The Poisoners

XX

Actually, I had no intention of tackling five syndicate goons all in a bunch. We're not paid to be heroes-at least we're not paid to be stupid heroes. I was counting on their splitting up and making the odds a little easier; and when I got within range of their voices, I found that was exactly what they were doing.

It was their logical next move if the Chrysler was badly stuck, as it seemed to be. They'd got it buried to the bodywork in the sand of a dry watercourse. Well, it's happened to other pavement-type drivers on other desert roads, in Mexico and elsewhere. They never learn. All they can think of, when they start to slip and sink in the soft stuff, is to spin the wheels frantically and dig themselves in deeper.

Tillery was issuing last-minute instructions to the two men I didn't know, although I should have known there were some others around. Jake had intimated that he hadn't been alone when he'd watched me disposing of Beverly Blame's body.

"You two strong men stay here and get the car out of this riverbed," Tillery was saying. "Jack it up, stuff brush under the wheels, and back it up on the bank. Get it headed back the way we came, ready to go. When you hear shooting-you'll hear it all right, we can't be more than a mile or two from the coast-start the engine and switch on the lights so we'll know where to find you even if we miss the road in the dark. Come out and cover us if it sounds like we need it… Okay, Jake, you take your rifle. I'll handle the chopper."

"I'll handle the chopper." That was Sapio's voice.

"Yes, Mr. Sapio."

"Well, let's put it on the goddamn road."

"Come on, Jake. Mr. Sapio thinks we'd better get moving."

I crouched under a bush-mesquite, judging by the thorns-and watched the three shadowy figures march off to the southwest. Jake was carrying a heavy rifle equipped with some kind of a bulky telescopic sight, or maybe an electronic night-fighting contraption. It was impossible to tell. Sapio packed the unmistakable, old-fashioned shape of a Thompson with a drum magazine. You couldn't miss it, even in the dark. Well, it's still a good, reliable weapon, even though superseded in most places by newer and sexier submachine guns; and it has the sterling virtue that the big drum full of cartridges lets you stay in the homicide business, without interruption, several times as long as the clip-type magazines supplied with most later models.

I lay there and waited while the trio disappeared from sight; and then I waited some more while the two men left behind worked at jacking and brush-cutting-I mean, why should I do the work when I could let them do it for me? When it looked as if they had the big car almost ready to go, I moved in on them.

The edge of the wash, a perpendicular three-foot cut-bank, caused me a little trouble. I had to wiggle downstream a ways to find a low place where I could slither down it without making any noise. They weren't expecting trouble, however, and I caught them just the way I wanted them: bending over, one man with both hands on the jack handle, the other with an armload of brush he was just about to stuff under the rising wheel.

"Hold it, boys!" I said from the bushes behind them. "There's a.38 looking right up your rear elevations. If either of you would like an extra hole back there, I'll be happy to oblige."

''Who-"

"Never mind who," I said, rising. "Just call me a man with a gun. No, don't straighten up. Just stay bent over like that, turn around slowly, and stretch out flat on the ground, faces in the sand. Swell. Now, where the hell do you keep the light switch on this limousine…"

I'd hardly cut the lights for the required five seconds and switched them back on, when there was a muffled cry and a heavy thump behind me. I stepped aside quickly to where I could cover the new threat as well as the men on the ground, but it was merely Bobbie Prince picking herself out of the soft sand at the base of the bank off which she'd fallen. She got up, brushing off her jeans and straightening her floppy hat-the sarape had apparently been left behind as excess baggage. She came forward, limping a bit, a slim, pale, boyish shape in the night.

"Why didn't you warn me there was a precipice there?" she asked resentfully.

"You're supposed to be waiting back at the station wagon," I said.

"You and your deerstalking!" she said. "You didn't hear me, did you? And neither did they. I didn't make any noise at all, did I?"

I said, "Sure, you're great like Hiawatha and you damn near got yourself shot. Do you know how to work a hypodermic?"

"Naturally, but don't ask me how I learned. Why?"

"There's a kit in my left coat pocket. Use the vial marked Injection C. The other two are lethal, and I see no need to kill anybody, at the moment. The dose is a half cc, cubic centimeter to you. Put the boys to sleep for me while I keep them covered. Then we'll get this heap out of here and get after their friends."

It wasn't quite as easy as that, of course, mainly because, once our prisoners were safely unconscious, I made the mistake of putting Bobbie behind the wheel of the Chrysler. I told her to send it forward very cautiously while I stood by to lend a shoulder if required. Unfortunately, it turned out that she had the same lead-foot, sand-driving technique as the man who'd got it stuck in the first place.

It came off the piled-up brush nicely, moving well- I didn't even have to push to get it started-but the tires started to slip as she got eager and fed it more power. She felt them dig in and, instead of easing off, she gunned it hard. If I hadn't sworn at her in a loud, ungentlemanly way, she'd have sunk it out of sight once more.

"I'm sorry!" she said, cutting the switch. Her voice said she was actually more mad than sorry. "I couldn't help it! It's just too damn soft. You didn't have to get nasty about it!"

I said, "It was coming fine, sweetheart. I told you to take it easy, didn't I? What the hell do they teach you kids in Yuma, Arizona? A lot of crap about defensive driving, I bet, and not a damn thing useful like how to get a car out of a sandy arroyo. Well, come along if you're coming."

She started to open the door, but hesitated. "What are you going to do?"

"I'm going after them, naturally."

"But what about the car?"

"To hell with the car. We've got our own transportation all set to go. I thought we might ride this one down a ways and save some walking, but we can't waste any more time on the heap. If anybody wants to use the road, they'll just have to drag it out themselves, if they can't get around it somehow."

Bobbie said coldly, "I think the simple fact is that you can't get it out of here, either, in spite of all the expert noises you've been making. Isn't it?"

I regarded her for a moment. I'm not in the habit of doing things just because pretty girls tell me I can't, but my instinct is always to tidy up as I go along-which was why I'd taken time to deal with the two men who might have threatened our retreat, later. Now I had the uneasy feeling that leaving the Chrysler stuck there was untidy and might just possibly cause us trouble eventually, although I couldn't see how. I sighed, studied the near rear wheel for a moment, and squatted down beside it. Bobbie got out and stood over me.

"What are you doing?"

"Letting some air out of the tires," I said. "It's an emergency measure, and I probably wouldn't have had to do it if certain people hadn't dug us such a deep hole to get out of."

"Lay off, Helm," she said. "We can't all be great boondocks drivers like you, if you are one. What's accomplished by letting the air out, anyway?"

"It's simple physics," I said. "With half the air pressure, it takes twice the tire surface to support the car, right? And with twice the amount of rubber on the sand, you're half as likely to sink in. Check the glove compartment, will you, and see if by a miracle these boys carry a tire gauge."

They didn't, of course, so I had to estimate the pressure by eye-if you get it too low, these newfangled tubeless tires will come away from the rim and let all the air out, leaving you in worse shape than before. When I'd lowered the pressures all around as far as seemed safe, I told Bobbie to stand by to push, if necessary. Then I got behind the wheel, started the engine, and tested it cautiously in reverse. The big sedan lifted slightly before the wheels began to slip, and I slapped it into drive and caught it as it rolled forward again, and kept it coming, very gently, out of the hole and on across the wash to solid ground. I cut the lights and waited for Bobbie to catch up and get in beside me.

"Well," she said, "well, that doesn't prove anything! Probably I could have done it, too, if I'd known about the soft-tire trick."

I grinned. "There's what we call a good loser! Crank down your window and use your eyes and ears. I don't want to overrun Tillery's bunch by mistake."

But they had close to a forty-five-minute start on us, and we never caught a glimpse of them ahead as we picked our way slowly along the rudimentary road, in the dark, until the ruts started to swing left to pass inland of some dark hills, presumably the high ground guarding the north end of San Agustin Bay. Here I turned the big car off the road to the right and took it several hundred yards across country into a bunch of scraggly trees with one dead giant spreading bare white limbs against the sky, a good landmark. I parked the Chrysler facing back along its own tracks.

"Now you wait here," I said. "And I mean here. If I jump somebody up there, I don't want to have to worry that it's you playing Indian again. I'd better take the drug kit, and where the hell did the handle of that jack get to…"

"Matt?"

"Yes?"

"Be careful, darling."

I looked at her for a moment. The long blonde hair shone dully in the darkness of the car, but her face and expression couldn't be seen beneath the wide brim of her hippie-hat.

"Sure," I said. "Hell, there are only three of them, aren't there? Sure, I'll be careful."