The Chase (23 page)

E
ARLY THE NEXT MORNING
, C
ROMWELL BID
M
ARGARET
good-bye and stepped into his Rolls-Royce limousine. Abner smoothly steered the car through the city traffic to the Southern Pacific passenger station for trains running directly north or south that did not have to cross the bay. Stopping at the station entrance, he opened the car door and handed Cromwell a valise.

As the Rolls pulled away from the curb, Cromwell casually walked into the station, showed his ticket to the gatekeeper, and joined the other passengers moving along the platform. He climbed the steps to the third coach and boarded the train.

A Van Dorn agent watched him board and then loitered until the train began to move, making sure that Cromwell did not step back on the platform, in case he had missed the train. Only then did the agent swing aboard the last car and begin walking through the passenger cars until he reached the one Cromwell had entered. To his amazement, Cromwell was nowhere to be seen. Alarmed, the agent rushed through the remaining cars, searching until he reached the locked door to the baggage car. Still no Cromwell. Then he hurried to the back of the train, entertaining the possibility that he had missed the banker, but Cromwell was still nowhere to be found.

Unseen, Cromwell had departed the passenger car by the opposite door and stepped down and crossed the tracks to another platform, where the special train he had chartered was waiting. He climbed aboard his private car, where he relaxed in the luxury and glamour of what was a veritable yacht on wheels. He removed his coat, sat back casually in an overstuffed velvet chair, and opened the morning paper. A steward served him breakfast that had been specially prepared by the car's private chef. He was leisurely reading the
San Francisco Chronicle
when the train pulled away from the station and onto the main track for the run to Los Angeles, just fifteen minutes behind the regularly scheduled passenger train on which Marion had booked him a seat.

 

“N
O WORD
from my agent, so I can safely assume Cromwell is on his way to Los Angeles,” said Bronson.

Bell looked up from a map depicting San Francisco and its neighboring big city to the south. “His train is scheduled to arrive in Los Angeles at four-thirty this evening. I'm told he's staying at the Fremont Hotel.”

“I was lucky. I managed to wire Bob Harrington, who heads up the Southern California Van Dorn office, before the flash flood somewhere to the south took out the line. He's going to have a man disguised as a cabbie pick up Cromwell and take him to his hotel. My agent on the train will point him out. From there, Harrington's agents can keep a tight rein on him.”

“His trip sounds innocent enough,” Bell said slowly. “But I don't trust him. He's up to something. I feel it in my bones.”

“He won't get far if he tries anything,” Bronson said confidently. “Should he make even a tiny false move, a dozen agents will land on him like a ton of bricks.”

Bell walked back to an empty office and rang up Marion over at the bank. “Did you survive last night?” he asked lovingly.

“I had a wonderful time, thank you. The meal was scrumptious and the play was delightful.”

“Now that the cat is away, how about the mouse coming out and play—say, for lunch?”

“I'm game.”

“I'll pick you up in front of the bank.”

“I'll meet you where we met before,” she said without hesitation. “I don't want our relationship to be obvious. If any of the employees see me getting in your flashy red car, they're liable to talk, and it will get back to Jacob.”

“Same time, same place,” he said before he hung up.

Later that morning, a Western Union messenger came running into the office. “I have an urgent message for a Mr. Horace Bronson,” he said to the receptionist, gasping because of his dash from the Western Union office.

Bronson, who was coming back from the bathroom down the hall, said, “I'm Bronson. I'll take it.” He flipped the messenger a coin and tore open the envelope. As he read the message, his lips tightened and his forehead turned into a hard frown. He rushed through the office until he came to Bell.

“We're in trouble,” he announced.

Bell looked at him questioningly. “Trouble?”

“My man lost Cromwell.”

Bell faltered, taken completely off balance. “How could he lose him on a train?”

“Cromwell must have gotten on the train and immediately jumped off the opposite side without being seen.”

“Your agent should have alerted us sooner,” Bell snapped, anger flaring.

“The train had departed the station and he couldn't get off until it stopped in San Jose,” Bronson explained. “He sent a telegram from there.”

“He could have saved thirty minutes by using the telephone.”

Bronson shrugged helplessly. “The phone lines are unreliable and in constant repair.”

Bell sank into a chair, stunned and furious at having the rug pulled out from under him. “He's going to rob and kill again,” he said, his face flushed with frustration. “The bastard is rubbing it in our faces.”

“If we only knew where,” said Bronson, overcome with defeat.

Bell walked over to the window and looked across the roofs of the city buildings. He stared without seeing, lost in thought. Finally, he turned. “Cromwell is taunting us,” he said slowly. “He expects us to run around like chickens with our heads cut off, wondering where he went.”

“He's obviously heading in the opposite direction he told his secretary.” Bronson gave Bell a hard stare. “Unless she's lying.”

Bell didn't meet his stare. The possibility crossed his mind, too. He merely shook his head. “No, I'm certain Marion told the truth.”

Bronson walked over to a map of the United States hanging on one wall. He stared at it, perplexed. “I doubt if he'll head north into Oregon or Washington. He probably doubled back to the Ferry Building, crossed the bay, and took a train heading east.”

A smile slowly began to curve and spread across Bell's face. “I'll bet my Locomobile Cromwell is still heading south.”

Bronson looked at him. “Why would he continue south if he literally threw us off the track?”

“I know how the man thinks,” said Bell in a voice that defied argument. “Though he doesn't know his every movement is being watched, he never takes chances, every possibility is carefully thought out.”

Bronson looked at his pocket watch. “The next train isn't until noon.”

“Too late,” Bell disagreed. “He has too much of a head start.”

“But how do we know that, since he jumped the train?”

“He gave Marion a cock-and-bull story about riding in coach so his depositors would think he's a down-to-earth kind of guy. Ten will get you twenty he chartered a private train.”

Bronson's apprehension appeared to loosen. “Harrington can still have his agents follow him when he arrives in Los Angeles.”

Bell shook his head. “His agents won't be able to identify him. Your agent got off the train in San Jose to notify you Cromwell wasn't on board. He's probably waiting for the next train back to San Francisco.”

“That is a problem,” Bronson agreed. “But they can still grab him when he checks into the Fremont Hotel.”

“
If
Cromwell checks into the Fremont,” Bell said shrewdly. “Since he slipped off the passenger train, it's unlikely the rest of his story to Miss Morgan was true.”

“If not Los Angeles, then where is he going?”

“Cromwell could stop his train anywhere between here and there, but my guess is that he's going on through Los Angeles.”

“Through?”
wondered Bronson. “Through to where?”

“The last place we would expect him to go for a robbery, the least likely destination.”

“Which is?”

“San Diego.”

Bronson thought quietly for several moments. Finally, he said, “That's a long shot.”

“Maybe. But that's all we have going,” said Bell. “He's demonstrated that he doesn't always rob mining towns. Why not a city with a bank bulging with profits from goods imported by rich merchants and the owners of large ranches around Southern California?”

“A long shot or not, we can't overlook it. If only I could alert Harrington to send his agents to the San Diego railroad terminal and be on the lookout for a private train. But the telephone and telegraph lines from San Jose to Los Angeles are still down due to flooding.”

Bell shook his head. “Cromwell's too smart to run his train directly into the city. He'll park it on some remote siding and use another mode of transportation to get to the city, probably the motorcycle he used on other robberies.”

“If only Harrington's had a description,” said Bronson.

“They couldn't identify him anyway; he'll probably be wearing a disguise.”

Bronson's optimism suddenly vanished out the window. “Then where does that leave us?”

Bell smiled. “I'll have to go to San Diego and confront him myself.”

“Not possible,” Bronson said. “By the time we can hire a special express train, have it on the tracks, and leave town, he will have conducted his dirty business and be halfway back to San Francisco.”

“Very true,” acknowledged Bell. “But, with a little luck, I can make it to Los Angeles before his train arrives and be waiting for him.”

“So how are you going to beat him to Los Angeles, fly on a big bird?” Bronson said sarcastically.

“I don't need a big bird.” Bell gave Bronson a canny look. “I have something just as fast.” Then he smiled bleakly. “But, first, I have to break a date.”

T
HE BIG RED
L
OCOMOBILE SWEPT THROUGH
S
AN
Francisco like a bull running through the streets of Pamplona, Spain, during the Fiesta of San Fermin. Bell sat back in the red leather seat, his two hands tightly gripping the bottom of the big spoked steering wheel, turning the car with his palms facing up, using his biceps to twist the stiff mechanism around curves and street corners.

The time was fifteen minutes before ten o'clock.

Next to him, in the shotgun seat, sat Bronson, whose job was to keep the fuel pressure pumped up. Every few minutes, he pulled out the pump handle that was mounted on the upper wooden panel just above the slanting floorboard and shoved it forward, sending gas to the carburetor. Besides keeping the big hungry engine fed, he took on the job of navigator, since Bell had no knowledge of the California countryside. As Bell drove, Bronson braced his feet on the floorboard and pressed his back into the leather seat to keep from being thrown to the pavement, feeling as if he was being shot through the muzzle of a cannon.

Not wanting to take either hand from the steering wheel, Bell also gave Bronson the job of sounding the big horn bulb. The agent seemed to enjoy squeezing out squawking honks at the people and traffic, especially at intersections. It was not long before his hand ached.

Bronson was wearing a long leather coat, his feet and lower legs encased in boots. His head was covered by a leather helmet with huge goggles that made him look like an owl on a quest for a rodent. The goggles were a necessity since the Locomobile did not have a windshield.

The car hadn't traveled a hundred yards when Bronson had dire misgivings about what he had gotten himself into by insisting that he accompany Bell on this mad dash to San Diego in an open car over roads that weren't much better than cow paths.

“How are the brakes on this mechanical marvel of engineering?” Bronson asked caustically.

“Not great,” Bell answered. “The only brakes are on the shaft driving the chains to the rear wheels.”

“Do you have to go so fast through town?” Bronson protested.

“Cromwell's private train has over an hour's head start,” yelled Bell through the exhaust. “We need every minute we can gain.”

Pedestrians, who heard the throaty exhaust roar coming up the street followed by a strange blaring sound from the bulb horn, were stunned when they saw the red Locomobile bearing down on them. Staring incredulously, they quickly stepped out of the street until the machine sped past. The twin exhaust pipes, barely protruding from the left side of the hood, throbbed like cannon.

Two workmen, who were carrying a large windowpane alongside the street, froze in total shock as the car thundered past, the explosive roar of the Locomobile's exhaust shattering the glass in their hands. Neither Bell nor Bronson ever looked back, their complete focus being on the traffic that ran thick or thin in front of them, forcing Bell to swing the wheel violently back and forth as though he was driving through an obstacle course. His great satisfaction came in pointing the car in the direction he wanted to go and having it respond as if anticipating his thoughts.

Bell jockeyed his foot from the accelerator to the brake and back again, as he tore down the streets, hammering turns at the intersections onto the main street leading from the city, wishing he was a sorcerer who could magically make the traffic disappear. Bell narrowly missed a laundry truck, throwing the Locomobile into a four-wheel drift to avoid it. He spun the thick wooden rim of the steering wheel fiercely as he dove between vehicles littering the streets. Drivers of other motorized vehicles stared in awe at the speed of the car as it flashed up from behind and quickly disappeared up ahead. Horses harnessed to buggies and wagons reared at the noise of what their drivers thought was the devil's chorus.

As they neared the outer edge of the city's southern limits, the traffic began to thin. Bell slowed the Locomobile around a sweeping turn onto the main road south that paralleled the railroad tracks. He breathed a sigh of relief at seeing automobiles and wagons becoming sparse. He was also thankful that he now had ample room to swerve around any vehicle that blocked his path. The huge automobile was incredibly responsive. Bell pressed the accelerator within an inch of the floor, as the car began to rocket along a road that ran straight with few curves. The faster the Locomobile traveled, the more solid her feel of stability, as the drive chains on her axles whirred at a high, metallic pitch.

Soon the road became straight and rural. Picturesque farming communities came up on the horizon and quickly slipped behind the automobile's dust trail. San Carlos, Menlo Park, and then San Jose, towns that were linked together by the El Camino Real, the old road used in the late 1700s by the Franciscan friars who built twenty-one missions, each a day's journey apart.

Enjoying a straight, open road with little traffic, Bell pressed the accelerator to the floor and pushed the automobile as hard as it could go. The Locomobile was in its element now, running as strongly as when it had in the Vanderbilt Cup race, the first American car to place in an international speed event. Like a racehorse that had been retired and then brought back to run again, the Locomobile roared down the road like a maddened elephant, the cavernous cylinders of its mighty engine turning the huge crankshaft effortlessly.

Bell loved the big machine. He had an exceptional sense of its temperament and idiosyncrasies. He gloried in its strength and simplicity, felt intoxicated by the speed produced by the big pounding engine, and drove like a demon possessed, reveling at the vast, swirling cloud of dust the Locomobile hurled in its wake.

Bronson looked over at Bell, who wore a short leather jacket and jodhpur riding pants with boots. He wore goggles but no helmet, preferring to hear the beat of the engine. There was a look of unfathomable concentration about him. He looked relentlessly determined to beat Cromwell at his own game. Bronson had never seen anyone with such fierce, decisive resolve. He turned away and studied his map. Then he tapped Bell on the shoulder.

“There is a fork in the road coming up. Veer left. The road is better inland than along the coast. At this rate, Salinas will come up in another hour. After that, Soledad.”

“How's our time?” Bell asked without taking his hands from the wheel and digging out his pocket watch.

“Ten past eleven,” Bronson answered over the exhaust. “Without knowing how fast we're going, I have no way of knowing how much time, if any, we've gained on Cromwell's train.”

Bell nodded in understanding. “The auto does not have a speedometer or a tachometer, but I'd guess our speed to be over ninety miles an hour.”

Bronson had been slowly becoming attuned to the wind rushing against his face, the telegraph poles streaking past at lightning speed. But then a stretch of road became violently rough and rutted, and Bronson soon realized what it would be like inside the rattle of a maddened sidewinder. He clutched the arm of his seat in a death grip with one hand and gamely worked the fuel pump with the other.

They hurtled over the narrow, rolling farm road and crossed into Monterey County before coming to the agricultural community of Salinas. The farmland along the sides of the road was strikingly beautiful, turning green under the spring sun. Fortunately, the main road through town was quiet, with only one or two automobiles and a few horse-drawn wagons parked along the sidewalks. People heard the booming bellow of the Locomobile's exhaust as it crossed the city limits. They turned and looked speechlessly as the big fire red machine shot through the business section of town. They had no time to indulge their curiosity before the hard-charging machine was heading into the open country to the south.

“What's the next town?” asked Bell.

Bronson consulted his map. “Soledad.”

“How far?

“About twenty-five miles. We'd better fill the tank there, because it's a good two hundred miles to the next major town.” He turned and looked at the huge cylindrical brass tank mounted behind the seats. “How much does it hold?”

“Forty-five gallons.”

“They should have a garage in Soledad that services automobiles and farm machinery.”

The words were no sooner out of Bronson's mouth than the left rear tire went flat after striking a sharp rock in the road. The Locomobile fishtailed for a hundred yards before Bell brought it under control and braked it to a stop.

“Only a matter of time,” said Bell resignedly. “One of the predicaments of road racing.”

He was out of the automobile and shoving a jack under the rear axle within three minutes while Bronson removed one of the two spare tires on the rear of the automobile. Bell removed the wheel and replaced it inside of ten minutes. He had changed tires that gave out at breakneck speeds many times since he owned the Locomobile. Then he separated the tire from the wheel and tossed the tire to Bronson. “There's a patching kit under your seat. Patch the hole while we drive. I'll remount it on the wheel after we reach Salinas.”

No sooner were they on their way again over a reasonably smooth road than a hay wagon hitched to a team of horses loomed up. The farmer, believing he was the only one for a mile around, was driving right down the center of the road, with only a few feet to spare before the weeds and brush along the edge of the dirt thoroughfare met fences surrounding fields of artichokes, chilies, mushrooms, and lettuce.

Bell began to slow but had no choice but to pull the Locomobile half off the road and pass the hay wagon with only inches to spare, but he hadn't been left enough room for a free-and-clear passage. He took out a good thirty feet of a frail wooden fence, luckily without causing severe damage to the car. Only the front right fender was bent and twisted, scraping the tire when it hit a bump in the road. Bell did not look back to see the farmer shaking his fist and cursing him as his horses reared and nearly turned the wagon over on its side. Nor was he happy at being inundated by the dust storm that spewed from the Locomobile's drive wheels.

“That's one mad sodbuster,” said Bronson, turning in his seat and looking behind him.

“He probably built and owns the fence we destroyed,” Bell said with a sly grin.

Within ten miles, Soledad came into view. Named after the Mission Nuestra Señora de la Soledad that had been founded over a hundred years before, the town was a major railroad stop in the valley for transporting to market as quickly as possible the produce grown there. Bell quickly slowed as he entered town and soon found a garage where he could purchase gasoline for the Locomobile. While Bronson and the garage owner poured cans of fuel into the big tank, Bell wrestled with the crumpled right front fender, bending it back away from the tire. Then he took the tube Bronson had patched, inserted it back inside the tire, and remounted it on the wheel before bolting it on the rear of the Locomobile.

“You fellas the first car in a race passing through?” the garage owner asked, clad in a pair of greasy coveralls.

Bell laughed. “No, we're alone.”

The garage owner looked at the dusty and damaged automobile and shook his head. “You fellas must be in a mighty big hurry.”

“That we are,” said Bell, pressing bills that more than covered the price of the gasoline into the garage owner's hand.

He stood there, scratching his head, as the Locomobile roared away and quickly became a red speck down the main street of town before traveling out into the farm country. “Them fellas must be crazy,” he mumbled. “I hope they know the bridge over Solvang Creek is out.”

Fifteen minutes later and twenty miles down the road from Soledad, a sharp left-angled curve with a down slope came rushing toward them. A sign that stood beside the road flashed past.

“What did it say?” asked Bell.

“Something about a bridge, was all I caught,” replied Bronson.

A barricade of railroad ties blocked the center of the road, and Bell could see the upper part of a bridge that looked as if it had broken apart in the middle. A crew of men were working to repair the center span while another crew were installing poles and restringing the telegraph and phone lines that had been torn away by a flash flood.

Bell jerked his foot off the accelerator, made a hard twist of the wheel. He jammed both feet on the brake, locking the rear wheels, fishtailing the rear end across the road, and causing the Locomobile to slow into a four-wheel drift. He straightened the front of the automobile with one second to spare and they flew through the air over the edge of the slope and dove down the steep bank of a broad ravine that had once been a dry wash. They landed in an explosion of dust less than twenty feet from a wide stream two feet deep that flowed toward the sea.

The heavy steel chassis and massive engine, driven by momentum, smacked into the water with an enormous eruption of silty brown water that burst over the Locomobile in a giant wave. The violent thump jarred Bell and Bronson in their every joint. Water gushed over the radiator and onto the hood before flooding over the men, drenching them in a deluge of liquid mud. Taking the full brunt of the surge, they felt as if they were driving through a tidal wave.

Then the big automobile burst into clean air on the opposite shore, as it shuddered and shed itself free of the stream. Bell instantly jammed the accelerator to the floor, hoping against hope that the powerful engine would not drown and die. Miraculously, the spark plugs, magneto, and carburetor survived to do their job and kept the big four-cylinder combustion chambers hitting without a single miss. Like a faithful steed, the Locomobile charged up the opposite slope until it shot onto level ground again and Bell regained the road.