Sara Paretsky - V.I. Warshawski 08 (59 page)

A man
in a tan uniform got out of the front seat and went to open the back.

An
enormous man in a Stetson emerged, shepherding what seemed to be a prisoner.

My
bowels turned to water. It was Conrad. Anton was holding his arms.

Fiery
Finish

“What’s
he doing here?” Murray demanded.

I
couldn’t imagine. My heart twisting, I kept the glasses trained on the hangar.
The man in uniform was talking to Gantner, gesturing at Conrad. Blakely and
Heccomb stood by watching. Anton held Conrad’s arms behind him while they
searched him. I couldn’t see what they came away with—maybe his badge, because
the musketeers seemed both alarmed and more menacing.

“I
have to find out what they’re doing,” I told Murray. “You go back to your car
and try to raise the state police on your car phone. The local guys are
apparently in Gant-Ag’s pocket. If the state troopers won’t listen call Bobby
Mallory. In fact, call him anyway. Unless you get flushed wait in your car for
an hour. If the state cops don’t respond by then, or we haven’t arrived, run
like hell for help.”

I
gave him Mallory’s home phone number, which I know by heart, and sent him back
through the cornfield. Murray thought he should stay, in case it came to a
fight, but I persuaded him that our best bet was to get help: if they caught
both of us we were doomed.

The
rain was falling in a steady thin curtain, turning the ditch grasses to glass.
I slipped several times as I ran through the ditch, but pushed myself upright
at once, ignoring my wobbly legs, the cramp over my cracked rib, retracing my
route to the hangar. I crawled over to the edge of the apron but couldn’t hear
anything—the mechanics had just started up one of the engines and were turning
the plane around. I skirted the building once more and went to the side
entrance. I was uncomfortably exposed there if anyone happened to be in the
office block at this point, but I managed to open the door a crack. I could
hear the conversation but not see any of the speakers.

Blakely
was demanding whether Conrad knew me.

“I’ve
heard of Ms. Warshawski, yes—she’s a private detective who gets in our way so
often that most homicide cops know about her. Is she working for you? If you
want a recommendation I’d say she was hardworking and thorough, but too
pigheaded to make a good employee.”

Despite
my pounding heart I grinned a little. That would bear repeating—if we made it
through the night together. Blakely didn’t know what to make of that answer, so
he asked why Conrad had been hanging around the plant entrance. From Conrad’s
response they’d been through that ground more than once: he had reason to
believe he would find evidence of a Chicago homicide, he said, but he couldn’t
give more details without the permission of his watch commander. Whom he would
be happy to ask if Gantner would let him use a phone.

“Mr.
Rawlings, you’ve got to understand our position.” That was Gantner, his voice
calm, pleasant. “You may be a Chicago policeman, but our security force found
you trespassing on our property in—well, what the police themselves might call
suspicious circumstances. If Chicago thought we had murder evidence out here,
they would have come through our office. So I’m going to ask Deputy Klavin here
to hold you outside for a few minutes while we check your story. I know someone
in your superintendent’s office. This shouldn’t take more than ten minutes.”

I
didn’t hear anything for a short bit, then Blakely burst out, “I thought you
had the Chicago cops covered. Is this guy legit or is he something to do with
Warshawski?”

“Maybe
he’s really a cop, but is moonlighting,” Heccomb suggested. “She’s a solo operator,
but he might work with her on certain projects.”

“Whoever
he is doesn’t really matter,” Gantner said. “If he is a cop—and he did have a
badge, remember—we can’t afford him taking the tale of the three of us here,
and this midnight plane, away with him.”

“You
going to send him off with Klavin and Anton?” Jasper asked. “I suppose if they
drop him ten miles south of here we’d be long gone by the time he made his way
back on foot.”

“We
need a more permanent solution than that,” Gantner said. “If he really is a cop
he may have some kind of evidence tying you and Don to Deirdre’s murder.

You
say your girl Tish is upset by questions Warshawski’s been asking, and that she
especially wanted to know about the bat Don brought in a couple of weeks ago. I
don’t want to be connected with that.”

“Damn
you, Gantner, you’d better not be trying to backpedal now. Even if you weren’t
in Warshawski’s office that night you’re connected,” Blakely said, breathing
hard.

“I
don’t see how any of us can be tied to a maniac like Anton.” Gantner, after a
brief pause, was at his smoothest. “Didn’t Charpentier ask him to go to
Deirdre, try to persuade her she was mistaken in what she’d found in Heccomb’s
files? If anyone’s to blame it’s Charpentier, for employing such a loose
cannon.

Maybe
Anton—or Charpentier—saw Messenger’s bat. Not realizing Don had borrowed it—as
a prank toward our esteemed but hypersensitive colleague—they took it away with
them to try to implicate Messenger in his own wife’s death.

“Jasper,
I think you should come in for censure for letting such assholes onto your
premises, but I don’t see any other connection between us and them.

Unless
the girl saw Jasper when he went back to erase the disk, we’re clean. And we’re
going to deal with her when she resurfaces anyway.”

There
was a moment’s silence, and then Blakely burst out laughing. “You’re a cool son
of a bitch, Gantner. I’ve got to hand it to you. So what do you want to do
about this cop?”

“The
fact is, we’re all out here tonight, with a plane that hasn’t responded to the
local air controllers,” Jasper put in. “That’s a story we can’t afford the
press or the Chicago cops getting. Especially if Warshawski does show up.

How
would the senator explain away a dead detective on the family farm, Al?”

“My
dad’s been able to keep the heat off the murder investigation through his
connections in the state’s attorney’s office. But even the senator might have
trouble fixing this story,” Gantner responded.

“Klavin
says no one else was with this Rawlings when they picked him up.

We’ll
get Klavin to throw up a roadblock around the property. Meanwhile he can check
with the sheriff’s deputies and the Morris force to see if Chicago let them
know they were sending an officer in. If Rawlings does have backup in the area,
no harm done. If not, he’ll be found face down in the mud with a bullet in the
back of his head—ten miles from here—and Chicago can figure out what happened
to him.”

The
blood thudded in my head. I leaned against the side of the building, dizzy and
panting. Wild visions of leaping into the hangar and shooting all of them swam
before me. Through the roaring in my head I heard Gantner call sharply to
Klavin to come back into the hangar. I couldn’t see anything, but Conrad and
Anton must be on the apron. Now or never, Warshawski.

I
again ran the length of the hangar and hopped into the drainage ditch on its
west side. After pulling a spare clip from my backpack and sticking it in my
pocket, I took a minute to use the field glasses. Anton and Conrad were on the
apron. Klavin was in his squad car on the other side of the fence from the
hangar, presumably ordering the roadblock for Gantner. I couldn’t see the
musketeers.

The
plane had been turned around. As I watched, one of the mechanics took a fuel
hose from the wing and coiled it back in the ground. He returned to the
airplane, leaving the little baggage cart near the tail.

I
clambered out of the ditch and sprinted across the wet tarmac to the cart.

The
men had left the motor running. I jumped into it. After fumbling around the
controls I found the brake: it worked by hand. I disengaged it and pulled on
the gear lever. The cart started forward. It moved clumsily, swaying from side
to side, its single back wagon acting like a flapping tail.

I
trundled unsteadily across the tarmac to the apron. When I pulled up next to
Anton he looked at me casually, assuming I was a mechanic.

“Conrad!”
I screamed. “Get in. It’s Vic, get in!”

Both
Conrad and Anton stared at me dumbly.

“Conrad!
I heard them! They’re going to kill you. Get in!”

He
finally moved toward me. Anton bellowed a warning and reached for his gun.

I
fired the Smith & Wesson at him and he jumped back. As I turned the baggage
hauler in a wide, ungainly circle Anton started toward us, waving a giant
cannon. Clutching the wheel with my left hand I fired point-blank at him. He
shot again, wildly, then clutched his groin.

As I
headed up the runway I heard more gunfire. I risked a quick look over my
shoulder and saw Blakely behind us, sprinting after us. I tried to stay between
the runway lights, but I bumped into one and the cart started to turn. I slowed
to keep it upright. More shots rang out behind us. Conrad cried out and fell
forward.

I
pulled up in front of the plane. Using it as a brief screen between me and the
guns behind us, I looked at Conrad. Someone in the cockpit switched on a
headlight, pinning us, but giving me a good view of my lover. He’d been hit in
the right shoulder. He was bleeding, but conscious.

I
couldn’t take time to bind him up. “We’re going to have to try to cross a
cornfield in this cart. Murray’s waiting in his car about a mile from here.”

He
nodded, gasping a little, clutching his shoulder with his left hand. I stamped
on the accelerator. The cart moved, but it was no Corvette. Clamping my hands
to the wheel, I tried to keep it upright as I headed for the edge of the
tarmac.

Behind
us the plane engines sounded very loud. Conrad, bracing himself, turned his
head. His face went ashen in the jet’s headlight. I looked over my shoulder.
The plane was taxiing toward us. I gunned the cart’s engine but it couldn’t go
any faster. The jet was fifty yards behind and rapidly closing the gap.

I
jerked the wheel hard to the right. The cart caught on one of the runway
lights, lurched, and slowly tipped over. We were pitched onto the tarmac. I
tried dragging Conrad away toward the field but the plane was almost on us.

Flinging
myself to the ground, I started firing wildly at its tires. The screaming
engines were so loud I couldn’t hear the report of the gun. I emptied the clip
as the plane roared toward us.

Suddenly
it began to lurch, a wounded bird, with smoke spiraling from its wheels. It
flopped to the right and landed heavily on one wing. Gyrating on its side, it
caromed into the cart. A burst of hot air singed my eyebrows. The turbines were
so close I could make out their striations. Bits of the baggage hauler spewed
across the runway.

I
forced myself to my feet. My legs were shaking badly. Conrad was barely
conscious. I managed to hoist him across my shoulders. Somehow I staggered to
the ditch. As I collapsed into it the plane exploded.

Sirens
sounded in front of us, startling me back to life. I poked my head over the
edge of the ditch. The plane was burning in a great white-hot tower. A fire
engine moved as close to it as possible and began spraying foam.

I
removed my muddy clothes and used my T-shirt to make a pad for Conrad’s
shoulder. I wrapped him in my sweater and pulled my windbreaker back over my
own naked body.

The
ditch was wet, not the place for a wounded man, but it would protect him while
I found a way to move him. I couldn’t support his weight all the way back
across the field. I fumbled in my backpack for Mr. Contreras’s blanket. Conrad
stirred awake as I swaddled him.

“The
old man called me,” he whispered laboriously. “He was scared. You out here with
Ryerson. The goons picked me up by the side of the road. They kept calling me
nigger and wouldn’t believe I was a cop.”

“That’s
all right, baby.” I cradled his head on my lap. “I’m here. You’ll be okay, but
I need to find a way to move you. You bleed to death out here and your mama
will never forgive me.”

He
smiled weakly but didn’t speak again. I propped the backpack under his head and
tried to come up with a coherent plan. Our only hope was if they thought the
plane exploded when it ran into the cart, and that Conrad and I were
incinerated. That might give me time to find help. But that meant I had to make
the trek to the stream and hope Murray was still there. I wasn’t sure whether
my body would keep moving long enough to get there, but I couldn’t think of
anything else to do.

“I’m
going to be gone for a while,” I said. “I’m leaving my gun with you. But I hope
these guys think we’re dead, so that they won’t bother to hunt us.”

I
changed the clip and pushed my trembling legs upright. I was just starting to
crawl backward through the field when I heard a new sound. Above the roar of
the fire, the noise of the fire truck, louder engines roared. Two helicopters
were approaching from the north. I dove back into the ditch as they landed near
the hangar. I poked my head up through the grass again and strained to look.