inside of the truck remained well lighted. Not only was the rear windowed, but there was a broad area above the cab of the truck that was open, admitting light from the front, too. The left side of the interior was completely taken up by a panel of electronic equipment, dials, meters, and a jack for earphones. The truck, McCall saw, must be utilized as a mobile broadcasting unit, covering news events at the scene.

The right side was occupied by a bench. McCall seated himself on the end nearest the cab. The earphones that plugged into the panel on the other side were lying on the bench at this point; McCall's body hid them from Whalen's view. He let his right hand rest on them, and as the big man half turned to latch the rear doors McCall quickly hefted the phones. He sat them down noiselessly and immediately.

They were just heavy enough to enrage the redhaired killer into firing if they caught him square in the face; the odds against incapacitating him with the headset were too great.

Whalen sat down at the other end of the bench, near the doors. He was slued around on his right buttock, the .38 pointing at McCall. His glare said, “Try me.”

The exit from the parking lot was into the side street. Cordes turned right to Grand Avenue, then right again. He drove a couple of blocks before turning right a third time. So he was heading north.

Over his shoulder Cordes said to Whalen, “You'll have to give me directions to the quarry after we hit Telegraph Road.”

“We can't use that. If they found the nigger's body there, it's lousy with cops.”

The truck slowed. “Yes.” Cordes sounded thoughtful. Not worried at all. “Do you know another good place, Andy?”

“Head out that way, anyway. There's another dirt road into the woods hardly anyone uses'.”

The truck picked up speed.

“Take Taylor Street north,” Whalen said. “There's less traffic.”

Cordes shook his head coldly. “First Street will be faster.” Interesting. He apparently felt that he had lost face by having made the mistake of heading for the quarry. At a time like this, when he was scheming for his life, he was still concerned about asserting his leadership. It took a dangerous man to do that.

They rode along in silence. In a few minutes they turned into First Street. Into heavy traffic. McCall saw Cordes's little jaw tighten. He glanced at Whalen, who was looking triumphant. But the big man said nothing.

“You should have carried a gun like this last night, Andy,” McCall said. “Not that silly little popgun.”

Whalen glanced down at the revolver in his fist. He grinned at McCall. “That Black Hearts nigger—Harlan James—was toting the target pistol the night of the snatch when I cold-cocked him. We figured maybe it'd come out that James owned a pistol like that, so we decided to use it on Horton.”

“Why don't you learn to keep your mouth shut?” Cordes said.

“What difference does it make now?” Whalen growled. “He ain't going to be talking to anybody except St. Peter.”

Cordes opened his mouth. Then he closed it. After a moment he laughed. It was the kind of laugh McCall could have done without. “That's a fact,” the little man said.

“I admit it wasn't very smart using it to put the snatch on you, though,” Whalen said; he was feeling better now, beginning to enjoy himself. “With this in my mitt last night, like you say, you'd be laying in a hundred feet of water right now.”

“I'd be lying in forty-five.”

This irritated Whalen. “You said that before! Where'd you get forty-five from?”

“From the people who measured the pool,” McCall said, “when they fished James's body out.”

“Damn!” This official news seemed to bother Whalen. He muttered, “They always said it was over a hundred.”

“Forget the pool!” Cordes shouted suddenly. “You've got to direct me, you know. Watch the road! And watch McCall.”

“I'm watching him,” Whalen said sulkily. “
And
the road.”

“You'd better! It's our hides that are at stake here, and never forget it.”

There was another silence.

McCall said suddenly, “How did Cordes con you into this dumb play, Andy? Okay, so he wanted to be mayor of Banbury instead of manager of a lousy little radio station and the guy behind the political scenes. But what were you going to get out of it? I mean that rates big enough to risk a murder rap?”

“I get a soft city job, and when he moves up to the governor's pad I get me a top state job, where there's plenty of payoff.”

“You … blabbermouth!” Cordes yelled.

“Ah, it's like talking to a stiff,” Whalen said. “Keep your cool, Ben. What's a little chin-chin with a dead man?”

“And which job,” McCall asked, “did he promise you when he becomes President? Secretary of Defense?”

“If you don't button up, McCall, so help me I'll have Whalen spatter your brains all over the truck!”

McCall sensibly buttoned up. He had been chattering more as a diversion than for information; Whalen's promised payoff had been predictable enough. For some time now he had been noticing, past Whalen's shoulder, through the window insets in the rear door, a gray sedan about two years old, a Pontiac that looked quite ordinary. But what it was doing was not ordinary. It manipulated the traffic in a peculiarly persistent way, remaining several cars behind the panel truck, managing to keep its position in spite of cross streets.

He had become quite interested in the gray Pontiac. Just about as interested, he thought, as Sir Galahad in the Holy Grail.

When they turned into Telegraph Road, the Pontiac followed suit. McCall wondered if desperation and the need to wish for a miracle were not making him see pursuit by the gray sedan when the likelier reason for its behavior was that both vehicles were simply traveling in the same direction at the same speed.

Whalen glanced back at intervals, but he seemed to be looking for landmarks. He did not appear to notice the gray sedan.

At the city-line marker he said, “The quarry road's about two miles ahead. Watch for a sign on the left, Ben, saying Dover Rock and Granite Company.”

“I thought we weren't going there,” Cordes said. He sounded strained.

“Just use it for a landmark. About a quarter mile afterward there's a dirt road to the right Kids use it as a smooching place. You'll have to watch close, because it's easy to miss.”

McCall groped for the earphones again. A three-foot cord terminating in a plug was attached. McCall felt for the plug and despaired. It offered less utility as a weapon than the earphones.

Cordes muttered, “There's the Dover Company sign.”

“Then start watching for that lover's lane. Slow down, slow down.”

The truck decelerated. McCall felt a twitch of hope when the gray car slowed, too. Why was the Pontiac decelerating in unison with the panel truck if it was not a tail? On a lonely road, with little traffic?

“I see it!” Cordes slowed even more.

McCall's heart plummeted. The gray sedan picked up speed, overtook them, and shot by.

Goodbye tail.

Goodbye world was more like it.

The panel truck swerved and turned into a dirt road. It was a bumpy dirt road. Even on their rumps he and Whalen lurched about on the bench … not much time now.

McCall suddenly found himself supremely calm. He had never felt clearer-headed in his life. Maybe it's because there's so little of it left … forget all that. Concentrate on the immediate present.

With the lurching of the truck as a cover, he wrapped the plug end of the cord around his right hand.

What have I got to lose? Maybe two-three minutes of living. It had been ridiculous to worry. Death couldn't come this way. Not to Mike McCall. Death was something that came to other people. A world without Mike McCall was unthinkable. Easier to imagine like McCall without a world.

Through the rear window he studied the terrain. The road was similar to the one that ran to the old quarry. Rutted. Narrow. Bordered by overarching trees …

“This ought to be far enough in,” Cordes said. His throat sounded dry. It almost amused McCall. He thought: He's more nervous than I am.

Andy Whalen slued his battered face around to squint out the rear window.

Now
.

McCall whipped the three-foot cable in an arc like a cowboy. The earphones at the cable's end whirred. He leaned forward and let fly. The cord struck the wrist of Whalen's right hand, the one grasping the .38, eighteen inches behind the earphones. It lashed around the wrist three times faster than a rodeo champion tying a bull calf's legs. Immediately McCall threw himself back, jerking with both hands.

Whalen was yanked forward to his knees. The revolver boomed once. The noise in the confined space was like a blow.

McCall sprang and laid a lefthanded judo chop across the back of the man's thick neck. Whalen collapsed to the floor on his face and lay still.

Unwinding the cord from his hand swiftly, McCall scooped up the .38 and swung around in a crouch.

But Benjamin Cordes still faced forward, he still gripped the wheel with both hands.

Then, deliberately, he toppled over on the seat. There was a growing red stain, like an accelerated motion picture of a rosebud, neatly in the middle of his back.

The wild shot from the .38 had pierced the back of the driver's seat and buried itself in his spine.

McCall was standing beside the panel truck when the gray Pontiac raced up the lane. Sergeant Fenner jumped out from behind the wheel, and Lieutenant Cox hit the dirt from the other side. Both had Detective Specials in their hands, and both looked first at the .38 in McCall's hand.

“So that was you tailing us,” McCall said. “After all.”

“I see you did all right on your own,” the sergeant grunted. He was leaning into the cab. Cox was looking into the rear of the truck through the doors McCall had opened. Whalen was still out; McCall had lashed his hands behind his back with the cable.

“We've been on you ever since you left headquarters,” the lieutenant said. “We'd have lost you if the truck hadn't swung past us on Grand Avenue, though. We were waiting out front, watching your Ford. Ben Cordes driving a BOKO wagon with his own two little hands made us curious, so we decided to follow. Cordes got hit?”