The Long Ride (17 page)

The casino of the Mapes was directly off the lobby to his left. He had two choices. Either go through the casino. Or try for an elevator straight ahead. But he was certain the elevator would not be fast enough.

He moved into the casino at almost a trot. The casino was in use, as always, but not crowded. He passed the slot machines, the gaming tables. A roulette dealer looked at him, eyes cool and impersonal, and said, “Black eight, a winner.” At the glass doors at the far end of the room, Garwith looked back. Wells was coming into the casino, bumping into a couple just leaving for the lobby.

Garwith slammed through the doors into the sunshine again. He set off at a swift athletic run, to his right, past the coffee shop entrance of the hotel. He ran with the same speed he’d demonstrated on the football field in Loma City.

Midway down the block, he crossed the street, dodging between cars. He turned to his left at the corner at the end of the block. When he’d reached the end of that block, he looked back again. Wells was coming down the street from the opposite corner. The street, one block off the main street where the casinos were grouped, was almost deserted. Garwith moved past the entrance of the Cal-Neva Club and cut across the street diagonally, heading back toward the crowds.

At mid-block, across the street, he moved into a short T-shaped pedestrian avenue, converted from an alley, paved with multicolored stones, with silver dollars imbedded in the surface. The back entrance to the Golden Hotel was to his right, the rear entrances to Harrah’s Club, the Nevada Club and Harold’s Club were all lined along his left. He hesitated, turned, saw Wells entering the short avenue. He plunged into the rear of the Nevada Club.

The club was packed with people, lined elbow to elbow at hundreds of gleaming slot machines. He shoved his way through, holding the package with his one arm, using it as a wedge. There was angry muttering. But nobody stopped gambling. He pushed his way clear through the casino and looked back. Harry Wells was halfway through the crowd.

Garwith stumbled out to the sun-splashed Virginia Street, moved down the block, and swung into Harold’s Club through its front entrance. A narrow escalator was running upward. Garwith stepped onto it and ran up the steps. In a moment he was on the second floor. Wells was just coming in, at the street-level entrance, as Garwith stepped out on the second floor.

He looked around wildly. More slot machines spread away from him. A girl in a cowboy hat and a fringed black vest looked up from her wheel. The eyes were bored, disinterested. A male croupier to her right chanted, “Hard-way four.” Garwith looked down the escalator—Wells stood below, looking hesitant and furious, then he stepped toward the escalator. Garwith moved swiftly to the one moving down, at the opposite side of the room.

He went down the steps quickly, almost tumbling a very old woman, who was just reaching the lower floor.

She called after him sharply. Then he saw Wells, halfway up on the up-going escalator. Wells wrenched around, having seen him, and came down the steps against the upward motion. Garwith ran for the back entrance, a wild, unreasonable, insane fright almost blinding him…

John Benson, sweat streaming down his face, came out of the Nevada Club just as first Allan Garwith, then Harry Wells, moved into Harold’s Club. He was followed by Ryan. He stopped outside the entrance and saw Harry Wells pause at the foot of the escalator. He backed a step and said to Ryan quickly, “Better stay out here. Both of us inside, we could lose them altogether in these mobs.”

“Right,” Ryan said.

John looked inside Harold’s Club again, just as Harry Wells was going up the escalator. He started to go in. Then Wells looked down, as Garwith came down the other escalator.

John stepped back, out of sight again, until Wells had turned and come back down the escalator. Wells started after Garwith, who was running toward the back exit. John went in.

Garwith, followed by Wells, reached the T-shaped pedestrian avenue again. They were heading out along the upper leg of the T, when John pushed his way outside. They disappeared around the corner to the left, on the back street that ran parallel to Virginia Street. John ran swiftly after them.

When he’d reached the corner, he saw Garwith, with Wells fast behind him, sprinting toward the railroad tracks. In the distance a train whistle sounded. John realized that Garwith, for some reason, was heading back in the direction of the lot where the station wagon was parked.

Breath burning his chest, he followed. Garwith was now crossing the tracks, running swiftly, with his inherent athlete’s ability. Behind him, Wells stumbled once, then regained his footing. But he was also fast. John was in the open now, exposed to both of them, he knew. But Wells had never looked behind once. If he’d suspected John, or anyone else on his trail, he’d forgotten it in this dogged chase, John was certain of that.

They were moving back toward Virginia Street, along the tracks. In a moment, John thought, he would be crossing the street, where he could signal Ryan.

But as he reached the street, a train came rolling toward the station, slowing, moving directly between John and where Ryan waited on Virginia in front of Harold’s Club. John hesitated, then ran on as the train stopped, blocking him from Ryan’s view. He would have to go on by himself, he knew. Then he realized, as he ran, that he had failed to take time to tell Ryan where the station wagon was parked. If Garwith were leading them there, there was not going to be any help; not now, he knew, snapping the sweat from his eyes with one angry motion of his hand. He was in it all alone.

CHAPTER

John Benson saw, as he ran, that Allan Garwith had reached the edge of the parking lot, that Harry Wells was coming up fast behind him.

Garwith suddenly disappeared among the cars. The lot was silent. The attendant was now reading a paperback mystery. Mrs. Landry’s station wagon was parked at the end of the row where Garwith had disappeared. An hour had passed since they left the lot, John knew, and waiting quietly around the car were Mrs. Landry, Margaret Moore, Cicely; and inside was Miss Kennicot, her mouth a firm, haughty line.

John Benson pulled the gun from his belt, slowing, as Harry Wells’s hand came out of his jacket with his gun. Wells paused briefly at the edge of the cars, head swinging from left to right. Then he plunged ahead.

John saw Garwith leap out between cars halfway down the row. The package was out of Garwith’s hand now, replaced by a gun. But Garwith did not fire. He came in sideways on Wells, whose reflex was too slow for the catlike speed of Garwith. The gun in Garwith’s hand slammed into the side of Wells’s head. Wells sprawled to the ground, his head spurting blood.

John lifted his gun and swung it down to firing position. “Hold it, Garwith!”

Garwith spun, seeing John for the first time. Behind him came Cicely, running from the station wagon. “Drop the gun, Garwith,” John snapped.

Garwith did not. John would have fired instantly, but Cicely was just behind Garwith now. Behind her came Margaret Moore and Mrs. Landry. They were all in the line of fire. Then Cicely had reached Garwith. “Allan—”

Garwith moved with unbelievable speed. He stepped back and grabbed Cicely around her waist with his one arm, holding the gun in front of her stomach, pointing at John. She froze. Garwith, behind her, nodded, eyes blazing. “Cop, Benson? It figures. Bastard! Well, drop the gun yourself!”

“I mean it, Garwith—I’ll start shooting.”

“You’ll start shooting her then,” Garwith said, his voice a trembling sound of nerves, fright and desperation. “Get rid of that gun and quick!”

John stared at the look in the youth’s eyes. He would murder, he knew, anybody and everybody, including his own bride. There was nothing else to do. He dropped his gun.

“Kick it this way,” Garwith snapped.

John did. The gun skittered over the concrete and stopped just in front of the sprawled Wells. Slowly one of Wells’s hands moved toward it. Garwith stepped around Cicely and kicked him at the base of the skull. Wells gave a short, pained gasp.

“Pick up those guns, Cicely,” Garwith said, releasing her. “Quick.”

Looking bewildered, frightened, Cicely picked up both Wells’s and John’s guns.

“Put them in my jacket pocket,” Garwith said. “Then pick up that package between the cars. Hurry up!”

“But, Allan, I don’t understand! What’s happening? What’s—”

“Move!” Cicely put the guns in her husband’s pocket, then picked up the package.

Margaret Moore and Mrs. Landry had come up now. Allan Garwith said to them, “Back to the car. Don’t make any noise. Just do what I tell you! Benson—walk around me, back toward the wagon!”

Margaret Moore looked at the crumpled Wells, then at Garwith’s eyes. She turned and started back. Mrs. Landry, however, stood and stared at Garwith. “My goodness, whatever is wrong, Mr. Garwith? Why, you look—” Then, for the first time, she saw Wells lying on the concrete. “Oh, my goodness sake!”

“I told you what I want you to do!” Garwith said. “Now do it!”

“Hurry up, Mrs. Landry,” John said, moving past Garwith and taking her arm. “Do what he says.”

“But I just don’t—” Mrs. Landry began.

“Quickly, Mrs. Landry,” John insisted.

They moved back toward the station wagon. John paused to look back. Allan Garwith had turned the pistol in his hand down and was pointing it at Harry Wells. Cicely suddenly clutched his arm. He shook her hand free. “Allan, you can’t—I mean, whatever this is about, you can’t—”

“I won’t,” he breathed. “But only because I don’t want to wake up everybody around here.” His mouth whitened, then he kicked Wells’s head again. A gasp rose up in Cicely. There were tears in her eyes. Blood poured out on the concrete around Wells’s head. “All right,” Alan Garwith said, shoving Cicely with the barrel of his gun. “Let’s go.”

He herded them back to the station wagon swiftly. Then he said, “Inside. Hurry up. Cicely, get behind the wheel.”

Miss Kennicot, who had been looking straight ahead in the same stiff mood she’d demonstrated since they’d left Salt Lake City finally turned around, frowning. She had obviously, John realized, missed everything that had just gone on. “What is going on here anyway?” she demanded.

“Get out of that seat and move back,” Garwith said harshly.

“What in the world are you doing with that gun in your hand?” she said archly.

“Miss Kennicot,” John said. “Please do what he says and very quickly.”

“What is going
on?”
Miss Kennicot said, her voice rising.

“I’m telling you, you stupid loud-mouthed excuse of a damn woman!” Allan Garwith said. “You get the hell out of that seat and move back and now!”

Miss Kennicot’s mouth fell open. She stared at him in disbelief.

“Move!”

She suddenly fell out of the open door and plunged back into the car, into a back seat. She started a low continuous moaning, as though she had just been branded.

John Benson got into the seat where Garwith and Cicely had ridden during the trip. Margaret Moore resumed her old seat. Mrs. Landry sat in back with Miss Kennicot. Garwith got in front beside Cicely.

“All right,” he said to her. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Allan, if you’d only tell me what—”

“Don’t talk. Drive!” There was a thread of pure insanity in his voice now, that raked against John’s nerves. He glanced back to where Wells had been left, as Cicely drove the car toward the exit. He thought he saw Wells move, but he wasn’t sure. He brought his attention back to Garwith. He tried to think of some way he could jump him. But Garwith was leaning back against the door, looking at them, saying, “This gun’s right in my lap. I’ll use it on the first one who winks at me wrong. Do you hear that?” There was nothing, John Benson realized, that he could do…

As the station wagon rolled out the exit, the attendant barely looked up from his book. Harry Wells pushed himself up against his hands. Then he fell forward. The world spun around him. The pain seared through his head. He tried again. This time he got to his haunches, just in time to see the station wagon turn left, rolling down the street out of sight.

He shook his head desperately. He could not think well. He could not do much of anything but try to keep going. After several long and painful moments, he pushed himself to his feet. The lot remained silent. The attendant was deeply immersed in his book.

Harry Wells staggered from car to car, falling to his knees, pushing himself up again. Ten cars down the row he saw a key in an ignition. The car was a 1957 Pontiac. He got the door open and fell inside. He sat there for a moment, getting over his dizziness, then looked at himself in the mirror. His face was a mass of blood.

He snapped the glove compartment open. There was a box of Kleenex there. He pulled out tissue after tissue, wiping the blood from his face. Finally he pressed together a collection of them in a makeshift pad and fitted them against the wound Garwith had created with his swinging gun. Behind him, on the back shelf, was a man’s straw hat. He reached back, teeth gritting, got the hat and put it on his injured head. The hat was too large, but it covered the wound.

Then he started the car, backed, swung forward, and drove toward the exit. He checked the gasoline gauge. There was three-quarters of a tank of gas. As he rolled through the exit, the attendant did not even look up.

Forcing himself above the returning dizziness, Wells turned left, taking the same street he’d seen the station wagon turn on. He pressed the accelerator down. In minutes he was on the motel-lined street that led out of town, west. Must have gone this way, he thought, a dark anger pulsing deep inside him. West, in the direction of San Francisco. The anger gave him strength.

Traffic was light. When he reached the last scattering of motels on the outskirts of town, he looked at the flat highway ahead. To the left were purple plateaus. Straight ahead the Sierra Nevada Mountains loomed darkly, a bluish black silhouette. He speeded up. He passed a log truck with an empty flatbed. He passed a white pickup. The car had power, he realized, plenty of it. The needle of the speedometer quivered at ninety. There was one more car ahead, a dark object in the distance, just at the point where the road started up the steep grade.