The Death Gods (A Shell Scott Mystery) (41 page)

So that settled
it.

Earlier, I’d considered
slamming the Cad’s door open into Grinner, but that hadn’t been the
right time for it. Now was the right time. I hit the handle,
cracking the door, but didn’t shove with my hand. Instead, I threw
myself backward onto the car’s seat, at the same moment slamming my
left foot against the door and yanking my Colt from its holster. I
heard solid thump and metallic clank—Grinner must already have had
a gun in his hand—but I wasn’t even looking in his direction
because by then I was on my back, Colt pointed at the closed
right-hand window. Beyond which was nothing but blue sky. For a
fraction of a second. One moment I was looking at a patch of empty
sky and the next moment he was there.

Or part of him was
there—all of it, from where I lay, grotesquely upside-down and
fragmented like pieces of a lifesize jigsaw puzzle—both his
extended hands gripping the Colt .45, beyond and above that a part
of his neck and the beefy face, compressed lips, greasy black hair,
squinted eyes fixed on the swinging door and my extended left
leg.

It all happened jerkily,
in separate isolated segments of a second or two or a few thin
slices of forever, jumbled together like kaleidoscope pieces
tumbling, but the man must have jumped up alongside the Cad’s
window just as I slammed my foot against the door, swinging his
cocked Colt automatic toward the spot where I should have been.
Should have been, but wasn’t.

He had time for a flicker
of surprise, but that was all he had time for. I shot him, or at
least shot at him, twice. On my back, right arm only partly
extended and the gun’s barrel almost touching the window glass,
eyes rolled up toward the top of my head, when I saw him I didn’t
really aim but just pointed and pulled, pulled again as the deeper
crack of his own .45 banged my ears.

I saw two holes appear in
the Cad’s window, one an inch or more above the other, a thousand
fine lines like white cobwebs radiating out from them; I saw a red
rash appear on the man’s face as bits of flying window hit it like
tiny glass bullets, saw him stagger slightly just before a gob of
flesh flew away from his neck; and when his gun fired and the sound
hammered my ears I saw the recoil lift his hand six inches—but by
then I was rolling onto my side, straining to sit up. His gun
blasted again onto my side, ripped through metal of the Cad’s roof,
and his hand sort of floated higher again, gun pointing at a
forty-five degree angle toward the empty blue sky.

I got the seat beneath me,
straightened my back. Everything was right-side up again. I could
see a small spot of red high on the man’s chest, stain only
beginning to spread in the uniform’s khaki cloth. But more blood
was pouring down the side of the man’s neck, a lot more.

Not enough. I shot him in
the face.

The slug bored into his
skull at the edge of his nose, slightly below one eye. His head
jerked back and the index finger of his left hand, for the last
time, convulsively squeezed the automatic’s trigger. I didn’t watch
him fall; I knew he was dead. But Grinner wasn’t. Not yet, he
wasn’t.

I slid over the seat,
under the steering wheel. The Cad’s door was open, and I saw
Grinner almost at the gatehouse, bent forward, hand just closing
around his own .45 automatic—grabbling it from where it must have
landed after the Cad’s door banged into him.

There was a weird fullness
in my head, and for a moment I couldn’t understand how Grinner
could just now be picking up his gun, just now be starting to jump
into the gatehouse. Part of me knew only seconds had passed, but
another part of me couldn’t believe it, knew it must have been a
much longer time, the part of me that had come close to death and
shot another man in the face and been delighted to do
it.

Grinner didn’t grab his
gun, whirl around and blaze away at me. He snatched his Colt .45
off the asphalt, yes; but then he leaped toward the gatehouse door
moving so speedily he was almost through it and out of sight before
I could aim and fire.

I poked my right fist
through the Cad’s open window, pointed my .38 at the middle of
Grinner’s back, squeezed off one shot. And missed. Movement wiggled
in the corner of my eye and I glanced right. The jeep that had
taken Dane to Omega’s cement steps was moving this way fast. The
jeep—and the two men in it. They were already halfway to the
gatehouse and I could hear the jeep’s engine whining fifty yards
away—only fifty yards to go.

I flicked my eyes right,
then back immediately toward the gatehouse, and it was a good thing
I didn’t let my eyes dawdle. I could see Grinner now, standing just
inside the open doorway and visible through that window on my
right—which told me the glass had to be tempered, reinforced—with
his right arm sticking out through the doorway, gun in his fist
aimed in my general direction.

General direction, because
Grinner wasn’t sighting over the Colt’s barrel but looking at me
from behind the window’s bulletproof glass, while awkwardly trying
to align his gun way over there in the doorway, with my unprotected
head way over here in the Cad. I barely had time to be relieved
that this was a really dumb way to try and shoot a guy when BLAM.
Then closely followed by BLAMBLAM.

The dumbbell must not have
aimed at all, just waved his heat at me and let three fly. They all
flew several feet, thunked somewhere into the Cad’s rear end with
the sound of avalanching boulders landing back there and ruining
some more of my shiny powder-blue Cadillac.

Then BLAM, considerably
closer—and, this time in front of me. The slug flew past my head,
snapping the air like a whip, and bore another hole in the already
punctured right window. I heard shards of glass landing, almost
metallically, upon the asphalt.

I had not, myself, been
entirely idle during all this. Grinner’s exposed arm was an
inviting stationary target, and I aimed at it, taking time to thumb
back the Colt Special’s hammer to ensure maximum accuracy, and
squeezed. It was almost a textbook example of firing carefully for
effect. Almost. Only one thing went wrong. While aiming at
Grinner’s arm, just as I was carefully squeezing that last horrible
BLAM and its horrible slug whipping by about an inch to the right
of my head turned my squeeze into spasmodic digital convulsion or
grab. It also, incidentally but importantly, convinced me that
Grinner didn’t really have to aim a whole lot. In fact, he didn’t
have to aim at all. He could just blaze away and watch where his
slugs landed—the way Army guys do when shooting mortars at the
enemy—and make adjustments thisaway and thataway until one landed
on target.

The result was that I
didn’t break Grinner’s arm but merely nipped it. I saw the khaki
short-sleeve jump, and immediately after that Grinner pulled his
arm back inside and stood there protected by his window,
simultaneously glaring through it at me and grimacing
hugely.

For a very brief moment I
wondered if that glass was really bulletproof. Not even Grinner
would be dumb enough to just stand there all exposed, if it wasn’t,
would he? Well, would he? Maybe it would be worth chancing one shot
straight at him, there behind the window. If it was plain old
glass, I could drill him dead center, and end this wondering. And
end Grinner, of course.

But I must not have done
much damage to Grinner’s arm, because there it was again, ending in
his hand and Colt .45, and BLAM. But, by the time he fired that
time, I had thrown myself backward onto the car seat again. And,
lying there, I started thinking fast, mainly about
bullets.

I’d used three on the guy
now lying empty on the asphalt and I’d fired one at Grinner when he
jumped into the gatehouse, another when I’d nipped his arm or
sleeve. Which added up to five. And five from six left—not nearly
enough.

Which also meant: no more
fast thinking required, time for some fast going. Assuming, of
course, that going was still possible. The car keys dangled from
the ignition, where I’d left them, so without raising my head I
twisted the key, heard the Cad’s engine start. It purred, idling
smoothly, but then that sound was overpowered by the shriek of
tires skidding on asphalt and, mixed with that scream of sliding
rubber, the ear-banging crack of two shots from Grinner’s gun. I
not only heard both slugs smashing into the Cad’s body but felt the
car rock slightly from their impact.

I hadn’t been counting,
but my distinct impression was that I’d been shot at approximately
a hundred times, which surely must have emptied the Colt .45’s
magazine. So I raised my head, ready to hide it in a hurry but
Grinner was clearly visible behind his window, ejecting the clip
from his gun’s butt, preparing to reload.

Erect behind the steering
wheel, I slapped the gearshift into reverse, using my right hand
but keeping a firm grip on the Colt Special, then—pushing my left
foot hard on the brake pedal and right foot down on the
accelerator—aimed that Colt out the Cad’s window at Grinner’s
forehead.

He was shoving a fresh
magazine up into the gun’s grip, and busy reloading, hadn’t taken
time to open the gate. Beyond it, the two men in the jeep—I could
see them both clearly—were starting to honk their tinny horn
impatiently. Right hand and gun resting on my left fist, fist
steadied atop the outside mirror, I let out half of my breath and
slowly tightened my index finger against the trigger, squeezed,
looking at Grinner’s head.

He’d pulled back the
reloaded automatic’s slide and let it snap forward, cocking the
piece. And at that moment—the exact moment when the Colt’s hammer
fell and sent my last slug spinning toward his brain—Grinner turned
his head and looked at me, directly at me. I wasn’t sure, but it
seemed to me he froze in that moment, immobile except for his
widening eyes. Then, I couldn’t see him.

It wasn’t that I’d blown
some brains out the back of his head, which had been my intention.
No, it was just that I couldn’t see the bastard behind the damned
glass, which was still there even if he didn’t appear to be. Still
there, but looking frosted, filled with silvery lines and crinkles
and whiteness radiating from the white-as-snow pitted indentation
exactly in line with his forehead.

But, if nothing else,
Grinner would probably have to change his shorts, assuming he wore
any, and I was pretty sure he wouldn’t forget this moment, a moment
when death slivered tempered glass inches from his eyes.

By then, I’d pulled up my
left foot, freeing the brakes, and jammed my right foot down harder
on the gas pedal. I let the Cad speed backwards for twenty or
thirty yards before spinning the steering wheel, skidding,
straightening out and slapping the shift into drive, going away
from there, away from Omega.

When I’d skidded and
turned, the heavy gate back there was still closed. No way anybody
would catch up with me now. Maybe nobody would even try,
considering how far I was from them and how fast I was going. And
maybe—it was just a fond hope, perhaps not likely but certainly
worth hoping—Grinner was still just standing there, still staring
aghast, peeing on himself, and wishing, just as sincerely as I
wished I’d never heard of Grinner, that he’d never heard of Shell
Scott.

But the big thing in my
mind as I rolled along, nearing the freeway, was: me and my big
mouth. Me, saying to lovely, more than a little frightened, Dane
Smith:

“
Of course I’ll
wait....”

CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR

The problem was: How could
I return to Omega—and get inside—without simultaneously getting
killed?

No question, I was
determined to go back there, one way or another and as soon as
possible. And for a lot of reasons—but the main reason was my
increasing worry about Dane. I kept telling myself that, even after
what had just happened to me, there was no logical reason to
believe she was in any real danger. But I couldn’t quite make
myself believe it. Maybe because there was still too much I didn’t
know—including why those two apes had just tried to waste
me.

It seemed clear that
returning to Omega alone was equivalent to committing suicide, so
the best way for me to go back would be in the company of a whole
lot of heavily armed lawmen. Unfortunately, I know that wasn’t
going to happen—because I was standing alongside my Cad, at the
curb near a gas station just off the freeway, finishing a
five-minute conversation with a desk sergeant in the Los Angeles
County Sheriff’s Department, to which has jurisdiction over
criminous events out there in the toolies, within the county but
beyond L.A.’s city limits. And the Sergeant, Wally Lerner was
dubious. Dubious not only about the criminous events I had been
reporting to him, but about me personally.

It wasn’t that he’d never
heard of me; he had. Or that he disliked me intensely; he only
disliked me a little. But, mainly, he did not consider my
suggestion that a dozen deputies instantly invade Omega as
authoritative as a similar suggestion from, say, the Sheriff of Los
Angeles County, or even the girl who served him hamburgers at
McDonald’s.

It also became
evident—which shouldn’t have surprised me—that, since the Omega
Medical Research Center paid a very large yearly sum to the county
in taxes, it wouldn’t be considered neighborly to “harass”
employees of Omega, and particularly not the world-famous and
certifiably wonderful Wintersong, M.D., who, according to no less
an authority than the morning papers, was going to save the
world.