Reluctant Detective (24 page)

49

The 9 mm slug burned by Anne's ear like a vicious hornet. The
Client's first shot had been dead-on-target, but the branch of a tree
deflected the bullet. He had no time for a second shot before she disappeared behind a neighbouring house and limped down the
street.

Anne had sprained her ankle when she'd jumped from the porch
roof to the ground. She couldn't run. It ached with each step, but her
only option was to work through the pain and make the best time
she could. She had to reach Ben at the waterfront before the Client caught up to her.

As miserable as it was, the weather helped. The moon hadn't
risen; the rain pelted down; and her clothes were dark. If she wasn't moving, she was barely visible. Nevertheless, it was also a cold rain, and she could feel the chill of it creeping into her bones.

The waterfront was five or six blocks away. Half of that distance
was through a residential neighbourhood. She hobbled through that
area, keeping off the street, sticking to lawns, backyards and alleys,
whenever she could find them. If she thought she heard a car or saw
the flicker of headlights, she tucked herself alongside a house or a
street-parked car.

After that, however, the terrain changed. She crossed a couple of
commercial streets with closed stores and empty shops. Even at
night, though, the business district was well-lit. So Anne took her
time to navigate through it. Two slow-moving cars approached.
Then another. She waited for each to drop out of sight before she crossed the last street.

Ahead of her now lay five hundred yards of clear, open land. At the
end of it, she discerned the outlines of warehouses and buildings
on the shore. Sounds carried easily, but dully, over the rain-swept
expanse. A ship's whistle blew and, somewhere, a tractor-trailer geared down and rumbled onto broken pavement. Several spur roads, truck staging compounds, idle fields, and parking lots separated her from the dock where the
Arctic Growler
was tied up
and where Ben Solomon was standing watch. She surveyed the best
route she could take to get there. Then she began a slow, guarded
advance.

As Anne neared the warehouses, she heard noises – the clanking of forklift blades, the
beep beep
as one of them backed up. Shouts from labourers and the plosive blast of air brakes cut the air. The sounds
came from an early morning shift at the third warehouse, the one
farthest from the
Arctic Growler
. Anne drew in as close as she could
so that, from a distance, she would look like just another worker.
From there she slunk through shadows to the next warehouse and, past that, to the edge of the last one.

Anne rounded the corner of the last building. When she did,
her hopes plummeted. The shipping berth was empty. The
Arctic Growler
had sailed. Only her stern lights and the lights of the pilot tug glowed against the black of the night about half a mile offshore. The ship had gone and, to her dismay, so had Ben.

Anne looked forlorn standing alone in the rain in front of the
empty berth of the departing ship. She turned around slowly and stared through the darkness for anything that offered a possibility
of shelter or safety. Nothing seemed promising. Then she heard a
car start and turned toward the sound. It came from a parking area fifty yards away. Its headlights came on, and the car slowly wheeled around. It flashed its lights twice. Then twice more. It was a signal.

It was Ben.

Anne waved her arms excitedly above her head and limped toward Ben's car.

Then the car picked up speed rather quickly. Anne froze. Some
thing about its sound and shape struck her as odd.

She realized that it wasn't Ben's car after all.

Anne panicked, turned, and ran. She ran back toward the warehouse. The sound of the car grew nearer and louder. It picked up
speed and was closing in on her so quickly she couldn't outrun it.

The nearest corner of the warehouse was just yards away. The near side of the building had no loading platforms, exterior stairs,
or open doors. Nothing to hide behind. Yet she continued towards it like a frightened rabbit, unable to see anything but the desperation of flight as a route of escape.

The engine roared as the Client stomped the accelerator. The car
tires lost some traction on the wet cement and the car fishtailed slightly. Anne took a split second to glance behind her and, just before the car would have struck her, she lunged sharply to the right. The Client couldn't turn into her without colliding with the
corner of the building. So he cut the wheel left. His car shot by her and followed the long wall of the warehouse. He hit the brakes and fishtailed again on the slick pavement. The right rear side slid into
the side of the building. The aluminum siding shrieked as the car
grazed it and, as the back side rebounded off the wall, the front end
swung in, hooked itself, and spun the vehicle twice before it came to rest.

Anne scurried around the end of the warehouse, her heart thumping. Her clothes, sopping with rain, felt leaden, just as they had in so
many of her bad dreams. Her eyes darted about for a hiding place
or an escape, but the area between the first and second warehouses was unbroken cement from the parking lot behind her to the dock's end ahead. No place to hide. No cover. Not even a short stack of pallets.

Then she heard the squeal of Client's car, but it wasn't backing up.
It sped on to the far end of the wharf. Anne guessed that it would
circle and return through the slot between the two warehouses.

Anne would be an easy catch there. So she backtracked to the
marine slip where the
Arctic Growler
had berthed. The water in the slip looked black and oily, but she didn't hesitate. She swung herself
over the edge, made her way down one of several steel ladders
fastened to the dock, and slipped into the frigid water.

The Client's car was nearer now. Then the sound of it faded.

Anne remained low in the water listening for traces of sound. Only
her head broke the surface. Her hands gripped a ladder rung near
the waterline. Everything around her looked black as if she were in
some pit. She pictured herself in her own grave, and then shoved
that image out of her head.

Once again the sound of the Client's car grew closer. It stopped, and the motor shut down.

Anne stared into the blackness. Only a trickle of brackish light
revealed ripples in the water, ripples the wind had kicked up. She
drew herself as close against the ladder as possible. She tried to force herself into the space between the ladder and the concrete wall behind it. She was small enough, she thought, but only one
shoulder would slip through.

Then she noticed her hands, gripping the bottom rung. They were
pasty white. White enough to be noticed. Her face would be, too,
she realized. So she pulled the sleeves of her sweater down over her
hands and hoisted the neck of her sweater up over her face. Then she submerged until only her nose and the top of her head were
above the waterline.

She heard a shuffling of leather soles on the wet, gritty cement.

Anne chanted softly to herself:
Don't move… Don't move… Don't move…

The footsteps stopped when they passed overhead.

Don't move… Don't move… Don't move…

The footsteps continued in a measured pace along the edge of the
marine slip. The sounds faded to nothing. A long time passed, but
they returned again above her head.

Please God help me… Please God help me…

Then the sound of the Client's presence faded entirely.

Please… Please…

Anne couldn't recall how long she remained in the water after that. It could have been minutes. It could have been half an hour. Her terror had imprisoned her there. She listened attentively for
footsteps, but she heard none. She felt light-headed. She felt tired.
She listened for footsteps, and soon she couldn't recall why they
were important. The cold was important. It had been very cold. Not so much now, though. And she couldn't remember how she'd gotten
into the water. Maybe she'd fallen off the boat. The water tasted
funny, too. Not like the water in Dit's pool. And Dit's pool had lights.
She liked that pool. She looked around. She didn't like it here. She didn't want to be here anymore. And she couldn't recall why she
was here.

She swung herself around to the front of the ladder and climbed.
As soon as she pulled her body above the waterline, though, she felt as if she were carrying a second person on her shoulders. Her arms
grew rubbery. Her fingers had little feeling in them. Her legs had
been sapped of strength.

Climbing the ladder eight feet to the top of the slip was taxing.
Halfway up Anne had to stop. She rested. At the end of her rest she struggled to recall where she was. She hung onto the ladder, unsure
of where to go, until she heard the rev of a car engine and saw the
flash of headlights pan across the dock.

That would be…
she thought, but she couldn't remember the name of the person she expected. In spite of that, her mind registered that thought as a pleasant one and one which spurred her to mount the last two rungs of the ladder.

Anne grabbed the handhold on top and rolled herself onto the cement deck. She crawled forward a few feet. Then she pulled herself up and staggered toward the lights.

“Ben! What are you doing here?” She seemed surprised. She attempted a laugh. Then

Anne collapsed in Ben's arms.

Ben carried her to the car and laid her in the back seat. He popped the trunk and retrieved an emergency blanket. As he bent over to
wrap the blanket around her, a muffled shot rang out and put a
hole through the rear passenger window over Anne's head and just missed his.

The shot had come from the far side of the first warehouse. The
shot had been a good one – too good – and far too close a call.
Whoever took it knew what he was doing, Ben thought. Then he pulled out his service revolver, lay flat on the pavement behind his car, and waited. If he's that good a shot, maybe he's got a big enough ego to think he hit me.

A few minutes later, the Client fired again, two quick ones, and shattered the front passenger window. Ben waited. From a prone
position beneath his car he had a clear view to the Client's position next to the warehouse.

“Right now, the sonofabitch is thinking I'm dead or unarmed,”
Ben muttered under his breath, “… and if I don't make a move, he'll have to.”

Patience is a virtue
, he thought,
a hunter's virtue
, and he waited for the Client to take the next step.

Ben's car faced the marine slip where the
Arctic Growler
had been
berthed. The engine was running. His headlights pointed toward
the spot on the slip from which Anne had emerged. The warehouse lay to the right, mostly in darkness. Two other warehouses lined up beyond it. A wide paved road linked them and turned up to connect
with the main highway. Ben and Anne had been ambushed just
above where the road turned up.

Ben looked diagonally across the bend in the road at the spot from which the Client's shots had come from and tried to gauge
what the Client might try next. The blaze from Ben's headlights had cut off a flanking move by the Client to his left. A move to the right
was more probable. If he crossed the road he'd be exposed, but a quick run would put him into the shallow ditch on the other side. After that was a rough field. A bit of brush, clumps of grass. Little
cover for him.

In time, the Client became bolder. Ben saw his head poke from
behind the warehouse. The Client crouched and looked like he was on the verge of breaking out and heading for the field, but something stopped him.

He heard something. Ben heard it, too. The rattling of a truck's
diesel engine winding up rpm's. The truck had pulled out from
behind the third warehouse, lugging a heavy load. It was slow to pick up speed, and it was rolling toward them.

As the tractor-trailer passed the warehouse, the Client leapt out and followed close along the passenger side of the truck, using it as
a shield. When the truck made the turn, the Client fell back behind
the corner of the trailer. The truck's lights enveloped Ben's car and blinded him.

Ben couldn't hear the volley of gunfire from the Client's pistol over
the roar of the diesel, but he heard the sharp clank of the bullets
hitting the hood of his car and striking the engine block. He hastily
repositioned himself and returned fire. Then he heard a squeal of
air brakes and saw another flash of lights. The truck roared by. Ben was still blinded by lights, but the firing had stopped.

Cautiously he looked out, his eyes slowly adjusting to the glare. Twenty yards ahead a second truck's headlights faced him. That
truck had stopped. A man's silhouette stumbled toward him. Ben raised his gun.

“Police! Hands up! Drop your weapon!”

The silhouette's hands raised in the air.

“I didn't mean to hit him! He came out of nowhere,” said the
silhouette pointing with a quick jab of its hand toward the crumpled body under the truck's front bumper.